Congrats, you're now a Ford Employee in 1913! (Random history musings)
kiyote
Posts: 5,588 ✭✭✭✭✭
You've just gotten a job earning one of these every day!
That's over twice the industry average! Likely, you stood in line for months for chance at the job, and once you got it, you were happy as could be. However...
1. The job was absolutely dehumanizing. Labor was reduced to it's smallest, most minute part. Maybe you screwed bumpers onto a Model T Ford four times a minute for the entire day, no restroom breaks allowed without the boss's permission.
2. Any talk of unions at all got you fired, immediately. Ford employed spies and plants to report on workers' efforts to unionize.
3. I imagine it paid SO much money that any thoughts of quitting were useless. Leave, and you would only make half that money, if that. Most workers were unskilled, they were just trained to do the one small task they were assigned to.
From the Ford's website:
1920: Ford Motor Company employs more African-Americans than any other automotive company. In addition, the company also hires its first Asian Indian employee, who went on to establish Ford of India, opening the door for many Asian Indians in the Ford workplace
That sure sounds warm and fuzzy, but in the first few years after WW1, the amount of European immigrants coming to the US plummeted. It was a matter of necessity. Still, it beats the ten cents an hour (usually paid in local script) the 14 year old boys in West Virginia coal mines were making at the same time.
That's over twice the industry average! Likely, you stood in line for months for chance at the job, and once you got it, you were happy as could be. However...
1. The job was absolutely dehumanizing. Labor was reduced to it's smallest, most minute part. Maybe you screwed bumpers onto a Model T Ford four times a minute for the entire day, no restroom breaks allowed without the boss's permission.
2. Any talk of unions at all got you fired, immediately. Ford employed spies and plants to report on workers' efforts to unionize.
3. I imagine it paid SO much money that any thoughts of quitting were useless. Leave, and you would only make half that money, if that. Most workers were unskilled, they were just trained to do the one small task they were assigned to.
From the Ford's website:
1920: Ford Motor Company employs more African-Americans than any other automotive company. In addition, the company also hires its first Asian Indian employee, who went on to establish Ford of India, opening the door for many Asian Indians in the Ford workplace
That sure sounds warm and fuzzy, but in the first few years after WW1, the amount of European immigrants coming to the US plummeted. It was a matter of necessity. Still, it beats the ten cents an hour (usually paid in local script) the 14 year old boys in West Virginia coal mines were making at the same time.
"I'll split the atom! I am the fifth dimension! I am the eighth wonder of the world!" -Gef the talking mongoose.
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Comments
<< <i>car break down today? >>
Naw, I just watched a show about this in history.
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
Or
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60 years into this hobby and I'm still working on my Lincoln set!
<< <i>Fuel
Or
Repair
Daily >>
My family used to own a Ford and the last two were definitely true. (Sorry all you loyal Ford customers...)
On
Race
Day
I've always had good luck with Ford, always. Even though my cars are now imports, I do have a big Ford truck that has served me well. 118K on the clock and it runs like it did when it was new.
Sorry for your troubles, hopefully it will be minor.
John Marnard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920, page 235ff
Worked for FORDs for 35 years and,understand what your saying,but,man it's been a nice ride.Thanks FORD.
Brian
<< <i>Even though my cars are now imports, I do have a big Ford truck that has served me well. >>
A friend of mine who is in a position to know sez that the only Fords worth anything these days are the heavy-duty trucks.
60 years into this hobby and I'm still working on my Lincoln set!
F
owner
real
dumb
I wont buy anything with the "F" word on it.
(Priest) BLASPHEMY he said it again, did you hear him?
<< <i>I thought it was:
F
owner
real
dumb
I wont buy anything with the "F" word on it. >>
I'm sure Ferrari is pulling their hair out now that you've said this.
You don't want a Fiat anyway.
