October 7, 1913, Highland Park Plant in Detroit. In a few minutes, Henry Ford will revolutionize not only the automobile industry, but the way the entire world works. I'm not kidding you here—on this day, a self-taught mechanic from Michigan will literally invent the modern world as we know it. And when I say revolutionize, I mean that morning, it took 12 and a half hours to assemble a Model T Ford. That evening? 93 minutes. Not bad for a day's work, right?
Today, I'm telling you how a farm boy who took apart his neighbors' watches created a system so powerful that it inspired Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times," influenced Stalin himself, and forever changed the relationship between bosses and workers.
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To understand the magnitude of what happened that day, I must first tell you about Henry Ford himself. Born in 1863 on a Michigan farm, little Henry was already quite a character. Imagine a 12-year-old kid with pockets constantly filled with scrap metal and watches in need of repair. His neighbors would bring him their broken pocket watches, and the kid would take them apart, put them back together, and make them good as new.
His mother even nicknamed him "the born mechanic" and would tinker with tools for him using darning needles and corset stands. At 15, when most teenagers at the time were still learning their multiplication tables, Henry was already building his first steam engine. And get this: he left school without even knowing how to read or write to become an apprentice mechanic in Detroit.
A Visionary's Obsession
But what makes Henry Ford fascinating is not just his mechanical genius. It's his ability to see beyond the end of his nose. In the 1890s, when cars were still toys for the rich, Ford had already understood that the future belonged to the mass automobile.
The problem was that at the time, building a car was pure craftsmanship. Each worker took care of several stages, fetched their parts, assembled at their own pace... As a result, it took forever and cost an arm and a leg. A normal car sold for around $2,000 when a worker earned $500 a year. Suffice to say, it was reserved for the bourgeoisie.
Ford, on the other hand, had a fixed idea: to build a car so simple and so cheap that any worker could afford it. And to do that, he had to revolutionize the way production was done.
The macabre inspiration of slaughterhouses
And this is where it gets interesting. Do you know where Ford got the idea for the assembly line? Chicago slaughterhouses! I'm not kidding. In his own memoirs, he admits to being inspired by those meatpacking plants where "a pig would go into the slaughterhouse and come out a quarter of an hour later, transformed into ham, sausage, sausage, fat rub, and Bible binding."
These slaughterhouses had already invented assembly line work, with a division of labor taken to the extreme. Each worker performed only one task, always the same, at a frenetic pace. Ford thought, "If it works for cutting up pigs, why not for assembling cars?"
Okay, I admit the analogy is a bit creepy, but the idea was brilliant.
October 7, 1913: The Day That Changed Everything
Back to that famous October day in 1913. At the Highland Park plant, Ford and his team of engineers, including Frederick Taylor—the pope of scientific work organization—are about to test their new invention.
The principle is revolutionary in its simplicity: instead of the 140 workers going to the car, the car comes to them. Each worker stays at their station and performs only one task. The car moves along a conveyor belt, and at each step, a new element is added.
The first test took place on the flywheel assembly. Previously, it took a single worker 20 minutes to fully assemble it. With the assembly line, they divided the work into 29 different operations spread across 29 workers. The result: 13 minutes and 10 seconds. Not bad, but Ford wasn't satisfied.
They change the height of the treadmill, adjust the speed, optimize every movement... And then, a miracle: 5 minutes! They have just divided by four the assembly time of a simple component.
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Fueled by this success, Ford decided to apply the principle to the entire car. This is where the numbers get completely crazy. The assembly time for a Model T Ford dropped from 728 minutes—over 12 hours—to 93 minutes. Repeat: 93 minutes!
That means a finished car rolls off the assembly line every 10 seconds on weekdays. Can you imagine the spectacle? It's an industrial revolution in real time.
The Ford Model T: The People's Car
This incredible efficiency would allow Ford to keep his promise: to democratize the automobile. The Model T Ford, launched in 1908 at $825, would see its price fall thanks to economies of scale. By 1914, it cost only $490. By 1925: $290!
To give you an idea, it's as if today a car that cost 30,000 euros suddenly ended up costing 10,000 euros. The American middle class is finally discovering the joys of individual mobility.
And so, a little anecdote in passing: you know the famous Ford phrase "Customers can have any color as long as it's black"? In fact, the first Model T Fords were available in several colors, including red. But with the assembly line, Ford imposed only black for a very practical reason: it was the paint that dried the fastest! Yes, even the color was optimized for productivity.
The "5 dollars a day": social revolution
But Ford understood something that many bosses at the time didn't: What's the point of mass-producing cars if your own workers can't afford them?
So in January 1914, he dropped a bombshell: he doubled his workers' wages. Overnight, they went from $2.30 a day to $5. And what's more, he reduced the workday from 9 to 8 hours. Needless to say, in Detroit, there was a riot. Not of anger, but of joy!
