2026 SoSci II - Stats and Dates

Ford was born in the small, rural community of Dearborn, Michigan, in [YEAR].

1863

At the age of [#], having grown restless with operating his small farm, Ford moved to the rapidly industrializing city of Detroit, where he worked as a mechanical engineer for an electrical company.

28

In [YEAR], Ford, then [#] years old, joined the nascent and crowded automobile industry, when he founded the Ford Motor Company.

1903; 40

[#] years later, Ford unveiled the Model T, a light-weight, utilitarian vehicle nicknamed the “Tin Lizzie.”

5

The Model T was equipped with a [#]-cylinder, [#]-horsepower internal combustion engine and designed to handle rugged, unpaved roads.

4; 40

In the [DECADE], Ford received more press coverage than any other American with the exception of President Calvin Coolidge.

1920s

In [YEAR] and [YEAR], before the introduction of the assembly line, Ford had produced [#] and [#] respectively.

1910; 1911; 18,664; 34,538

With the assembly line, annual production spiked to [#] while the time to produce a complete car dropped from [#] hours to [#] minutes.

300,000; 12; 93

By [YEAR], the Highland Park facility was churning out a new car every minute of the workday.

1920

Ford added a second enormous complex in River Rouge, allowing him to build more than [#] cars in [YEAR], accounting for a [FRACTION] of all cars made in the United States.

1 million; 1921; 1/2

Refusing to rest on his laurels, Ford doubled production between [YEAR] and [YEAR].

1923; 1925

On [MONTH DAY, YEAR], Ford completed [#] cars in a single day, at a rate of one every [#] seconds.

Oct 31, 1925; 9,109; 10

By [YEAR], cars accounted for a [FRACTION] of the nation’s manufactured goods.

1/10

By [YEAR], Ford was even able to manufacture the [#] square feet of glass needed for his cars on-site.

1926; 26 million

To achieve greater energy independence, Ford built or purchased [#] hydroelectric plants throughout the nation during the [DECADE] and made a failed bid to operate the federal government’s massive hydroelectric dam at Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

10; 1920s

In [YEAR], a new Model T cost [#]. [#] years later, the price had dropped to [#].

1909; 825; 5; 490

By [YEAR], a Model T with no options sold for [#].

1925; 290

In [YEAR], barely one in [#] American households owned a car.

1914; 13

This figure rose to one in [#] households by [YEAR] and nearly increased by a factor of [#] by the end of the decade, so that [FRACTION] households owned one by [YEAR].

3; 1920; 3; 4/5; 1930

Another Ford innovation, the [#]-dollar daily wage for [#] hours of work, proved nearly as revolutionary as the assembly line.

5; 8

Launched on [MONTH DAY, YEAR], Ford’s offer of a [#]-dollar minimum wage represented a big pay raise for most workers, who earned between [#] and [#] dollars a day.

Jan 5, 1914; 5; 2; 3

The next morning after Ford’s minimum wage was established, [#] men stood at the gates of the Ford plant hoping to be among the [#] new hires.

10,000; 4,000

Ford increased the wage to [#] dollars a day in [YEAR], and wages across the industry followed suit.

6; 1919

As workers flocked to Detroit to work at Ford and rival auto manufacturers, the “Motor City” became the nation’s [ORDINAL]-largest city.

4th

From [YEAR] to [YEAR], Detroit’s population grew [#] percent, ending the decade at [#].

1920; 1930; 58; 1,568,622

In the absence of a government social welfare system, which was constructed in the [DECADE] by the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, no safety net existed for workers who lost their jobs or whose firms went bankrupt.

1930s

Company unions represented another big trend in the [DECADE].

1920s

By [YEAR], [#] plants and perhaps as many as [#] workers worked at firms with various forms of “employee representation.”

1926; 432; 4 million

Prosperity made welfare capitalism appealing and contributed to the steady decline of labor activism during the [DECADE].

1920s

Union membership declined from [YEAR] to [YEAR], from [#] to [#] and would only rebound following the implementation of pro-labor policies in the [DECADE].

1921; 1929; 3.5 million; 2.7 million; 1930s

Ford also required non-citizen immigrant workers, who made up [FRACTION] of his workforce in [YEAR], to take English language courses and encouraged them to apply for U.S. citizenship.

2/3; 1914

For example, in [YEAR], the official magazine of the Endicott Johnson shoe-making company published a short poem that instructed workers to: “Be Loyal to your God and Country, To your innermost self be true, But don’t forget there’s another debt, To the Boss be loyal, too!”

1922

In [YEAR], when most Americans still depended on horse-drawn carriages and rail travel, only [#] percent of the nation’s roads were hard-surfaced.

1908; 6

By [YEAR], thanks to billions of dollars in federal subsidies and revenue from the newly instituted gasoline tax, [#] miles of asphalt, accounting for more than [#]-percent of all U.S. roads, spread across the nation like veins.

1927; 3 million; 20

It was possible to drive from New York to San Francisco, following the recently finished Lincoln Highway, although the coast-to-coast journey took nearly [#] weeks to complete.

