american business: from efficiency to certainty

America’s industrial revolution generated economic and social gains unparallelled in recorded human history. Vast supplies of natural resources including fossil fuels, low-cost labor, and the inventiveness of 19th century businessmen served to ignite and drive industrial development.

Efficiency was the goal and men the likes of Gillette, Hoover, Hughes, Ford and Otis invented devices and processes that helped people become more productive in their daily lives. People could travel farther in less time, first by train, then by car and then airplane. People spent less time performing hard monotonous routine work [Gillette – safety razor, Hoover – vacuum, Otis - elevator].

The concept of efficiency was applied to the manufacture of the goods themselves when Henry Ford invented the automotive assembly line. By producing more goods in less time, Ford was able to pay his workers enough that many of them could afford to purchase an automobile. Ford expanded the market for automobiles by creating a market out of Ford employees and implementing a franchise system that put a dealership in every city in North America. Ford focused on maximizing efficiency, leaving quality to be determined as a function of cost.