The Model T and Suburbanization
Background Information
The first affordable car for the middle-class buyer was the Model T, manufactured by Ford Motor Co. beginning in 1908. Model Ts were sold locally starting in about 1915, about six years after the first ones rolled off the assembly line in Detroit, Michigan. The last Model Ts were made in the year 1927.
Ford built more than 15 million Model T cars and, at the time, they were part of a revolutionary new business model. Ford lowered a product’s cost and the company’s profit margins in exchange for increased sales volumes. He incorporated the assembly line and methods of scientific time management to increase the productivity of his employees and he was the first to pay his employees $5 a day – about twice the average factory wage. When Model T production started, Ford workers could build a Model T chassis every 12.5 hours. After Ford perfected the moving assembly line, his workers could build a Model T chassis in 93 minutes! MORE
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Newspaper article "18 Stores in Valley Fair's Biggest Preview Opening Starting Thursday," Appleton Post-Crescent, March 9, 1955
Newspaper illustration about Valley Fair's Grand Opening, Appleton Post-Crescent, March 9, 1955
Table, "Automobiles Per Housing Unit, 1960," Facts About Wisconsin's Fox Valley Region, 1960.
Table, "Workers' Transportation to Place of Work, 1960," Facts About Wisconsin's Fox Valley Region, 1960.
Table "Growth of Traffic Vehicles," Appleton City Planning Survey, 1922
Table "Traffic Vehicle Changes in Appleton" Appleton City Planning Survey, 1922
Illustration "Features of a Planned Community," Special Report No. 4, July 1961: A Proposed Land Use Plan for the Fox Valley Region, 1961.
Illustration "Features of a Planned Neighborhood Center," Special Report No. 4, July 1961: A Proposed Land Use Plan for the Fox Valley Region, 1961.
Page From Proposal "Commercial Land Use," Special Report No. 4, July 1961: A Proposed Land Use Plan for the Fox Valley Region, 1961.
Pages from Proposal "Residential Land Use," Special Report No. 4, July 1961: A Proposed Land Use Plan for the Fox Valley Region, 1961.
Illustration "Outagamie County Roads Before and After "Taking" Concrete," How Outagamie County Wisconsin Secured Its Permanent Roads.
Developed by the Outagamie County Historical Society with funding from Cooperative Education Service Agency 6, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, and the U.S. Department of Education. © 2006 OCHS.
