TechnologyNorth America
The assembly line
The car goes from luxury to commonplace in ten years
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Ford doubled wages to five dollars a day, not from kindness but because the work was so monotonous that turnover was untenable. The method spread to everything from food production to housebuilding, and shaped twentieth-century working life. The car in turn reshaped cities, coastlines, the air and where people could live.
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Instead of workers walking to the car, Ford let the car move to the workers on a belt. Build time fell from twelve hours to ninety minutes, and the price fell so far that his own workers could buy one.
Connects to
Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org