John Marnard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920, page 235ff
<< <i>Fuel
Or
Repair
Daily >>
It's Fix Or Repair Daily
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
<< <i>I've always had good luck with Ford, always. Even though my cars are now imports, I do have a big Ford truck that has served me well. 118K on the clock and it runs like it did when it was new. >>
Ford trucks tend to be among the best of breed. Ford's passenger cars have been, for the most part, crap.
For the record, I own a Subaru, but my family has a 1930s Ford Tractor that still runs. It's a tank.
<< <i> From the Ford's website: 1920: Ford Motor Company employs more African-Americans than any other automotive company. >>
Cool, ford had a website in 1920!
<< <i>It was still no "dream" job compared with our working conditions today. I heard too many stories from my Grandfather about what he went through when GM was being unionized. History textbooks tend to leave out the more shameful events in our history. >>
My dad quit school in the early 40's to work in a laundry for 40c/hour and support his family (his parents' family). If he had worked instead for a large company like ford I can't help but believe things would have been better for him. As a young man he was talented and hardworking and proud to get more done in a day than anyone else. It is fashionable to bash the large companies who "got rich on the backs of the working man" but they did improve the standard of living for the working man and gave him a chance to realize the american dream of working his way up the ladder. My multibilliondollar company has had executives who started as blue collar labor.
--Jerry
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<< <i>
<< <i>Fuel
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It's Fix Or Repair Daily >>
<< <i>My GMC 2500 HD....4x4....
Better you than me at the pump!
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>Fuel
Or
Repair
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It's Fix Or Repair Daily >>
Found
On
Road
Dead
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Better you than me at the pump! >>
...This truck has a smaller tank of ..only 26 gal..my other GMC has a larger tank of 34 gal...!!!...talk about fillin' up...$$$$$$....
K
<< <i>For the record, I own a Subaru... >>
"Hi, My name is Eric. I collect platinum proof coins and drive a Subaru, too."
<< <i>
<< <i>Fuel
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Repair
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It's Fix Or Repair Daily >>
But "fix" and "repair" are just synonyms, right? I figured I'd try to get a bit creative
Actually, after all of this, I just bought a 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid. I drove a few other Japanese competitors' models (non-hybrids) but liked how the Ford handled better! Whodathunkit?
Actually, these Escape Hybrids have been used as cabs in NYC and elsewhere, some have gone 175K miles without any downtime.
Plus, with the price of a gallon of gas now almost as high as the price of a gallon of milk, I'm loving the 30mpg!
60 years into this hobby and I'm still working on my Lincoln set!
Hell, I don't need to exercise.....I get enough just pushing my luck.
In the early-mid 90s I worked at the Ford engine design group in the EEE building in Dearborn. It was one of the original buildings of the Ford empire and very historic. It was where Henry Ford kept his office and I was informed that his vault is still in the building. This is where he kept his fortune in the form of hard money and assets. In the front part of the building there were large wooden columns that were heavily engraved by the workers over the years, including some famous people. I was also told by a veteran engineer there that the term "get the axe" came from this same building. Supposedly a manager would lodge a hatchet in the desk of someone who was fired. Not sure if that is true though.
Their slogan during that era was :
Ford has a better idea !
I would always get a double take when I filled the gas tank at self-serve stations by rolling down the electric back window (it still worked) and putting the nozzle deep into the innards of the back.
<< <i>I had never bought a Ford until a friend sold me his 1970 Country Squire station wagon for $50 in 1980. The fuel tank had rusted out and I couldn't find a match in the junkyard. After searching fruitlessly for a week, I measured a Maverick gas tank I scavenged and found that the 3rd (fold down) seat in the back of the Country Squire would fit the Maverick gas tank if I took the seat out. I wanted to use only Ford parts to keep its integrity
I would always get a double take when I filled the gas tank at self-serve stations by rolling down the electric back window (it still worked) and putting the nozzle deep into the innards of the back. >>
And the Pinto fuel system was born!
The whole "exploding rear end" characteristic is another thing I wanted to keep all Ford!
Go Ford!
over
rebuilt
dodge
Found
On
Road
Dead
Edited to include a pic of the latest engine we helped build.
Oh yeah forgot this was about the coins: