History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker’s dam is the history we make today.
The above perspective on history demonstrates that Henry Ford might not approve of a history paper devoted to himself. However, while he lived he did make history in the here-and-now and his influence has a lasting impact on society to this day. Contrary to popular opinion, Henry Ford did not invent the automobile nor was he responsible for developing interchangeable parts. However, his application and origination of the assembly line to the concept of interchangeable parts revolutionized the automobile industry and industry itself with a concept known as mass production. Because of this innovation and application “the car became the most influential consumer product of the century” (Isaacson 1). By creating a moving belt in his factory production line, Ford enabled employees to build cars one part at a time instead of one car at a time. This was responsible for many things now standard in industry, such as piecemeal work, division of labor, the assembly line, and cost efficiency. The original price of a Model T Ford built the traditional way, one car at a time, was $850 per vehicle, but the first year Ford installed his assembly line car production became so cost efficient that he lowered the price of the Model T to $290 and sold one million of them (Model T 3, 6).
Henry Ford might have been a farmer from his origins. Born in Dearborn, Michigan in 1863, he was the son of an Irish farmer father and a Dutch mother. His father wanted him to help operate the farm, but the young Ford was hooked on mechanics ever since he saw his first coal-fired steam engine moving along a rural landscape. In opposition to his father’s wishes, Ford left home for Detroit at the age of sixteen. Once there he took employment as a mechanic’s ap...