Putting America on Rubber Tires

(Note to Mrs. Lawson: I would like a title for the purpose of identifying my blog on the list of APUSH blogs with more than simply "Matthew". I don't have a title in mind, perhaps you could come up with something. It's just that "Matthew" pales in comparison to "Enlightened Despot"...)

(Question for all: Can you think of another type of tires? Just wondering...)

So there was this pretty cool thing that got invented in the late 19th century. You probably know it as the car, the automobile, the motorized transport. What could be more all-American than a Ford Mustang convertible? Maybe you're more of a Corvette person. All of these, of course, are symbols of American innovation, demonstrating to the world the power of the American dream of patriotism, liberty, and freedom!



So of course it stands to reason that America didn't actually invent the gasoline engine. As you might have guessed, we "borrowed" it from the Europeans. Some of their names are just as familiar: Gottlieb Daimler (as in Chrysler), Karl Benz (as in Mercedes), Nikolaus Otto (as in...uh...auto). However, many of these earlier German innovators were merely scientists, tinkering around with their machinery.

The American innovation to the car, as you might expect, came in the form of marketing. Yes! We Americans are the proud masters of anything and everything dealing with money, and American masterminds transformed the automobile from a plaything to a necessity. Who was behind all this? By the 1890s, men such as Ransom E. Olds (as in Oldsmobile...I would hate to have this guy's name...) and Henry Ford (you can figure this one out) created the auto industry in America, leading to a massive flourishing of car companies. By the year 1910 these companies were combining to produce about 181,000 cars per year. Unfortunately, there were issues...



The newfangled cars faced ridicule from many people, who shouted "Get a horse!" to the hapless motorists stuck in their malfunctioning automobile. Indeed, the early autos were both slow and unreliable. In fact, some states were so concerned with these new cars that they passed laws requiring flares to be shot up or a man carrying a red flag walking several yards ahead of the car in order to provide ample warning to pedestrians.

Still, under the direction of Ford and others, automobiles developed into an immense American industry. Frederick W. Taylor helped the efficiency of the industry along with his ideas of eliminating wasted motion. Taylor was known as the "Father of Scientific Management", and, with his help, Ford soon got the auto industry working like a charm.



Ford set up shop in Detroit, and this Michigan city became the center of worldwide automobile manufacture, which it would remain for a very long---well, at least until the federal bailouts. Anyway, Ford's legacy is quite impressive. His genius allowed him to oversee a wide-reaching industry that contrasted quite sharply with his narrow-minded thinking. He once claimed, "History is bunk," an example of his limited perspective. Yet perhaps this narrow minded genius was able to focus (a Ford car) his efforts, and his lasting innovations reflect this.

Ford pioneered what is known as the "assembly line", where each worker does the same task over and over, and the product moves down the line until it is finally finished. This took advantage of the fact that, if someone is doing the same task repetitively, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, muscle memory will kick in and each person will be able to work more quickly. Plus, this reduces the number of skills required per worker to just one (i.e., the person attaching the windshield wipers doesn't have to know how to screw on hubcaps). Due to Ford's quest for efficiency, combined with the prosperity that the 1920s brought to America, Americans were able to buy Ford's Model T for a mere $260.



Ford was even so generous that he let the consumer pick the color, so long as they chose black! Anyway, Ford had created a megamillion dollar industry for himself. In 1914, Ford had manufactured his 500,000th Model T, which sounds impressive until you learn that, in 1930, this total had exploded to 20 million! Needless to say, Ford's product was incredibly popular among the American public, with the ratio of cars to Americans around 1:5 in 1929. Not only was the car popular, but Ford enjoyed great prestige among America as well. In 1923, a magazine poll showed that Ford was a popular choice for the presidential nomination of 1924. (Okay, so maybe they were about half a century off, and maybe they had the wrong Ford in mind, but still, not too bad!)



At this point in its life, the car was a symbol of American prosperity and American ingenuity. Little did America realize that perhaps Ford had created a monster. Ford has been called before "The Father of the Traffic Jam", and I would like to think that America perhaps didn't know quite what they were getting in to: