daily life in the united states 1920 1940 by david e kyvig

This practice created a brand new category of sales - the used car. While Ford had built the Model T to stand the test of time, other companies tried to convince people to purchase a new car every few years. Reliability and affordability played a much smaller role in the whole package. New advertising techniques associated a car brand with social status, sex appeal, and power. A redesigned fender or new paint color played into the growing consumerism of the era. “Planned obsolescence” created the impression that a new car was out-of-date within a year of its purchase. The industry began to use advertising to convince people that they needed the latest and greatest new car. But with the new credit plans other car manufacturers were offering, consumers could purchase a more expensive model - with a few “extras” such as electric starters - without increasing their monthly payment by that much. The Model T had been built as an affordable, durable automobile. By 1926, 75% of all car buyers were entering into credit purchase agreements. But instead of getting financing through a bank, they formed the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC). In 1919, General Motors and Dupont introduced the concept of buying a car on credit. A car could be moved from place to place, unlike a house or land. Banks were unwilling to lend money for something that was difficult to seize if the borrower stopped making payments. By 1914 he had reduced the cost to $490, and by 1921 the Model T cost only $310.Īt first, a buyer had to have cash to purchase a car. Instead of a single worker producing a car from beginning to end, each worker would be trained to perform a single task in the process. He came up with the idea of using interchangeable parts on an assembly line. He wanted it to be more affordable, but it still sold for $825.įord began thinking about ways to reduce costs. In 1908 Henry Ford announced plans for his Model T. Even at 40% of the cost of other cars on the market, the $650 price tag was more than the annual income of a middle class family.

In 1901, Ransom Olds marketed his curved-dash Oldsmobile to the middle class. In fact, the industry grew so fast, by 1925 over 10% of all people in the workforce had something to do with production, sales, service, or fueling of automobiles.

In the same time period, the number of cars on the road increased from 8 million to 23 million. In 1918, only 1 in 13 families owned a car. Mass production, combined with innovations in design and sales, drove prices down and made them more affordable. Although the automobile had been invented decades before the 1920s, they were so expensive few people could afford to have one.

Daily life in the united states 1920 1940 by david e kyvig