A fantastic video of state of the art manufacturing way back when.... No OSHA and no safety glasses. Wonder what the hourly wage was? No place for "slackers" or "snow flakes"..
Thanks for sharing that. There's a lot of videos like this online already, but this was the first time I'd seen this one. Is it just me, or was anybody else stunned (at the 9:45 mark) to see how they formed the axle ring gear blanks from a straight piece of steel fresh from the forge? I'd have never imagined that. Are modern ring gears still made in a similar fashion?
Henry made that $5 a day wage in 1914 but it wasn't for everyone-there were lots of "outs". Not sure what the pay scale was when the video was made or if he paid anybody when the plants were closed re-tooling for the Model A production.
Very cool to see how they did things in the “old” days. I kept wondering how many guys lost a hand or fingers.
Me too! But it seems like most folks didn't give it much of a thought. Or maybe they already knew that that's the way it was done. It strikes me that welding the ends of that loop together could have been prone to failure. And maybe it was. But then these cars weren't making all that much torque and didn't have big, wide, sticky tires either. I wonder if shaping a straight forging this way gave the steel a better grain structure than just forging a round blank to start with? Or maybe it was just cheaper to build them this way . . ?
What amazes me is all the people that it took to build a simple car and today's complex cars are built mostly by robots....And they are safer faster And I think better.....
Long Beach Ford assembly plant on the water near the large lift bridge. Ford Motor Company Long Beach Assembly Plant, Assembly Building, 700 Henry Ford Avenue, Long Beach, Los Angeles County, CA Notes - Significance: Ford Motor Company built the Long Beach Assembly Plant during 1929-1930 as one of six contemporaneous assembly plants constructed in the United States. The overall purpose of these plants was to expand production of Ford's Model A, which replaced the Model T in 1927. Albert Kahn, the architect for the Long Beach Assembly Plant, also designed the other five Ford Assembly Plants - The Long Beach Assembly Plant was the only plant outside of Michigan to have a Pressed Steel Department as an integral part of the manufacturing and assembly process. Kahn's architectural design incorporated an enormous articulated structure that retained aesthetic qualities, yet permitted functional use of space. - The Long Beach Assembly Plant operated until 1958 and typified the Ford Assembly Line concept. On a national scale the Long Beach Assembly Plant reflected a national trend of industrial growth, mass production of consumer goods, and the consumption of those goods - Building/structure dates: 1929- 1930 Initial Construction - Building/structure dates: 1990- 1991 Demolished Hello, When I was 10, our elementary school class in Long Beach went to the Ford plant near the water and bridge in Long Beach. As young as we were, we always took the Terminal Island Freeway near our house and Lion’s Dragstrip, to the Terminal Island enclave where our friends and family lived and worked. We always took this route to go to the ferry to cross the main channel to get to San Pedro city, too. The plant was located below the Commodore Schuyler F. Heim Lift Bridge that was built in 1946. (famous from the later, Terminator Saga Movies) Ford Motor Company Long Beach Assembly Plant, 700 Henry Ford Avenue, Long Beach, Los Angeles County, CA. Opened in 1929 and closed in 1958. The plant was demolished in 1991. Our class was on a tour of the whole facility. It was fun being on the same floor as a long line of moving cars. When we were on this tour, we actually followed several cars with tags on them so we could watch the whole process while we were there. In an up close worker’s aisle, one of the guys gave me a strip of what looked like wood, but was a flat, flexible tape or decal. It was about 8 inches long. When I showed my friends, they all wanted a piece of the same odd-looking sheet. Then the guys on the assembly line had to cut small strips for all of us to be equal. Ha! For us little kids, what is/was a woody? We all had “woodies,” as we walked along the assembly line. It sure made the station wagon look great. Jnaki At our house, my brother was envious that our class was able to go on the assembly plant tour. We had both seen it and our dad pointed it out every time we crossed over the lift bridge into the Terminal Island proper near the Navy Base. As a know it all, my brother pointed out the fact that what we saw were real station wagons, but only with additional sticky sheets of stuff that looked like wallpaper. Who knew where the “woodies” came from back then? They were built, just 4 miles from our Westside home in Long Beach. “Tin woodies” is a misnomer given to them by some hard core people. They were station wagons that had a different look, like convertibles or Skyliners. Much later, during our "courting days," my wife, back then, used this stopover area as a quiet place to stop for a break in the late evening. The waterfront location was under the level of the cross over bridge. It was a lonely place at night with not much going on. But, next door was a cool place to sit and relax. Nice music, dark, the drinks were strong, and of course, had good looking servers. Later in 1966-67, the bar/restaurant next door to the Ford Factory was called the “Red Witch Inn," which was just around the corner from the plant. The atmosphere inside was dark, red carpeting, walls adorned with garish decorations of a dive bar, etc. The booths were very deep, made a squishing noise when sitting and were made for a quiet place to chill. At first, it reminded us of a dark room with the red light on for the atmosphere. For most, it was difficult to get to from any direction. You had to know what major East-West street to take the turn off, leading under the bridge. The plant and bar are gone, replaced by a the latest transformation, a huge, freight container supply depot on the waterfront.
I think we all need to pause and consider our HAT selection. These old boys had it figured out. Time to step up our game. Great video, I need to watch it all.
Calculated for inflation that's the equivalent of $149 today. Even a 12 hour day that's a significant hike over today's minimum wage.
You only qualified for that wage if you lived your life in 100 percent accordance of how Ford thought everyone should live. I doubt that many of the members here would have made the cut.
Neat haircut, tidy clothes, no cussin' and church on Sundays. Even today, that's a difficult list if you work line assembly.
Our 56 was assembled there by the Vin tag, Henry Ford Ave ended at one of the navel base gates also. On the right side of bridge we’re boat docks, I think Fellows and Stewart were one of the biggest. When I worked at the Edison plant in the late 60’s on the the island I would use the bridge every day and remember see sail boats either stored or being repair in the assemble plant. Old memories.
Hey J6, Darn, missed your 1956 Ford on the assembly line by a couple of years!!! After you went over the large lift bridge toward Terminal Island, did you ever take photos of an old elementary school near the base of the Vincent Thomas Green Bridge? It would have been on the right side of the roadway below the Vincent Thomas Bridge to San Pedro. There may have been some old artillery canons sitting near the roadway. Jnaki Our dad went to the Elementary School there and I can't remember if it got torn down after the Ford Plant disappeared or not. Thanks...
Never drove that direction much. I started going to the Edison plant in 1967, just after the Henry Ford bridge on the left was a Standard Oil pumping leases. I kept my Standard keys from when I worked a Baldwin Hill Oil fields so I’d pull up to the fenced gate, let myself in, and drove thru to miss traffic on Ocean. The other end of the lease had a gate next to the SCE plant driveway so I cold let myself out. Just a short cut to me. I had friends with boats tied up at Fellow and Stewart in the early 60’s. I lived in Walteria, across from Torrance Airport, at the time and used Anaheim St instead of PCH to go west. I didn’t like paying to cross the Vincent Thomas even tho it was the shorter way home.
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