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- Gas-powered automobiles were first invented in Europe in the late 1800s.
- Innovative manufacturing techniques allowed the US to dominate the car industry.
- Photos from 100 years ago show how it looked like to work in car factories.
Auto manufacturing didn’t always look like the automated process it is today.
Since the invention of the first gas-powered car with a combustion engine in 1885 by Germany’s Karl Benz, the car manufacturing industry has found ways to make production faster and cheaper.
In 1903, Henry Ford established the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan. High demand for his signature vehicle, the Model T, led the manufacturer to innovate techniques that improved production, like the use of moving assembly lines inspired by the agricultural industry.
Later in the century, there was a rise in overseas car manufacturing and by 2024, nearly half of the cars purchased in the US were produced abroad. As such, President Donald Trump’s newly proposed 25% tariffs on imported cars is shaking up the market, threatening higher costs for manufacturers and customers.
Take a look back at what American car production looked like a hundred years ago, when domestic manufacturers like Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler dominated the industry, and what it looked like to be on the assembly line for workers.
Early car manufacturing resembled the making of bicycles and carriages.
In the US, the earliest car manufacturers were metalworkers, blacksmiths, and the makers of bicycles and carriages, according to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
In the early 20th century, over 100 companies throughout the country were building small numbers of cars.
The cars were powered by electric, steam, and gas.
The Ford Model T was introduced in 1910.
By 1910, Henry Ford had introduced the next model of his in-demand automobile, the Model T, and William Durant had founded his company, General Motors, per History.com.
Henry Ford established manufacturing production in Michigan.
Henry Ford had big plans for improving how his cars were manufactured, so he constructed a new plant in Highland Park, Michigan, in 1910, helping to establish the state as the industry’s home, according to the company’s history.
Ford’s innovative assembly line technique sped up production times.
At his plant, Ford innovated mass-production techniques with his moving assembly line, which was first used in 1913.
The assembly lines were inspired by agricultural techniques.
His innovation was inspired by conveyor belts he’d seen in grain warehouses and assembly lines in slaughterhouses, according to Ford’s website.
The moving assembly line meant the car moved to the employee rather than the other way around.
The vehicle was initially pulled into place by a rope — later, a chain — so the car could be built step-by-step.
The assembly line dramatically reduced production times for the Model T.
With the moving assembly line, his Model T could be built in only 93 minutes, a dramatic decrease from the 12 hours it previously took, according to Ford.
The new assembly lines led to workers quitting en masse.
The innovation also made employees’ jobs more repetitive and tedious — like those pictured making flywheels — and they began quitting in droves.
In response, Ford raised wages.
In 1914, Ford doubled wages to $5 per eight-hour day, which is about $150 in today’s money, per The Bureau of Labor Statistics. This competitive wage and its impact on productivity helped the middle class thrive, NPR reported.
Changes in labor dynamics led to the creation of more jobs.
A shorter workday also allowed Ford to create a third shift, and the plant was able to hire more workers and essentially make the company a 24-hour operation, according to Ford.
Ford was one of the first companies to implement a 40-hour work week.
By 1926, the Ford Motor Company would become one of the first companies in the US to implement a five-day, 40-hour work week in its factories, History.com reported.
The popular Model T car was phased out by 1927.
Ford halted production of its Model T in 1927, by which time 15 million units had been sold.
The three biggest car manufacturers were founded in Michigan, which became an industry hub.
By the 1920s, Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors — all founded in Michigan — would be known as the Big Three automakers.
In 1929, three manufacturers produced 80% of the industry’s output.
By 1929, the Big Three were responsible for 80% of the industry’s output, History.com reported.
Big manufacturers dominated the industry by the 1930s, leaving smaller manufacturers behind.
By the 1930s, smaller manufacturers were going out of business, unable to keep up with the large-scale production of the Big Three.
Car manufacturing factory lines thrived during the 1930s.
Photos from the 1930s show how the production line continued to thrive in America’s car factories. That decade, European car makers adopted the same processes.
Women entered the car manufacturing industry en masse during World War II.
More than 6 million women stepped up in response to the shortage of male labor during World War II. In the car industry, the population of female employees increased from 28,300 in October 1941 to 203,300 by November 1943, according to The University of Michigan-Dearborn.
By 1947, Ford employed over 120,000 people in the US.
Here, workers are putting the finishing touches on the 1947 models of the Mercury, one of three cars made by Ford at the time, at the River Rouge Complex in Dearborn, Michigan.
That year, the company employed over 120,000 people in the US, according to the company’s annual reports.
Assembly line production maximized the output of car factories.
Ford workers in Dearborn, Michigan, are photographed finishing the Custom Deluxe at the end of the assembly line, which could produce 500 cars in a single, eight-hour shift.
By the 1950s, a few manufacturers made the vast majority of cars in the US.
In 1955, General Motors, Chrysler, American Motors (Nash-Hudson), Ford, and Studebaker-Packard were making 99.7% of all cars, The Saturday Evening Post reported.
Imported cars didn’t become common until decades later.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the practice of importing foreign-manufactured cars began to rise. The trend continued through the end of the century and until today, when nearly half of cars purchased in the US are imports from foreign countries, as reported by the BBC.
