Mass production and its impact
The car industry is the best example of mass production during the 1920s.
The three big car manufacturers were Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. They were major employers (7.1 per cent of all factory workers) and accounted for 12.7 per cent of .
They depended on the USA’s abundance of resources (oil, leather, rubber, steel), but it was technological advances, such as and conveyer belts, and the spread of electricity which revolutionised the industry.
The advances meant goods were produced in huge numbers and therefore more cheaply. For example, the price of cars dropped from $940 in 1920 to $290 in 1929.
Henry Ford pioneered mass production techniques in the car industry. His aim was to produce affordable cars for the public by using new technology.
He was highly successful and created thousands of jobs. Ford's River Rouge plant in Detroit, Michigan was the largest factory in the world. The workers earned $5 per day, which was double the normal rate.
By 1929, Americans owned 23 million cars. The best known was the Ford Model T car.
Henry Ford and his son posing in the model T Ford car in 1905
Ford became a symbol of America’s entrepreneurial spirit.
It was Ford's idea to build a car on an electric .
This method had two main advantages: it was quick and did not require large numbers of highly-skilled workers.
The car moved slowly along the assembly line with each worker doing only one small specific task, instead of many complicated, specialised tasks.
In this way, it was possible to build a Ford Model T car in an hour and a half, instead of the 13.5 hours needed under the old system, with unskilled labour.
By the mid-1920s, 7,500 cars were being produced daily, i.e. one car every 10 seconds.
Likewise, it was Ford’s idea to standardise the components in machines, so they were interchangable on different devices.
He also implemented the theories of the late F W Taylor, which made the management of workers more efficient.
He pioneered the idea of producing large numbers of cheap cars, rather than manufacturing a few expensive cars. The sale of large volumes of low-priced cars was more profitable than selling a few high-priced cars.
The car industry was important because:
- it pioneered new techniques of production which other industries copied;
- Henry Ford’s standardisation of machine parts was also imitated;
- it led to the expansion of cities and the development of suburbs;
- it enabled people to travel to cinemas, which in turn stimulated the movie industry;
- it resulted in a vast national network of roads. (During the 1920s, about $1 billion a year was spent on highways);
- it encouraged the construction industry - petrol stations were built, as were hotels and restaurants;
- it helped other industries to grow rapidly. For example, cars used 90 per cent of America's petrol, 80 per cent of the country's rubber and 75 per cent of its glass;
- the car changed people’s lives. It gave them more freedom and it made them feel confident in and proud of America;
- big manufacturers, such as Henry Ford, were so rich and famous they were able to influence government policy;
- many of the rich businessmen became Henry Ford built a hospital and a museum and gave millions to schools, colleges and orphanages.
Therefore, both the economy and society were given a substantial boost by mass production and the car industry.
However, there were a number of problems with mass production:
- workers became bored with the monotonous work;
- factory owners were often anti-union and encourged strong-armed tactics against their members;
- the factories bred racism. Some owners had a whites-only policy. For most of the 1920s Henry Ford’s newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, spread anti-Semitism;
- mechanisation led to unemployment as well as to employment;
- some people blamed the car for increased crime and a moral decline in the young.
The characteristics of the economic boom
The boom led to:
- the electrification of America;
- the building of a massive road network;
- the expansion of towns and the extension of suburbs;
- the growth of the construction and chemical industries;
- new mass production techniques;
- increases in the number of chain stores and mail order businesses;
- the development of hire purchase schemes and expansion of the ;
- the spread of popular entertainment;
- new consumer goods, often made out of new materials;
- sophisticated advertising.
