INDIANA NEWSWATCH
Indiana Prairie Farmer
www.FarmProgress.com – February 2014
7
How mass production
came to agriculture
Key Points
■ The world was ready for mass-produced
tractors of consistent quality in 1913.
■ Ford’s N Series tractors became classics
that helped tractors replace horses.
■ Assembly lines today use more
automation and less labor.
By EVAN RICH
B
RIAN Miller’s parents were raised on
farms in Ripley County that, literally,
were separated by only a fencerow.
Looking back, Miller got not only a parent
from each side of the fence, but also a Ford
tractor — from each of his grandfathers.
Miller’s dad received a 1947 8N Ford
from his paternal grandfather, and Miller
had a 1953 Golden Jubilee passed down to
him from his maternal grandfather.
Miller often recalls riding with his
grandpa on the 1953 Golden Jubilee.
“Grandpa would always show me the
emblem on the front because he was proud
to have a tractor that was made for only
one year,” he says.
Now the director of the Illinois-Indiana
Sea Grant College Program, Miller continues to use his Ford tractors to maintain the farmstead and crop acres he has
retained and converted to wooded areas.
Put pieces together
Last fall marked the 100th anniversary
of Henry Ford’s introduction of the assembly line at his Highland Park facility
near Detroit, which sparked both the Ford
tractor and the automotive industry as a
whole. The innovation shrank the time required to assemble an automobile from 12
hours to a mere 93 minutes, resulting in a
wage hike and reduced reliance on skilled
labor.
The Highland Park facility made production of Ford’s experimental “automobile plow” a reality. The first Ford tractors,
originally known as Fordsons, rolled off
the newly introduced assembly line in late
PRIDE AND JOY: This Golden
Jubilee is one of two Ford
tractors Brian Miller still uses
on his farm in Ripley County.
World was ready
for Henry Ford
B
EFORE the advent of the assembly line, the flaws of traveling by
car were much more apparent and
plentiful. In May 1904, a Chinese
prince visited Indiana and had the opportunity to travel from Indianapolis to
Lafayette in a parade of automobiles.
Although the trip was deemed a
success, the preassembly line vehicles made for a sluggish and treacherous journey. Even before leaving
Indianapolis, one vehicle started on
fire, and another crashed into a home
along the roadway.
Delayed by flat tires, muddy
roads, overheating engines and other
challenges, the procession eventually stretched out over eight miles.
Covered with dust, the passengers
arrived in Lafayette nearly five hours
later — a trip that takes just over an
hour to complete today.
— story courtesy of Indiana Public
Media
1913. Gary Krutz, a professor of ag and biological engineering at Purdue University,
put in long, hard hours working at Highland
Park in the ’70s. He sees the 100-year anniversary as a milestone.
“I know how hard it is to work on an
assembly line,” says Krutz. He says the
work was monotonous and physically demanding, but high wages — $5 per day in
1914 during early production — attracted
more than enough workers.
Ford’s assembly line brought quick success for the Fordson, but in the late 1920s,
Ford chose to focus on automobiles rather
than agriculture. Although it eventually fell
apart over a patent dispute, Ford entered
a verbal agreement with Harry Ferguson
in 1939 supplementing his machines
with, among other features, a three-point
hitch, which helped Ford regain 20% of the
tractor market in just three years.
EARLY MARVEL: Scenes like this at the Ford assembly plant in Dearborn, Mich.,
were novel to people in 1923, when this photo was taken.
PHOTO COURTESY AT.FORD.COM AND THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY ARCHIVES
Much of the success in the next decade
was due to the popularity of the N Series
from Ford, beginning with the introduction
of the 9N in 1939.
“It’s a pretty simple machine — there’s
not a lot of technology,” says Miller, referring to the simplicity and dependability of
his family’s N Series tractor. He says their
8N is stable on the southern Indiana hills.
Times change
By the mid-1900s, Ford’s tractor assembly
line could far exceed the nation’s demand,
but in the second half of the 20th century,
farm sizes expanded. The need for fewer
tractors for larger farms put Ford’s assembly line innovation at a disadvantage.
Even with the shift, the Highland Park
assembly line produced its 4 millionth
tractor in 1972. The Ford Tractor Division
acquired Sperry New Holland in 1985 to
become Ford New Holland Inc.
Following the addition of assembly line
automation around 1980, according to
Krutz, Ford merged with Fiat Geotech in
the early ’90s after acquiring a Canadian
equipment company. Krutz estimates
nearly 30 million jobs were lost around this
time as a result of automation in manufacturing and the shift from manual labor to
oversight.
Krutz also says following automation,
computerization and robotics introduced
a new level of customization and efficiency
while removing the longtime hazards of the
assembly line. He says the next generation
of the assembly line is underway with 3-D
printing assisting machines to produce
more detailed components.
Back on the family farm, Miller operates
machines built without the design work
of robotics or automation. Nevertheless,
his Ford 8N and Golden Jubilee show the
assembly line in motion 101 years after its
start, and the wheels of his family history
still turning, as well.
Rich is a senior in Purdue University ag
communications.
Volume 188 | Number 2
CONTENTS
Indiana NewsWatch ......................3
Opinion ................................... 13
Crops...................................... 16
Technology/Machinery ................. 46
Farm Management ..................... 54
Hoosier Sprouts ......................... 64
Conservation/Natural Resources ..... 67
Livestock ................................. 70
Marketplace/Classified................. 76
Hoosier Lifestyle ........................ 87
Marketing ................................ 88
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