2

“According to the Office of Public Roads, Americans drove an increasing number of miles between [YEAR] to [YEAR], a [#] percent increase to an astounding [#] miles.”

1921; 1930; 400; 206 billion

A [YEAR] survey indicated that farmers were most likely among all Americans to own a car or truck, while [#] percent of small-town residents and [#] percent of city dwellers reported owning a car.

1927; 60; 54

“Given the choice between a fine home without a car and modest one with a car, the latter will win,” reported an avowed automobilist in the Atlantic Monthly in [MONTH, YEAR].

Jun, 1925

In [YEAR], C. P. Russell profiled the parade of American tourists in [YEAR] who traveled South on the “long motor highway stretching from Bangor to Miami lined with auto accessory shops, filling stations, Greek lunch counters, and hot dog stands.”

1925; 1925

Every summer from [YEAR] to [YEAR], Ford’s camping entourage, who playfully nicknamed themselves “the Vagabonds,” loaded a caravan of [#] vehicles with gear and spent [#] weeks admiring America’s natural splendor.

1914; 1925; 50; 2

Similarly, in [YEAR], the federal government orchestrated a [#]-day road trip around a [#]-mile route connecting all [#] Western National Parks in a bid to boost auto tourism to the National Parks.

1920; 72; 5,600; 12

In [YEAR], [#] people died, and an additional [#] were injured in automobile crashes.

1924; 23,600; 700,000

Electrification had a profound effect on American society in the [DECADE].

1920s

By [YEAR], [#] percent of homes were wired for electricity, more than double the percentage recorded in [YEAR].

1920; 34.7; 1912

Many homes added additional wiring to take advantage of the flood of new household appliances mass-produced in the [DECADE].

1920s

By [YEAR], [#] percent of industries were electrified, compared to [#] percent a decade earlier.

1929; 70; 30

The Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company, for example, found that with electric bottle-blowing machines, it could produce the same number of mason jars with [#] workers as it had previously with [#] skilled glass blowers.

8; 210

In [YEAR], [#] percent of farm dwellings had electricity, compared to [#] percent of urban dwellings.

1920; 1.6; 47

A decade later, [#] percent of urban dwellings were electrified, while farm dwellings lagged far behind at [#] percent.

85; 10

Indeed, only [#] percent of Americans in rural areas had electricity in [YEAR], despite massive federal rural electrification programs during the [DECADE].

35; 1940; 1930s

By [YEAR], [#] percent of households with electricity owned electric irons, [#] percent owned vacuums, and [#] percent owned washing machines.

1930; 97.8; 44.4; 35.1

A study of [#] U.S. cities in [YEAR] found that [#] percent of affluent households owned both a vacuum and a washing machine.

36; 1926; 80

As these numbers suggest, however, the majority of Americans, or the servants they hired, continued to complete household chores the old-fashioned way throughout the [DECADE] (and would continue to do so for the next [#] decades).

1920s; 2

In [YEAR], GE spent [#] dollars to build an assembly line dedicated to its “Monitor Top” refrigerators, which the company introduced to the public in [YEAR].

1926; 18 million; 1927

In just [#] years, [#] Monitor Tops were sold, blowing away the company’s internal sales projections.

2; 50,000

Overall, production of refrigerators doubled from [YEAR] to [YEAR], and doubled again in [YEAR].

1929; 1930; 1931

That year GE ceremoniously presented the [ORDINAL] Monitor Top to Henry Ford during a special radio broadcast.

1 millionth

The prosperity of the [DECADE] helped give rise to a new consumer culture in America, which was cultivated and sustained by new forms of mass advertising.

1920s

Advertising exploded in the [DECADE], reaching nearly [#] dollars by [YEAR].

1920s; 3 billion; 1929

General Motors spent [#] dollars on advertising annually to stoke, or even manufacture, consumer demand.

20 million

Glossy magazines, the primary venue for advertising, sold [#] copies in [YEAR] and featured lush full-page pictorial spreads that inspired visions of an aspirational, but obtainable future.

220 million; 1929

For example, Post’s breakfast cereal Bran Flakes was pitched as a remedy for the stress caused by the speed and unrelenting quality of modern life, while a range of other products similarly promised to assuage the anxious neuroses buzzing beneath the surface of America in the [DECADE].

1920s

Another Lucky Strike advertisement featured the famous aviator Amelia Earhart, who announced that she had smoked “continuously” during her first trans-Atlantic flight in [YEAR] and that “nothing else helped so much to lessen the strain for all of us.”

1928

Conventional economic theory, echoed by Henry Ford in his [YEAR] memoir, held that businesses could neither control, nor force popular demand.

1926

Planned obsolescence was a strategy pioneered by a consortium of international lightbulb manufacturers who colluded in [YEAR] to adopt as an industry standard a bulb with a greatly reduced lifespan.

1924

In the [SEASON] of [YEAR], just after he personally drove the [ORDINAL] Model T rolled off the line, Ford announced he was discontinuing the iconic car amid slumping sales.

spring; 1927; 15 millionth

After shutting down his factories for [#] months, which left [#] workers unemployed, Ford unveiled the newly designed Model A to a frenzied public.

