In the early years of the twentieth century, American industrial workers were confronted with incredible technological advances. The autonomous craftsmen of earlier times were replaced by less-skilled workers who depended on advanced machinery to increase productivity. The assembly line, coupled with the time-motion studies of efficiency experts, allowed manufacturers to increase production by subdividing tasks and making work as mindless, repetitive, and routine as possible. The machinery provided the skill in the new system, not the worker. Henry Ford's reintroduction of the Model T in 1913 remains the shining example of this movement toward greater industrial efficiency. In this era the worker became the servant of the machine that performed the actual work. The American worker was dehumanized in the process and exerted little control over his job. The employee simply carried out the simple, yet endless, tasks assigned to his particular station on the line......
This is a free excerpt of 150 words. This section contains 1,331 words. This
article contains 27,264 words (approx. 91 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our America 1910-1919: Business and the Economy Access Pass.
