Lesson: Social Change - Mass Advertising -1920s

Ford's $5 Day was huge news across the country. Never before had any employer offered this much money for unskilled work. The plan came with numerous strings attached, including rather intrusive company investigations to insure that workers would not spend their money on riotous living (as defined by Ford Motor Company) but workers accepted the intrusion because the money was so good.

In 1923, Ford Motor Company launched the Ford Weekly Purchase Plan in response to the increasing popularity of buying cars on credit. Customers made payments to a bank in the amount of five dollars a week until they accumulated the price of a new Model T. It was unsuccessful because customers could just as easily open their own savings accounts.

Ford Motor Company advertisements often targeted women because of their growing sense of freedom in the early twentieth century. As social norms for women changed, Ford marketed the Model T towards women as a way to experience adventure and acquire a sense of liberation. Brochures, sales booklets, and advertisements often times used female customer testimonials to strengthen that message.

The automobile is a paradox -- a practical tool that plays host to both human needs and fantasies. Like car consumers, automotive ads seem to land somewhere between fantasy and reality, emotions and rationality. Many ads incorporate apparent opposites: fantasy can sell practicality, and vice versa. Sometimes the car has disappeared completely -- an emotional appeal prompts us to complete the ad.

The advertisement refers to George Selden's 1895 patent. Selden, a patent attorney and inventor was granted a U.S. patent for an automobile, just before the auto industry began to flourish. He collected royalties from early car manufacturers, claiming his right as owner of the patent. Four auto makers, including Henry Ford, contested Selden's patent which was invalidated in 1911.

Henry Ford, along with Ed "Spider" Huff, raised Ford Motor Company's profile by driving the "Arrow" across frozen Lake St. Clair at a world-record speed of 91.37 miles per hour. Ford built two nearly identical "999" racers but the car that broke the world record on January 12, 1904, was named the "Arrow."

Ford Motor Company regularly advertised the dependability of the Model T along with the car's ability to handle any terrain -- two characteristics that many consumers believed separated Ford cars from all the rest. In this advertisement, Ford declared that Model T demand was "wide and ever-growing," but in actuality production peaked in 1923 and declined every year thereafter.

This advertisement, showing factory workers going home from work in their Ford Model T automobiles, illustrates the democratizing effect this low-priced car had on American society. By pricing the car well under $1000 in 1908, then regularly lowering the price -- to a surprising $290 by 1925 -- Henry Ford had brought the automobile within the reach of ordinary Americans.

Norval Hawkins, the sales manager for Ford Motor Company, developed the idea for a company magazine, Ford Times. Hawkins filled the magazine with information ranging from production methods and testimonials to Ford race victories. Always lively and well illustrated, Ford Times boosted morale at the agencies and branches while serving as another advertising medium.

This 1911 advertising brochure illustrates the dependability of the Ford Model T to potential customers. It reproduces photographs sent by Model T owners from across the United States, showing the car being driven in bad weather and rough roads. Considering the poor state of American roads in the early days of its production, the Model T's reliability was no small advantage. Early ads for the Model T all emphasized the car's capacity to absorb shock, thanks to its innovative features -high ground clearance, strong Vanadium steel and a flexible chassis.

Ford Motor Company sent the Advance Catalog to car dealers. The catalog detailed and often illustrated the key characteristics, good quality, and high standards associated with the Model T. In this 1908 catalog, articles emphasized light weight, simplicity, the three-point suspension, and low price that accompanied the Model T.

The River Rouge complex took raw materials, like iron ore, and converted them to refined materials for the creation of new automobiles. Ford strategically positioned the Rouge plant near the river to receive raw materials by boat, and it used the complex's railroad network to distribute them to the proper buildings for refinement. This strategy made Ford Motor Company more efficient and allowed for financial growth.

Henry Ford's office kept a file of newspaper articles from across the country that covered Ford Motor Company and other topics of interest to Henry. These pages are from the days following Ford's announcement of the $5 per day profit sharing plan in January 1914. While Ford's primary objective was to reduce employee turnover, the $5 day was also excellent publicity.