Cold Open

It’s the morning of June 4th, 1896, in Detroit, Michigan.

The sun’s rising into a clear sky, promising yet another beautiful summer day.

But 32-year-old inventor Henry Ford isn’t interested in the weather. He’s been up since dawn preparing to test out his latest creation.

Eleven years ago, German engineer Carl Benz built the world’s first gasoline-powered car. This invention caught Henry’s imagination, and he decided to see if he could build his own automobile. For the last six months, Henry’s spent every spare moment he has working on a motorized vehicle that he’s calling the Quadricycle. Now, it’s finally ready for its first test drive.

But a few moments ago, Henry discovered a problem. The doors of the shed he’s built the machine in are too narrow, and the only way to get the Quadricycle out is to take a sledgehammer to the door frame.

After one final swing, the door frame falls to the floor and Henry wipes his brow, exhausted.

But then he gathers himself to push the Quadricycle out of the building and then takes a moment to admire his creation in the sunlight: a wooden chassis supported on four large bicycle wheels. Strapped in the middle is a two-cylinder internal combustion engine with an upholstered seat and a steering tiller perched on top. It’s a simple-looking machine, but to Henry, it’s the most beautiful sight in the world.

But now he has to see if it works. Henry fires up the engine…and climbs into the seat. He puts the machine into gear, releases the brake…and, to his great delight, the wheels begin to turn. Henry steers the Quadricycle out of his yard, onto the quiet streets of Detroit, and into the future.

Ultimately, the Quadricycle will only travel a few blocks before its engine sputters and dies. This first journey of a Ford-built car ends with Henry Ford pushing it back to his workshop. But Henry quickly fixes it, and he will work tirelessly to improve his design, putting in long hours and rarely taking a break. This work ethic will help him become one of the most famous businessmen in the world. But he won’t expect everyone to follow his lead. In fact, the lives of American workers will be transformed forever after he introduces a pioneering five-day work week at the Ford Motor Company on May 1st, 1926.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is May 1st, 1926: Henry Ford’s Five-Day Week.

Act One: The Birth of Ford

It’s September 27th, 1908, at the Ford Motor Company plant in Detroit, Michigan, 12 years after the Quadricycle’s first test drive.

Henry Ford, now 45 years old, runs his fingers along the door of a car that’s just been finished by his workers. He checks for any blemishes, and he opens and closes the door a few times to check that the mechanism works as expected. Then, he cranks the engine, and its four-cylinder fire up for the first time. Ford is paying special attention to every detail, because this is no ordinary Ford car. It’s the first of its kind—what he’s calling, the Model T.

After building his homemade Quadricycle, Henry founded a company with fellow inventor Thomas Edison. But five years ago, Henry went it alone and set up the Ford Motor Company. Since then, Henry’s produced a series of vehicles that he’s sold to the small, but growing number of motorists in America. But the Model T feels different. Henry’s put everything he’s learned over the last few years into his design, hoping that this is the car that will put his company on the map.

After this first Model T passes Henry’s stringent quality checks, his workers get started on the next one. But because it takes a team of Ford employees 13 hours to produce a single car, the second Model T won’t be ready until tomorrow. That’s not fast enough for Henry. He knows that if the Ford Motor Company is going to succeed, he has to find ways to increase production and efficiency.

So while his workers hammer, screw, and rivet cars together one by one, Henry spends every moment he can researching the latest technological developments and learning everything he can about industrial production. So that, over the next five years, Henry constantly tweaks Ford’s production process. He introduces machinery that’s designed and built especially for the Ford plant. And in 1913, he implements an idea that he first saw at a Chicago meatpacking plant: the moving assembly line.

Previously, teams assembled a car from start to finish. But now, individual workers are required to get just one job done before the car is moved down the line to the next worker and a new car takes its place. This new technique slashes production time on a Model T to less than two hours. And it improves quality too, since every worker on the line only needs to learn and repeat a single task. Even reduces costs.

All of these improvements help make the Model T America’s best-selling vehicle. But Henry doesn’t stop looking for ways that he and his company can find an edge. He sees that across the country, unions are becoming more powerful, demanding better pay and working conditions for employees.

And in other industries, strikes have become common that crippled businesses. Henry has no love for unions and has no intention of letting that happen to Ford. But building cars is labor intensive and dangerous. The powerful machinery used, means that injuries aren't uncommon at the Ford plant. And unless Henry makes changes, he knows it won’t be long before his workers revolt.

So, Henry takes an unprecedented step. In 1914, he cuts the length of a shift at the Ford plant from nine hours to eight, and he doubles the pay to $5 a day.

But Henry is not acting purely out of the goodness of his heart. He is instead convinced that these changes will make his plant even more efficient. In the past, conditions were so poor that for every hundred jobs at his company, he had to hire 300 men a year. This cost Henry a fortune and recruitment in training. But if his workers are happy and well-rested, they’ll stay longer. And the longer they stay, the more experienced and productive they’ll become.

Many of Henry’s competitors are skeptical about the changes, though. But Henry doesn’t have to wait long for proof that his new system works—the day after the new shifts and wages are announced, 10,000 men express an interest in working for Ford, and in 1914, the company produces more Model Ts than ever before. 

But shorter shifts and more money doesn’t change the fact that the Ford factory is still dangerous, and thanks to the assembly line, working there is now monotonous too. To Henry’s dismay, union leaders will still agitate for improvements to working conditions. So Henry Ford will continue to look for improvements in how his employees work, and his next move will change working practices across the entire country.

