Name ______
“USE THE SOURCE”: How did Henry Ford actually improve America when he improved his business?
Directions: For this activity, you will be using sources to discover something new.
-View each source. As you do so, keep track of your thoughts in the spaces on this page.
-When you have viewed all the sources and recorded your thoughts, discuss and write your conclusion about the question, “How did Henry Ford actually improve America when he improved his business?”
SOURCE #1: “The Story of Henry Ford’s $5-A-Day Wages: It’s Not What You Think.”
- “SOURCE IT”: Who produced this source? What clues can you find out about this person?
- Identify the main ideas or subjects in this source (list in bullets).
- How do these ideas relate to the question?
SOURCE #2: “Creating a System for Roadways” Graphic.
- “SOURCE IT”: Who produced this source? What clues can you find out about this person?
- Identify the main ideas or subjects in this source (list in bullets).
- How do these ideas relate to the question?
SOURCE #3: “Henry Ford Describes the First Assembly Line—Essay.”
- “SOURCE IT”: Who produced this source? What clues can you find out about this person?
- Identify the main ideas or subjects in this source (list in bullets).
- How do these ideas relate to the question?
CONCLUSION: “How did Henry Ford actually improve America when he improved his business?”
______
SOURCE #1: “The Story of Henry Ford's $5 a Day Wages: It's Not What YouThink,”
Tim Worstall, Forbes (a business magazine), March 4, 2012.
Background: In 1914, Henry Ford announced that he would more than double his workers’ wages, from $2.25 a day to $5 a day. This was unheard-of money at the time, but it allowed his workers to be able to afford to buy his cars.
“There’s an argument you see around sometimes about Henry Ford’s decision to pay his workers those famed $5 a day wages. It was that he realized that he should pay his workers sufficiently large sums to that they could afford the products they were making. In this manner he could expand the market for his products…
The reason why Ford offered this raise was not to sell more cars. Actually, it was the turnover of his staff.
At the time, workers could count on about $2.25 per day, for which they worked nine-hour shifts. It was pretty good money in those days, but the toll was too much for many to bear…Some men simply walked away from the line to quit and look for a job elsewhere. Then the line stopped and production of cars halted. The increased cost and delayed production kept Ford from selling his cars at the low price he wanted. Drastic measures were necessary if he was to keep up this production.
It’s also not true that the offer was of $5 a day in wages. It was all rather more complicated than that:
The $5-a-day rate was about half pay and half bonus. The bonus came with character requirements and was enforced by … a committee that would visit the employees’ homes to ensure that they were doing things the ‘American way.’ They were supposed to avoid social ills such as gambling and drinking. They were to learn English, and many [immigrants] had to attend classes to become ‘Americanized.’”
SOURCE #2: “Creating a System for Roadways” Graphic. American Odyssey Textbook, 2004.
Background: The Ford Model T was the first automobile that middle-class Americans could afford. It was affordable and also easy to fix by yourself. As a result, cars became more of a necessity for Americans of the 1920s.
SOURCE #3:
Henry Ford Describes the First Assembly Line—Essay
Excerpt from “The First Assembly Line,” an essay by Henry Ford, 1913. Colbert, David, ed. Eyewitness to America. New York: Pantheon Books, 1997, pp. 383-384.
In this April 1, 1913 article, Henry Ford describes how assembly lines were used to increase automobile production. Today, assembly lines are the standard way in which all automobile companies produce their cars.
Primary Source
A Ford car contains about five thousand parts—that is counting screws, nuts, and all. Some of the parts are fairly bulky and others are almost the size of watch parts. In our first assembling we simply started to put a car together at a spot on the floor and workmen brought to it the parts as they were needed in exactly the same way that one builds a house. When we started to make parts it was natural to create a single department of the factory to make that part, but usually one workman performed all of the operations necessary on a small part. The rapid press of production made it necessary to devise plans of production that would avoid having the workers falling over one another….
The first step forward in [making an assembly line] came when we began taking the work to the men instead of the men to the work. We now have two general principles in all operations—that a man shall never have to take more than one step, if possibly it can be avoided, and that no man need ever stoop over.
…In short, the result is this: by the aid of scientific study one man is now able to do somewhat more than four did only a comparatively few years ago. That line established the efficiency of the method and we now use it everywhere. The assembling of the motor, formerly done by one man, is now divided into eighty-four operations—those men do the work that three times their number formerly did.