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CBS This Morning, director. Ford's Assembly Line Turns 100. Youtube, 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFbsDArAWj8.

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That401ksite, that401ksite.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/FE5C7E9B-71EA-4583-9694-79F77DC71AF3.jpeg.

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Flexible Assembly Systems Inc, director. Fully Automated Assembly Line - Flexible Assembly Systems. Youtube, 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY5s9TAPA-Q.

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Fully Automated Assembly Line - Flexible Assembly Systems

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In modern America, and even other countries, it's rare to find a factory that doesn't feature some sort of assembly line. "On December 1, 1913, Henry Ford installs the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile," (Ford's Assembly Line Starts Rolling, para. 1, 2019). This assembly line allowed for much faster and cheaper production. Since it was obvious these assembly lines were the future of production, companies were constantly looking for ways to improve them. Now there are some assembly machines that are 100% mechanical. Without assembly machines, production would still be slow and expensive. We have these machines to thank for the affordability of the goods we purchase every day.

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On December 1, 1913, Henry Ford installs the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile. His innovation reduced the time it took to build a car from more than 12 hours to one hour and 33 minutes.

Ford's Model T, introduced in 1908, was simple, sturdy and relatively inexpensive-but not inexpensive enough for Ford, who was determined to build "motor car[s] for the great multitude." ("When I'm through," he said, "about everybody will have one.") In order to lower the price of his cars, Ford figured, he would just have to find a way to build them more efficiently.

Ford had been trying to increase his factories' productivity for years. The workers who built his Model N cars (the Model T's predecessor) arranged the parts in a row on the floor, put the under-construction auto on skids and dragged it down the line as they worked. Later, the streamlining process grew more sophisticated. Ford broke the Model T's assembly into 84 discrete steps, for example, and trained each of his workers to do just one. He also hired motion-study expert Frederick Taylor to make those jobs even more efficient. Meanwhile, he built machines that could stamp out parts automatically (and much more quickly than even the fastest human worker could).

The most significant piece of Ford's efficiency crusade was the assembly line. Inspired by the continuous-flow production methods used by flour mills, breweries, canneries and industrial bakeries, along with the disassembly of animal carcasses in Chicago's meat-packing plants, Ford installed moving lines for bits and pieces of the manufacturing process: For instance, workers built motors and transmissions on rope-and-pulleypowered conveyor belts. In December 1913, he unveiled the pièce de résistance: the moving-chassis assembly line.

In February 1914, he added a mechanized belt that chugged along at a speed of six feet per minute. As the pace accelerated, Ford produced more and more cars, and on June 4, 1924, the 10-millionth Model T rolled off the Highland Park assembly line. Though the Model T did not last much longer-by the middle of the 1920s, customers wanted a car that was inexpensive and had all the bells and whistles that the Model T scorned-it had ushered in the era of the automobile for everyone.
READ MORE: The Model T

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On December 1, 1913, Henry Ford installs the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile. His innovation reduced the time it took to build a car from more than 12 hours to one hour and 33 minutes.

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When you think of modern housing, you will almost always picture tall metal buildings. Skyscrapers, is the name we've given these buildings. These buildings weren't always around though.  In the very beginning of the Gilded Age a new, stronger form a steel was created. This stronger steel was very useful for building stronger, taller buildings. These were the first skyscrapers.
Skyscrapers boost the economy because by going up instead of out, you can place more buildings in an area. On top of that, "workers may be more productive in skyscrapers. By clustering workers together, it’s easier to meet face to face. Skyscrapers also have their own restaurants, gyms and cafes – all of which help people meet, do business and exchange ideas, both within teams and between firms. Not surprisingly, the typical tenants in tall buildings are business service firms, for whom face to face contact and local knowledge spillovers are very important." (The economics of Skyscrapers, para 5, 2013). Most companies prefer to work out of skyscrapers because of this. Without the Bessemer steel process we wouldn't have these wonderful buildings.

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7 out of 10 tallest buildings in the Netherlands are constructed after 2000, suggesting that skyscrapers become an increasingly common sight in Dutch cities. And the Netherlands isn't alone. According to Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat , there were 602 buildings higher than 200 metres around the world in Spring 2011, compared with 258 in 2000 and just 146 a decade before.

Very tall buildings thrust themselves into the public eye. Not surprisingly, therefore, skyscraper debates tend to be about the aesthetics or the psychology. The latest glass box is either a ghastly eyesore or a gleaming symbol of modernity and global ambition. Or it's a visible manifestation of the developer's ego/insecurities (think - anything built by Donald Trump).

We know rather less about the economics. Do firms pay to be in skyscrapers because very tall buildings make them more productive? Or just because they want the kudos of the hot address in town? As economists would say - is it an agglomeration effect or a landmark/view effect?

A recent paper sheds useful light on these issues. Hans Koster and colleagues at VU University, Amsterdam take a detailed look at how building height affects office rents. Firms pay more to locate in skyscrapers. With some clever econometrics, Koster and co untangle why.

In theory, there are two reasons for this 'rent premium'. First, workers may be more productive in skyscrapers. By clustering workers together, it's easier to meet face to face. Skyscrapers also have their own restaurants, gyms and cafes - all of which help people meet, do business and exchange ideas, both within teams and between firms. Not surprisingly, the typical tenants in tall buildings are business service firms, for whom face to face contact and local knowledge spillovers are very important.

Second, managers may simply prefer the prestige of a landmark address - and even if it confers no direct productivity benefits, the landmark effects may bring clients in through the door, and help the firm hire from a bigger pool of talent.

Third, skyscrapers may offer astonishing views to its workers.

The researchers test these ideas with data for buildings in three Dutch cities, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht (average height 29 metres). They're able to control for a lot of other factors affecting rents, and make use of information on the local historic built fabric to identify the causal link from height to rent.

The results suggest that firms are willing to pay around four percent more to locate in a building that's 10 metres taller. The 1% of buildings 100 metres or more are 40% more expensive than the 40% of buildings less than 20 metres high. There's little effect for the majority of offices in between.

This non-linear relationship suggests that agglomeration benefits tend to diminish with height, but a landmark/view effect then kicks in for buildings 90 metres high or more. The researchers estimate this as 3-5.5% of rents for 140-meter skyscrapers. It it shown that it is unlikely that this effect is fully due to stunning views, implying that there is a landmark effect.

In turn, this may tell us something useful about skyscraper psychology and aesthetics. Ego-driven as they may be, developers like Donald Trump are providing tenants with something that helps them perform better, as well as look better. And from the developers' point of view, maximum height restrictions - which are in effect in Holland - lead to the under-provision of skyscrapers. Of the dutch cities studied, Amsterdam has the highest and - on an economic basis - would benefit from more tall buildings. Assessing whether the amenity and tourism benefits of the existing skyscape outweigh these height benefits is less straightforward, of course.

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The economics of skyscrapers - Urban Economics

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7 out of 10 tallest buildings in the Netherlands are constructed after 2000, suggesting that skyscrapers become an increasingly common sight in Dutch cities. And the Netherlands isn't alone. According to Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, there were 602 buildings higher than 200 metres around the world in Spring 2011, compared with 258 in 2000 and just 146 a decade before.

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Thecomicnews, https://thecomicnews.com/edtoons/archive/2005/1221/economy/05.shtml, 2005

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Why Build Higher? Real Engineering, Youtube, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qLsPHz_Hr8&feature=emb_logo

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One of the most useful assets to business is the telephone. They and other inventions inspired by them are used daily by millions of companies to communicate across the world. Though there were others before him, "Alexander Graham Bell won the first U.S. patent for the device in 1876. Bell began his research in 1874 and had financial backers who gave him the best business plan for bringing it to market," (Imagining the Internet, para. 3, n.d.). This remarkable device was crude compared to the cell phones of today, but still changed business for the better. Communication time was cut dramatically, making business way more efficient.

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The Development of the Telephone

As with many innovations, the idea for the telephone came along far sooner than it was brought to reality. While Italian innovator Antonio Meucci (pictured at left) is credited with inventing the first basic phone in 1849, and Frenchman Charles Bourseul devised a phone in 1854, Alexander Graham Bell won the first U.S. patent for the device in 1876. Bell began his research in 1874 and had financial backers who gave him the best business plan for bringing it to market.

In 1877-78, the first telephone line was constructed, the first switchboard was created and the first telephone exchange was in operation. Three years later, almost 49,000 telephones were in use. In 1880, Bell (in the photo below) merged this company with others to form the American Bell Telephone Company and in 1885 American Telegraph and Telephone Company (AT&T) was formed; it dominated telephone communications for the next century. At one point in time, Bell System employees purposely denigrated the U.S. telephone system to drive down stock prices of all phone companies and thus make it easier for Bell to acquire smaller competitors.

