PoDcasT - Tin Lizzie

For the podcast we were assigned the decade of 1900 – 1910. We chose to talk about Henry Ford and the first mass produced car, however for this week’s blog I am going to discuss Henry Ford and some of the long-term effects of the affordable car.

Firstly, Henry Ford was an inspirational man. He was a wonderful mixture of an engineer, a designer, and a businessman. He brought in the idea of an assembly line in the car building industry. He gave the ordinary working-class person the ability to afford a car. This is one of the most influential innovations in the world. This changed how cities were built, how people lived their lives, it changed what people expected in life. It created huge possibilities for everyone and anyone. (The Automobile Shapes The City by Martin V. Melosi, 2020)

Ford designed and manufactured many cars from the Model A, all the way to the Model T. The Model T AKA Tin Lizzie was his most famous design. This car was the first ever car to be mass produced. It was made on Ford’s brilliant assembly line. The idea for the assembly line came from a meat packing plant, this in fact was a disassembly line. Ford took this idea from the meat industry and reversed it and implement it in the car industry. Cars were now able to be produced cheaply. Good design can cheap. Some people argue that you get what you pay for. Here is a good example of good design making it possible to sell the product cheap.

The mass-produced car was undoubtedly one of the biggest changes in the 20th century. Cars changed what people expected in life. Cars allowed people to travel distances they never would have before. Cars connected people from far. They were the beginning of creating a global community. This innovation in transport was good for businesses, it also allowed people to go on personal endeavors.

The introduction of cars has caused the most influential change in the history of designing cities. The introduction of cars has meant that cities were to be built for cars and not the pedestrian. Usually one half of a cities areas is dedicated to roads, parking lots, garages and other car related infrastructure. Highways were built to connect the major cities in America. Highways revolutionized the way we transport goods; they had a far economic reaching impact on the nation. No city planners were around the time highways were introduced and the highways were put into place by men from the automobile industry. (Vox, 2020)

This changed how cities were built, it had huge impact on architecture. Cities like Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Venice were built for the pedestrian and are much more beautiful from design perspective than the cities built orientated around cars. I found this hugely interesting that there was huge butterfly effect from design of cars. The introduction of cars may be is as influential on the world as the internet is in today's world. This made me reflect and ponder about all the knock-on effects from any designs. I think it is important to think about the possible positive or negative effects your design might have in the future. (Pedestrian Cities, 2020)

(Digital Collections: Ford Model T chassis, 2020)

Bibliography:

2020. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odF4GSX1y3c&t=4s> [Accessed 5 May 2020].

Newurbanism.org. 2020.Pedestrian Cities. [online] Available at: <http://www.newurbanism.org/pedestrian.html> [Accessed 5 May 2020].

Autolife.umd.umich.edu. 2020.The Automobile Shapes The City By Martin V. Melosi. [online] Available at: <http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Environment/E_Casestudy/E_casestudy.htm> [Accessed 5 May 2020].

Free Library of Philadelphia. 2020.Digital Collections: Ford Model T Chassis. [online] Available at: <https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/53515> [Accessed 5 May 2020].