5; 60,000

The Model A was equipped with state-of-the-art brakes, an improved geared transmission, electric ignition, hydraulic shock absorbers, with the ability to speed down the highway at [#] miles per hour.

65

Perhaps most surprisingly, the Model A was available in [#] different body styles in numerous color combinations, with stylish interiors and the latest gadgets fitted to an illuminated dashboard.

17

By [YEAR], the Ford Motor Company had regained primacy over its rivals and controlled [#] percent of the auto market.

1930; 45

Ford was late to the game, as buying on credit had been a staple of the auto industry since [YEAR].

1919

Within [#] years, [FRACTION] of all American automobile sales utilized consumer credit plans popularly known as installment buying, and by [YEAR] the total reached [FRACTION].

2; 1/2; 1926; 3/4

By [YEAR], installment buying accounted for [#] percent of all retail sales or [#] dollars annually.

1926; 15; 6 billion

The following year [#] percent of furniture, [#] percent of phonographs, [#] percent of washing machines, and many other popular appliances were bought on installment, creating [#] to [#] dollars of consumer debt.

85; 80; 75; 2 billion; 3 billion

Before [YEAR], Ford had subscribed wholeheartedly to this view and lamented how the “spell of salesmanship” had transformed a frugal, savvy people into a nation of suckers, while easy credit encouraged them to spend money they had not yet earned.

1927

In [YEAR], wireless radio was a small and niche industry in the United States.

1920

In a famous memo to his boss at American Marconi Company in [YEAR], David Sarnoff imagined a simple receiver, capable of being adjusted to various frequencies, combined with amplifying tubes and a telephone loudspeaker “neatly mounted in one box.”

1916

Sarnoff’s dream would quickly become a reality, and he would eventually lead the company that would define the entire industry in the [DECADE].

1920s

The first true radio station began as a hobby of Dr. Frank Conrad, an electrical engineer who began to broadcast free musical entertainment programs [#] times a week using a microphone rigged up to a phone transmitter from his garage in suburban Pittsburgh.

2

Having secured the first ever “broadcasting license” from the federal government, Conrad’s humble operation became KDKA, which carried the [YEAR] Harding–Cox election results live over the air.

1920

By the end of [YEAR], [#] new stations had begun broadcasting.

1921; 26

In [YEAR] and [YEAR], many new radio stations had appeared with [#] and a soaring [#] for each respective year.

1922; 1926; 508; 700

[#] radios were manufactured in the [#] decades after [YEAR].

41 million; 2; 1920

The first versions of Sarnoff’s “Radio Music Box” arrived in stores in [YEAR] and ranged in price from [#] to [#] dollars per set.

1922; 50; 100

Sales of radios and related accessories jumped from [YEAR] to an astounding amount in [YEAR] from [#] to [#].

1922; 1924; 60 million; 358 million

By [YEAR], there were [#] radios in the United States.

1925; 2.5 million

It also founded the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), which made it a major force as a network. Sarnoff, who became President of RCA in [YEAR], never stopped looking forward and was instrumental in developing television.

1930

Mysteries, soap operas, and sit-coms debuted as short radio serials, which typically aired in the evening for [#]-minute, [#]-minute, or [#]-hour blocks.

15; 30; 1

By the [PART-DECADE], radio filled the role that television would come to play for later generations.

mid-1920s

By the [PART-DECADE], there were so many radio stations broadcasting that they crowded the available frequencies and constantly interfered with each other’s signals.

mid-1920s

Between [YEAR] and [YEAR], Hoover hosted a series of annual radio conferences at the White House that brought together government officials, industry executives, and technical experts.

1922; 1925

Using the poorly written and badly out-of-date Radio Act of [YEAR], Hoover, for a time, was able to rely on the cooperation of radio stations and their voluntary submission to decisions he made in his capacity as radio’s regulatory “umpire.”

1912

Therefore, in [YEAR], Hoover turned his attention to writing new legislation and personally led the push on Capitol Hill for the Federal Radio Act of [YEAR].

1927; 1927

The law created the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), a [#]-member body empowered to grant and renew broadcasting licenses, systematically assign frequencies, regulate the strength of transmission signals, set broadcasting hours, and prohibit content and language it deemed offensive.

5

In the [SEASON] of [YEAR], Hoover also presided over the first-ever international radio conference, which drew delegates from [#] nations to Washington, D.C.

fall; 1927; 67

Hoover, no doubt, had in mind the poisonous propaganda peddled by fascist dictators in the [DECADE] and the ways that communist regimes used radio to wage an unrelenting disinformation campaign against their own citizens.

1930s

In the [DECADE], the full political force of radio—for better or for worse—had not yet been realized.

1920s

Listeners could receive news updates and even follow political events, like the contentious [YEAR] Democratic National Convention, in real-time.

1924

For the most part, however, radio in the [DECADE] was not yet the thoroughly politicized medium it would become in the next decade.

1920s

While mostly visible in hindsight, a few glimmers of radio’s influence were already present in the [DECADE].

1920s