Lesson: Finding Jobs, Finding Problems

This document is from the publication "Educational Statistics Home Plant, as of January 12th, 1917." It classifies employees by nationality as English speakers and American citizens. The document was produced by the Ford Sociological (or Educational) Department, which ensured that employees were responsible with their pay. Ford required workers to learn English in order to earn the $5 per day wage.

Henry Ford sat for the official Ford Motor Company portrait in 1904. The company was his third. Ford had success in building cars, but his first company failed and he was forced out of the second. By the time this portrait was taken, Ford Motor Company had survived its first year and was selling its first cars, the Model A.

Ford workers disliked the new assembly line methods so much that by late 1913, labor turnover was 380 percent. The company's announcement to pay five dollars for an eight-hour day compared to the previous rate of $2.34 for a nine-hour day made many workers willing to submit to the relentless discipline of the line in return for such high wages.

Mr. Byron (Ben) Moore is pictured at work in the Aircraft Building at the Ford Rouge Plant during World War II. Before war production started, Moore oversaw motor assembly repairs at the Highland Park Plant and the Rouge. Like many during the early 20th-century's urbanization, Moore grew up on a rural farm but moved to work in Detroit's industries.

This photographic negative gives a glimpse of farm life circa 1900. Most farms were family operations and everyone, including children, had a job to do. People and horses were the primary power sources for most farm work. But technology, like electricity, was becoming more widely available, even in rural in farmhouses.

The Fordson tractor, manufactured by Henry Ford and Son, Inc., was the first lightweight, mass-produced tractor that was affordable to the average farmer. Through this and other efforts, Henry Ford sought to relieve farmers of the burden of heavy labor. Ford gave this Fordson, the first production model, to fellow innovator Luther Burbank, creator of hundreds of new plant varieties.

The Shelby Division of Copperweld, in Shelby, Ohio, used this time recording punch clock. The numbered wheel can be rotated, which activates the time recording mechanism, causing the employee number and time to be printed on paper tape fixed to the drum at the rear of the mechanism. The clock is an electrically activated slave unit connected to a master clock. Such time clocks both regulated employees' workdays and helped insure accurate calculation of their pay.

Letter written to Henry Ford from the wife of an assembly line worker, January 23, 1914. The woman writes asking Henry Ford to investigate the situation on the assembly lines in the factories with regard to working conditions. She is angry about the treatment her husband receives on the job.

This image was taken in 1935 for N.W. Ayer, an advertising agency employed by Ford Motor Company. Workers at the Ford Motor Company Rouge Plant Foundry cast engine blocks for the Ford V-8. While this foundry job was appropriate for feature in an advertisement, in general the foundry was the dirtiest and most dangerous job in an automobile factory.

Amos and Grace Mattox -- descended from enslaved African Americans -- raised their two children in this rural Georgia farmhouse during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Amos farmed, cut hair, made shoes, and preached at the local church, while Grace sewed, canned, cooked, and helped needy neighbors. Although life was hard, the family proudly affirmed that there was "always enough."

By 1931, Ford Motor Company was the largest employer of African-American workers in the country. Henry Ford was closely tied to leaders in Detroit's African-American community, especially with the pastors of two of the city's largest churches, Rev. Robert Bradby of 2nd Baptist and Rev. Everard Daniel of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church. Through these men, many recent arrivals were directed to the Ford Employment Office. Although Ford employed large numbers of African Americans, there were limits to how far most could advance. Many African-American workers spent their time in lower paying, dirty, dangerous, and unhealthy jobs in places like this Cyanide Foundry that used potassium cyanide, a key material in hardening steel.

Byron Moore grew up on a farm in rural Utica, Michigan, and came to work for Ford Motor Company. This biography describes his positions at the Piquette Plant, the Grand Boulevard and Woodward sales branch office, the Highland Park Plant, and the Rouge Plant. Moore also remarks on Henry Ford's theories about agriculture and advancements in safety on the farm.