Henry Ford introduced the Model T, a simple, durable automobile designed for ordinary farmers and workers rather than the wealthy. Within five years, moving assembly lines would slash production time and price, making car ownership possible for millions and transforming American landscapes, labor, and daily life.
Ford's genius wasn't the automobile itself—hundreds of manufacturers already built cars—but the idea that a machine so complex could be made cheap enough for a factory worker to buy with a few months' wages. The first Model Ts rolled out of the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit priced at $850, roughly $27,000 in today's money, itself far cheaper than rival vehicles.
Ford obsessed over simplicity: one body style, one engine, eventually one color (black, because the paint dried fastest). By 1913 the moving assembly line would cut chassis assembly time from over 12 hours to about 93 minutes.
Over nearly 19 years of production, more than 15 million Model Ts left factories, reshaping American cities around roads instead of rail, spawning suburbs, gas stations, and drive-in culture, and making Ford's $5-a-day wage (introduced in 1914) a landmark in industrial labor history.
Key people: Henry Ford