How Ford Built a Factory That Changed America

In the summer of 1903, Ford Motor Company was down to two hundred twenty-three dollars in the bank. Twenty-five years later it ran a complex a mile and a half wide that turned iron ore into finished cars. This is the true story of Piquette Avenue, the Crystal Palace at Highland Park, the moving line and the five-dollar day that came with inspectors at the door, and the River Rouge plant where it all led. Subscribe to US Industries and Fortunes: https://www.youtube.com/@usindustries... More from US Industries and Fortunes: Pullman: The Palace Cars and the Town He Owned —    • Pullman: The Palace Cars and the Town He O...   The Vanderbilts: How America's Richest Family Lost It All —    • The Vanderbilts: How America's Richest Fam...   Hoover Dam: The Machines That Moved a River —    • Hoover Dam: The Machines That Moved a River   Chapters 0:00 The Gate and the Bank Balance 3:03 The Secret Room 5:25 The Crystal Palace 7:58 Borrowed From the Packinghouse 10:14 Rope and Windlass 14:11 A Bonus With Strings 16:43 Inspectors at the Door 19:28 A Car for Four Months' Pay 21:40 From Bird Sanctuary to Blast Furnace 24:55 The End of the Model T 26:33 Hoses at the Rouge Gate Did a relative work on this, or live through it? Tell us in the comments — and tell us what we should cover next. The narration is an AI voice. The photographs are archival; the painted scenes are illustrations, not photographs. Sources Ford Implements the Moving Assembly Line - Library of Congress Business Reference Model T - Detroit Historical Society Ford Highland Park Plant - Detroit Historical Society Our History - Ford Piquette Avenue Plant Henry Ford: Assembly Line - The Henry Ford Henry Ford: $5 Day - The Henry Ford Ford Sociological Department & English School - The Henry Ford K-12 Research Guide: Ford Rouge Factory - The Henry Ford AskUs Image credits Public domain, via: Internet Archive; Library of Congress; Detroit Publishing; Bain News Service; National Archives and Records Administration; Harris & Ewing; Nationaal Archief; Deutsche Fotothek; Wikimedia Commons William Creswell from Seattle, Washington, USA (CC BY 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons Gertrude Kirk Cornelison (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons William Creswell from Bremerton, Washington, USA (CC BY 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons Subscribe for a new episode of American industrial history every week. #HenryFord #ModelT #AssemblyLine #DetroitHistory #RiverRouge #AmericanHistory #IndustrialHistory #HistoryDocumentary