The Assembly Line

1913 CE — North America, United States

Today: Detroit, Michigan, USA

Henry Ford's moving assembly line cut the time to build a car from twelve hours to ninety minutes by breaking the work into small repeated motions and moving the product past the worker. Cars became affordable to the people who built them; Ford doubled wages to five dollars a day, partly because the monotony was driving workers out the door. Mass production made abundance ordinary, and made work, for millions, a matter of repeating one motion.

Worth knowing: Ford's turnover was so severe he had to hire 963 men to keep 100 on the line — the $5 day was less generosity than arithmetic: it was cheaper to pay double than to keep replacing everyone.

Pattern: Labor displacement — A new technology destroys and creates work faster than institutions and people can adapt, producing dislocation and backlash.

Entry 205 of 240 in Precedent, a walk through the whole human story in order.