Act Two: Autonomy

It’s December 1918 in Detroit, Michigan, ten years after production began on the Ford Model T.

Now, 55-year-old Henry Ford sits at his desk at home, gripping his pen tightly as he signs his name at the bottom of a letter of resignation. Once the ink is dry, he folds the paper and slides it into an envelope. It’s done, and he’s out.

Over the past four years, the Ford Motor Company has produced more than 2 million vehicles, and it now has $60 million sitting in its accounts—the equivalent of more than $6 billion today. Henry wanted to reinvest this surplus in the company and its workers. He sought to drive down the cost of the Model T even further, while boosting the wages of workers. But Ford’s shareholders saw it differently. They demanded that the money be distributed to them as dividends, and a few weeks ago, they took Henry to court to get their way. Now, Henry’s decided that he’s had enough, and he’s quitting the company he founded.

When news of Henry’s resignation reaches the newspapers, it causes a sensation. Most people think that the Ford Motor Company’s fortunes will decline without its genius founder at the helm. But the shareholders still don’t back down. Instead, they take their case all the way to the Supreme Court, which decides in their favor. They get the payout they’ve been after.

But the shareholders don’t enjoy their victory for long. Henry sets up a new motor company and poaches the best employees from Ford. Only then do the Ford shareholders realize that Henry isn’t bluffing. He’s not going to change his mind and return to Ford as long as they’re still there. So, with the prospect of Ford’s stock price tumbling without Henry designing its cars, the shareholders agree to sell their stake in the company back to Henry and his son. Soon, Henry resumes his position as president of the Ford Motor Company—and now the troublesome shareholders have gone, Henry can run his business how he sees fit.

Over the next few years, Ford continues to increase production of the Model T. By 1922, more than a million cars a year are rolling out of the plant in Michigan.

But elsewhere in America, unions are still pushing for change in the workplaces. Labor leaders campaign for better pay, greater job security, and safer conditions. Some industries are hit by long strikes, and a few protests even descend into violent battles with picket-crossing strikebreakers or law enforcement.

But just as he did earlier in his career, Henry attempts to cut off the threat of organized labor at Ford. This time, he’s inspired by a visit to the United Kingdom, where many manufacturers have begun giving their employees an extra day off every week—instead of just having Sundays off, British workers get Saturday as well.

So when Henry returns to Detroit, he investigates the five-day week in more detail. To his surprise, he discovers that studies in Britain have shown that adding an additional day off causes only a minor reduction in overall production levels. It seems that the extra time off leads to better quality work with fewer errors and fewer accidents.

But Ford employs more than 120,000 workers. Each works an eight-hour shift, six days a week, keeping assembly lines moving around the clock. So, switching over to a five-day working week isn’t a simple process. Henry has to embark on a series of trials to fully understand how the change could be implemented with the minimum of disruption.

But during one of these tests, news leaks that some Ford workers are being asked to work a day less, and most people react with disbelief. Some workers at the plant fear that Henry’s using it as an excuse to drive down labor costs. Press reports mock the idea, claiming that reducing the working week will end up killing the Ford Motor Company. And other business owners and industrialists accuse Henry of caving in to the unions when they should be standing strong and presenting a united front against them.

But Henry ignores the doubters. Instead, after more than four years of patient research and trials, he will bite the bullet and announce that the Ford factory will move to a new five-day working week in May 1926. Employees, business leaders, and politicians across the country will be watching carefully. Because the future of work in America will depend on whether this change powers the Ford Motor Company to new success—or puts all its progress in reverse.

Act Three: The Ford Legacy

It’s May 1st, 1926, International Worker's Day at the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan, four years after Henry Ford first started investigating the five-day working week.

Henry, now 62 years old, opens his office window and listens. He can hear a bird chirping, and just about hear the distant traffic on Detroit’s roads. But that’s about all. There’s no machinery whirring and no movement in the yard below.

Because today is a Saturday—the first since the Ford Motor Company moved to its new five-day week. And today every one of the company’s 140,000 employees can relax with family while friends and neighbors employed by other companies head out for their usual work day. Some Ford staff are unhappy they’ve lost a day’s pay and that their working week is now 40 hours, instead of 48. But most seem happy with the trade-off, getting an extra day’s rest.

Soon, Henry Ford is also pleased by the results of the new five-day work week. In the months that follow, production levels and profits both take a hit, but the decline is relatively small. The number of Model Ts rolling out of the factory drops from 1.9 million to 1.6 million, and profits fall just over five percent. But the Ford Motor Company benefits in other ways. There are fewer accidents, and worker retention increases.

So over the next few years, unions across America will point to Ford’s continuing success to argue that all workers should enjoy a five-day work week. And more and more business owners will come round to Henry’s way of thinking, recognizing the benefits of a rested, happy workforce. Eventually, the politicians will agree, and decide to enshrine Henry’s pioneering experiment into law as well.

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 will set America’s first minimum wage, make overtime pay mandatory after 44 hours of work, and limit the use of child labor. Two years later, an amendment to this law will further reduce the overtime limit to 40 hours a week—the same standard working week that Henry Ford introduced more than a decade earlier, on May 1st, 1926.

Outro

Next on History Daily. May 2nd, 2011. Almost ten years after the 9/11 terror attacks, Osama bin Laden is killed by U.S. Navy SEALs.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Gabriel Gould.

Supervising Sound Designer Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Rob Cromwell.

Edited by Scott Reeves.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.