The car economy

• Domestic appliances


  Like fridges, radios, and vacuum cleaners began to be made using the conveyor belt system
• Ford did not invent the conveyor belt system himself, he adopted it from earlier methods in industries such as meat-packing and mail-sorting
• The car industry popularised, rather than invented, a new method of manufacture
• Effect 1 of the car industry

  • It pioneered mass production
• Industrialists in other sectors

  Saw the benefits of mass production in the car industry and adopted the conveyor belt system in their own factories
• Effect 2 of the car industry

  • It benefitted other industries
• Services required by car drivers

  • New petrol stations, motels, diners etc employed thousands
• 2315
• Production levels due to assembly line approach

  • 1900: 4,000 cars made
  • 1929: 5,000,000 cars made
  • Cars were rolling off the production line every ten seconds
• Materials required for car manufacture

  • Steel, leather, glass, timber, rubber
• Innovation

  1. Henry Ford set up his first conveyor-belt system in his factory in Detroit in 1913

  2. A skeleton frame was constructed and each worker added their particular part as the frame moved along

  3. This approach made workers highly skilled and quick at their job

  4. A complete Model T rolled off the production line
• Effect of the car industry on industries

  Had a positive effect on many, but not all, industries
• The jobs created by the car industry were not enough to counter the decline in employment in other traditional industries, leading to relatively static unemployment rates at 5% across the entire 1920s