HENRY FORD
Fact file
Henry Ford revolutionized assembly-line modes of
production for the automobile.
Birth-Death: 1865, USA – 1947, USA
Job: industrialist
While working as an engineer for
the Edison Illuminating Company in
FORD MODEL-T
Determined to improve upon his
Detroit, Henry Ford (1863-1947) built
prototype, Ford sold the Quadricycle in
his first gasoline-powered horseless
order to continue building other
carriage, the Quadricycle. In 1903, he
vehicles. A month after the Ford Motor
established the Ford Motor Company,
Company was established, the first
and five years later the company rolled
Ford car—the two-cylinder, eight-
out the first Model T. In order to meet
horsepower Model A—was assembled
overwhelming demand for the
at a plant on Mack Avenue in Detroit.
revolutionary vehicle, Ford introduced
At the time, only a few cars were
revolutionary new mass-production
assembled per day, and groups of two
methods, including large production
or three workers built them by hand
plants, the use of standardized,
from parts that were ordered from other
interchangeable parts and, in 1913, the
companies. Ford was dedicated to the
world’s first moving assembly line for
production of an efficient and reliable
cars.
automobile that would be affordable for
Enormously influential in the industrial
everyone; the result was the Model T,
world,
which made its debut in October 1908.
Ford was
also
outspoken
Ford Model-T has been
produced for 19 years
with 15 million of models.
It has been elected “Car
of the century” in 1999.
in the
political realm. Ford drew controversy
for his pacifist stance during the early
years of World War I and earned
widespread criticism for his antiSemitic views and writings.
HENRY FORD: PRODUCTION & LABOR
INNOVATIONS
The “Tin Lizzie”, as the Model T was
"Any customer can
have a car painted any
colour that he wants so
long as it is black"
on the time
Henry Ford
automobile
known, was an immediate success and
required to
produce an
(only 93
Ford soon had more orders than the
company could satisfy. As a result, he
minutes) which allowed costs to stay
put into practice techniques of mass
low. In 1914, Ford also increased the
production that would revolutionize
daily wage for an eight-hour day for his
American industry, including the use of
workers to $5 (up from $2.34 for nine
large production plants, standardized,
hours), setting a standard for the
interchangeable parts and the moving
industry.
assembly line (following Taylor’s ideas,
the American engineer who thought
about the organisation of the work).
Mass production significantly cut down
LINKS:
Video “Henry Ford's Motor Company” http://www.history.com/topics/henryford/videos/henry-fords-motorcompany?m=528e394da93ae&s=undefined&f=1&free=false
ANALYSIS
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Why is Henry Ford famous?
What did he invent in 1913?
How was the Model-A?
What did Ford want to produce?
What was the nickname of the Model-T?
What did the mass production consist in? Which were the benefits?
What did Ford do in 1914?
KEY WORDS:
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
Fact file
Charlie Chaplin was a comedic British actor who became one of
the biggest stars of the 20th century's silent-film era.
Birth –death: London, 1889 – Switzerland 1977
Job: comedian, film director
MODERN TIMES, 1936
Modern Times marked the last screen appearance of the Little Tramp - the character
which had brought Charles Chaplin world fame, and who still remains the most
universally recognised fictional image of a human being in the history of art.
The world from which the Tramp took his farewell was very different from that into
which he had been born, two decades earlier, before the First World War. Then he
had shared and symbolised the hardships of all the underprivileged of a world only
just emerging from the 19th century. Modern Times found him facing very different
predicaments in the aftermath of America’s Great Depression, when mass
unemployment coincided with the massive rise of industrial automation.
Chaplin was acutely preoccupied
with the social and economic
problems of this new age. In
1931 and 1932 he had left
Hollywood behind, to embark on
an 18-month world tour. In
Europe, he had been disturbed to
see the rise of nationalism and
the social effects of the
Depression, of unemployment
and of automation. He read
books on economic theory; and
devised his own Economic
Solution, an intelligent exercise in
utopian idealism, based on a more equitable distribution not just of wealth but of
work. In 1931 he told a newspaper interviewer :
“Unemployment is the vital question . . . Machinery should benefit mankind. It should
not spell tragedy and throw it out of work.”
In Modern Times he decided to transform his observations and anxieties into comedy.
The little Tramp - described in the film credits as “a Factory Worker”- is now one of
the millions coping with the problems of the 1930s, which are not so very different
from anxieties of the 21st century - poverty, unemployment, strikes and strike
breakers, political intolerance, economic inequalities, the tyranny of the machine,
narcotics. Chaplin’s character is first seen as a worker being driven crazy by his
monotonous, inhuman work on a conveyor belt.
THE GREAT DICTATOR, 1940
Chaplin presented The Great Dictator in New
York on October 15th 1940. His native
country, England, had declared war at the
beginning of September 1939, but the
United States, where he had been living as a
permanent resident – but British citizen –
since 1913, had resolved to keep out of the
conflict. Up to now the Little Tramp had conveyed an experience of the world through
the language of pantomime, and because he embodied no national identity and spoke
no mother tongue, he had touched the hearts of spectators everywhere.
Final speech:
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want
to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew,
Gentile - black man - white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are
like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery.
We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for
everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life
can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goosestepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have
shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our
knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too
much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than
cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be
violent and all will be lost. […]
To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us
is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human
progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took
from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never
perish.
Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who
drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give
yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and
machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have
the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the
unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!
In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the
power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the
people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a
wonderful adventure.
Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us
fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that
will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things,
brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never
will!
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that
promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do
away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a
world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the
name of democracy, let us all unite!
Links:
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Film “Modern times” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPSK4zZtzLI
Film “The great dictator” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU_rn1xzItk
Analysis:
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Who was “Little Tramp”?
What was Chaplin preoccupied with?
How did he transform his observations?
Which were the social problems in 1930s?
What did the dictator say about machinery?
In his opinion, what will never perish? Do you agree?
Which is people’s power? Why should they fight?
KEY WORDS: