By 1913, automobile production at Henry Ford's factory at Highland Park, Michigan, had reached a peak. Using conventional methods - bringing the car's components painstakingly assembled to the car body/ chassis to be fitted on - the Ford Motor Company could manufacture nearly 160,000 cars a year, an average of eleven cars per worker.

Then Henry Ford introduced the assembly line. Its conveyor belts continuously moved forward, as a small specific task were repeated hundreds of times a day by each worker, keeping up with the speed of the belt. As all the departments (engine, magneto, etc.) were mechanized, the time needed to build and equip each car plunged from 12,5 hours to 93 minutes. Finally the time needed to build a Model T at Highland Park was reduced to the point where a car was being produced every 24 seconds, enabling Ford to vastly increase production and cut prices.

The price of a Model T dropped from $850 in 1908 to $440 six years later. By 1915, Ford became the unrivalled king of the road, producing nearly half the world's cars.

Ford's workers had to endure the boredom of the repetition, and the occasional conveyor belt speed-ups ordered by the bosses. However, the assembly line also started the eight-hour shift, and the five-dollar day, double the wage of that of workers before the emergence of the assembly line.