The Brutal Truth About Working at Ford for $5 a Day in 1914

Ford's Highland Park plant, Highland Park, Michigan, January 1914: Henry Ford promised five dollars for an eight-hour day, and thousands of men crowded his gate in the icy cold until the company turned fire hoses on them. Inside, a moving line was cutting a Model T from 12½ hours to 93 minutes. Outside, company investigators were about to knock on workers' doors. 📌 What you’ll learn • How the moving line grew from one magneto bench in April 1913, 20 minutes a piece cut to 5, into a Model T every 93 minutes • Why Ford had to hire about 53,000 men a year to keep 14,000 on the payroll • Why the famous $5 was really $2.30 in pay plus a $2.70 bonus that an investigator could hold back • What a worker's wife wrote to Henry Ford on January 23, 1914, and what happened at the Ford English School on July 4, 1917 Educational and historical content. Some scenes are illustrative reconstructions based on the historical record. 📚 Key sources • Henry Ford with Samuel Crowther, My Life and Work, 1922 • Matt Anderson, Ford's Five-Dollar Day, The Henry Ford, 2014 • The Henry Ford, Expert Set: Henry Ford: Sociological Department, 2013 • Letter to Henry Ford from the Wife of an Assembly Line Worker, January 23, 1914, Fair Lane Papers, The Henry Ford • Mark W. Meier, Henry Ford "and a Car in Every Garage," Origins (Ohio State University), Winter 1994 — and other sources. Did someone in your family come to Detroit for Ford's five dollars a day? Tell us where they came from, what year they were hired, and whether the investigator ever came to their door. Subscribe to go inside the gates of the factories that built America, one plant at a time. Brand names and trademarks belong to their owners. This channel is independent and not affiliated with any company shown. #FiveDollarDay #HenryFord #HighlandPark #DetroitHistory #AmericaMadeHere Educational and historical content. Some scenes are illustrative reconstructions based on the historical record.