Early+Car

by Sairwaah Grade 6

In 1910 Henry Ford invented the first Model Truster car. He soon began his own Ford assembly line. He had about four hundred workers on the line. Two hundred and fifty of the workers were women and the rest were men. The Model Truster was shipped out every forty five seconds of the year. Each man had only one job. Some would make pieces and others would attach pieces to the car. All the women would work downstairs but they were only allowed to work on the small pieces of the car, such as sewing the fabric for the seats and making the bolts and screws for the tires. Everyone had one very important job, but Henry Ford never taught them how to build a whole car by themselves because if he did they could steal his business. A lot of the workers on the line were from different ethnic groups like Russians, Germans, Greeks, Romanians and Italians. It took twelve hours and twenty eight minutes to assemble a car. Michigan became the center of the nation's carriage and wagon industry. Henry Ford was extremely serious about his business, and he believed in the saying “Time is money” so the workers were strictly forbidden to talk to each other. The faster the workers worked, the more cars were produced.

Before they could sell the cars, they had to test them. Along with the car came safety issues. For instance, the traffic light was invented. It was not just a regular light bulb like today. It was an oil lantern that revolved around with a red and green light. There was also a “signal hand” on the car. That was a plastic hand that attached to the side of your car door. You would press a button and it would mimic all the turn signals.

Although the cars were not all that bad, they were still not as good as today because before there were motors good enough to withstand going up hill, they would have to light a match to give the motor an extra boost. Imagine that! Cars have really changed since the early 1900s!

Image source: http://www.rrec.org.uk/Cars/The_Early_Cars_1904-1906/