Changing the World

October 7, 2014 (Tuesday)
Henry Ford introduced the Model T in 1908. As I understand it, each of the cars was assembled at a fixed location, and workers visited the various spots to do their part in the assembly. On this date, October 7, 1913, Ford established the assembly line. The workers remained in place as the line of cars moved past them, giving workers the chance to do their part in building the cars. An old-time worker in one of those plants told me that they pushed the cars from one place to the next. Finally, a system that moved the cars automatically, one after the other, at a set rate of speed, was adopted.

The assembly line was functioning quite well when I went to work for General Motors in the Assembly plant in Arlington, Texas, in the summer of 1955. I was trying to go to the Seminary and hold down a full-time job at the same time. I worked there for one and one-half years, and enjoyed the job immensely.

At full production, the plant produced 51 jobs per hour. At that time, the cars produced were Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac. That was 42 years after Henry Ford established the assembly line method of building cars. I resigned in order to give attention to seminary classes in January, 1957, 57 years ago. During that time, production methods have become much more sophisticated and new automobiles are of high quality.

Ford’s idea of a moving assembly line was adopted by many different types of factories in the United States, and eventually throughout the world. It is the basic method used in the manufacture of “everything from soup to nuts” today. Not only did he affect his world by providing affordable transportation via the automobile, he spurred industry to provide more jobs and stirred the economy to grow greater than ever. He left his mark.
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
Although he lived in an earlier century, Henry Ford’s name is well-known today. He changed the world in many ways.
There was a man named Jesus who was born in a tiny village to a very poor young girl, and when he was 30 years of age, began an itinerant ministry in his little country. He had ideas about helping people that the leaders of his day resented, so they killed him. Today his name is universally known throughout the world, and one cannot deny he has changed it. He changed the world by changing us. I am a changed person. If you know Jesus Christ by faith, you are a brand new person, too. Like the Apostle Paul, you and I can say, “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”