Except, well, I have a little revelation to make about those famous $5. In reality, it wasn't that simple. Workers still received their base wage of $2.30, and Ford added a bonus of $2.70 only if the employee met all of the company's moral standards.
And when I say moral standards, I mean it. Ford had created a veritable sociology department that spied on the private lives of its employees. No alcohol, no domestic abuse, clean house, regular contributions to a savings account... Big Brother avant-le-cours, in other words.
But hey, even with these conditions, it was still revolutionary. For the first time in history, a boss voluntarily created a virtuous circle: his workers earned enough to buy the products they made.
The Hidden Side of the Ford System
Now, I'm going to be honest with you. This revolution also had its dark side. Assembly line work is efficient, but it's also deeply dehumanizing.
Imagine this: you arrive in the morning, you sit down at your desk, and for eight hours, you do exactly the same thing, at the same pace, dictated by the machine. You're not allowed to slow down, you're not allowed to innovate, you're not allowed to think. You become a cog in a gigantic machine.
The psychological impact was such that Charlie Chaplin used it as inspiration for "Modern Times" in 1936. You know that scene where Charlie goes mad and continues to tighten imaginary bolts even outside the factory? It's directly inspired by Fordism.
Turnover in Ford factories is becoming enormous. Workers are fed up with this infernal pace. Hence, in part, the wage increase: they had to motivate people to stay!
Fordism conquers the world
But despite its flaws, the Ford system would conquer the planet. A word was even invented for it: "Fordism." This model of standardized mass production influenced the global economy and even inspired... the Soviet Union!
Stalin himself was fascinated by Ford's methods. In the 1920s and 1930s, the USSR invited American engineers to modernize its factories according to Fordist principles. Ironic, isn't it? American capitalism inspiring Soviet communism!
In France, Louis Renault visited the Ford factories in 1911 and returned transformed. He applied the methods on Seguin Island, creating the famous Renault assembly lines. The same thing happened throughout Europe.
I remember a quote from Ford at that time: "History is drivel." He wasn't wrong about that - he was writing history!
The Ford Legacy: Between Greatness and Controversy
Ford would run his empire until 1945, when his grandson Henry Ford II took the reins. Meanwhile, his son Edsel had modernized the designs in the 1920s and 1930s, but the patriarch remained in charge.
And what remains of it today? Well, virtually our entire modern world is still based on Fordist principles, adapted to new technologies. Automation, robotics, computerized production lines... all of this is Ford 2.0.
Even Amazon, with its automated warehouses, is high-tech Fordism! Jeff Bezos has simply applied Henry Ford's principles to e-commerce logistics.
So yes, Henry Ford was far from a saint. A notorious anti-Semite, obsessed with control, sometimes tyrannical with his workers... But we must recognize that this little self-taught mechanic literally invented our modernity.
The impact on the automobile: a permanent revolution
You know what fascinates me most about this story? It's that Ford not only revolutionized automobile production, he created a new relationship with the car as an object.
Before Ford, a car was a handcrafted, almost unique object that lasted for decades. After Ford, the car became a consumer product that could be replaced regularly. He invented planned obsolescence without knowing it!
And this logic of constant renewal is found everywhere today. Your smartphones, your computers, your household appliances... All of this stems directly from the Fordist revolution.
The standardization of parts is also pure Ford. Before him, each manufacturer had its own standards. Ford imposed a logic of interchangeability that would become the global standard.
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Lessons for today
So what can we take away from this story for today? Lots of things, actually.
First, innovation often comes from where you least expect it. Who would have thought that a self-taught mechanic from Michigan would revolutionize global industry? Ford hadn't gone to Polytechnique, he couldn't even read at 15!
Second, that real industrial revolutions come from process optimization, not necessarily pure technology. The assembly line isn't high technology. It's just a different way of organizing work. But the impact is phenomenal.
And then there's the lesson about virtuous economic circles. Ford understood that to sell in mass, you had to create your own customer base by paying your workers properly. A lesson many companies today would do well to heed...
Finally, it reminds us that every revolution has its dark spots. Technical progress doesn't necessarily go hand in hand with human progress. The dehumanization of work is the price we pay for Fordist efficiency.
Epilogue: When watches become cars
Finally, I'd like to return to this image of little Henry with his pockets full of broken watches. Basically, what did he do other than apply on a large scale what he was already doing as a child? Disassemble, understand, optimize, reassemble.
Except instead of pocket watches, he took on the entire global industry. And like the watches he repaired for his neighbors, he restarted an entire economy.
Today, when you get into your car, when you buy any manufactured product, when you work in an organized business... you are in the direct legacy of that Michigan farm boy who dreamed of being a mechanic.
Henry Ford said, "Whether you think you can or you don't think you can, you're right." He thought he was capable of changing the world. And frankly, he was right.
From 12 and a half hours to 93 minutes, from a childhood dream to a global revolution: this is how a small, self-taught mechanic literally invented the 20th century.
