Booming everywhere

Henry Ford's moving production line revolutionizes the auto industry, driving down costs and enabling soaring production rates. By 1925, there are almost four million cars on the road. Half of them are Model T Fords.

The blistering pace continues throughout the 1920s, as radios are suddenly bursting upon the scene. Radios bring the exuberant sounds of American jazz into homes across the entire country, ushering in the 'Roaring 20s.'

Meanwhile, the stock market is shooting wildly upwards. All the signs are pointing to a period of unprecedented prosperity, with the economy hitting on all cylinders. Americans are feeling the rush.
Roaring Twenties, 1920s

  Everything All at Once
The big story of the 1920s is skyrocketing auto production. Traffic congestion is a new problem, although the bottleneck shown here is due to construction. Still, city streets have never been burdened with so many vehicles. A new radio craze has also arrived, bringing with it the Jazz Age, and a world seemingly full of wide-eyed flappers (lower right). 

Automobiles, 1920s

  The Deluge Begins
It's hard to overstate how completely autos transform America during the early 1920s. Most are equipped with a folding fabric roof, like modern convertibles (top left), but by 1930 the full-steel body has become the standard (lower right). One-eighth of all vehicles sold are trucks, which use the same size engines as cars, but have reduced gearing to pull heavier loads (lower left). Engines in both cars and trucks range from 20 to 40 horsepower. The 1929 stock market crash puts a big dent in auto production, which will continue into the 1930s (center top).


Henry Ford and moving assembly line, 1913

  A Man with Big Ideas
The innovation that turbo-charges auto production is the introduction of the 'moving' assembly line, in 1913. Partially-assembled vehicles are moved mechanically down the line, while workers remain more or less in one position along the line, installing individual sub-assemblies as the cars pass slowly by. Ford builds a huge new plant in downtown Detroit just to house the new line. It's the largest manufacturing plant in the world, producing a fully assembled chassis (without the body) every 90 minutes.