By 1900 there were nearly 600,000 phones in Bell's telephone system; that number shot up to 2.2 million phones by 1905, and 5.8 million by 1910. In 1915 the transcontinental telephone line began operating. By 1907, AT&T had a near monopoly on phone and telegraph service, thanks to its purchase of Western Union. Its president, Theodore Vail, urged at the time that a monopoly could most efficiently operate the nation's far-flung communications network. At the urging of the public and AT&T competitors, the government began to investigate the company for anti-trust violations, thus forcing the 1913 Kingsbury Commitment, an agreement between AT&T vice president Nathan Kingsbury and the office of the U.S. Attorney General. Under this commitment, AT&T agreed to divest itself of Western Union and provide long-distance services to independent phone exchanges.

During World War I, the government nationalized telephone and telegraph lines in the United States from June 1918 to July 1919, when, after a joint resolution of Congress, President Wilson issued an order putting them under the direction of the U.S. Post Office. A year later, the systems were returned to private ownership, AT&T resumed its monopolistic hold, and by 1934 the government again acted, this time agreeing to allow it to operate as a "regulated monopoly" under the jurisdiction of the FCC.

Public utility commissions in state and local jurisdictions were appointed regulators of AT&T and the nation's independent phone companies, while the FCC regulated long-distance services conducted across state lines. They set the rates the phone companies could charge and determined what services and equipment each could offer. This stayed in effect until AT&T's forced divestiture in 1984, the conclusion of a U.S. Department of Justice anti-trust suit that had been filed in 1974. The all-powerful company had become popularly known and disparaged as "Ma Bell." AT&T's local operations were divided into seven independent Regional Bell Operating Companies, known as the "Baby Bells." AT&T became a long-distance-services company.

By 1948, the 30 millionth phone was connected in the United States; by the 1960s, there were more than 80 million phone hookups in the U.S. and 160 million in the world; by 1980, there were more than 175 million telephone subscriber lines in the U.S. In 1993, the first digital cellular network went online in Orlando, Florida; by 1995 there were 25 million cellular phone subscribers, and that number exploded at the turn of the century, with digital cellular phone service expected to replace land-line phones for most U.S. customers by as early as 2010.

World Changes Due to the Telephone

Within 50 years of its invention, the telephone had become an indispensable tool in the United States. In the late 19th century, people raved about the telephone's positive aspects and ranted about what they anticipated would be negatives. Their key points, recorded by Ithiel de Sola Pool in his 1983 book "Forecasting the Telephone," mirror nearly precisely what was later predicted about the impact of the internet.

For example, people said the telephone would: help further democracy; be a tool for grassroots organizers; lead to additional advances in networked communications; allow social decentralization, resulting in a movement out of cities and more flexible work arrangements; change marketing and politics; alter the ways in which wars are fought; cause the postal service to lose business; open up new job opportunities; allow more public feedback; make the world smaller, increasing contact between peoples of all nations and thus fostering world peace; increase crime and aid criminals; be an aid for physicians, police, fire, and emergency workers; be a valuable tool for journalists; bring people closer together, decreasing loneliness and building new communities; inspire a decline in the art of writing; have an impact on language patterns and introduce new words; and someday lead to an advanced form of the transmission of intelligence.

Privacy was also a major concern. As is the case with the Internet, the telephone worked to improve privacy while simultaneously leaving people open to invasions of their privacy. In the beginning days of the telephone, people would often have to journey to the local general store or some other central point to be able to make and receive calls. Most homes weren't wired together, and eavesdroppers could hear you conduct your personal business as you used a public phone. Switchboard operators who connected the calls would also regularly invade people's privacy. The early house-to-house phone systems were often "party lines" on which a number of families would receive calls, and others were free to listen in and often chose to do so.

Today, while most homes are wired and people can travel freely, conducting their phone conversations wirelessly, wiretapping and other surveillance methods can be utilized to listen in on their private business. People's privacy can also be interrupted by unwanted phone calls from telemarketers and others who wish to profit in some way - just as Internet e-mail accounts receive unwanted sales pitches, known as "spam."

Yet, the invention of the telephone also worked to increase privacy in many ways. It permitted people to exchange information without having to put it in writing, and a call on the phone came to replace such intrusions on domestic seclusion as unexpected visits from relatives or neighbors and the pushy patter of door-to-door salesmen. The same could be said for the Internet - privacy has been enhanced in some ways because e-mail and instant messaging have reduced the frequency of the jangling interruptions previously dished out by our telephones.

Past Predictions About the Future of the Telephone

President Rutherford B. Hayes to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 on viewing the telephone for the first time:

"That's an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?"

Bell offered to sell his telephone patent to Western Union for $100,000 in 1876, when he was struggling with the business. An account that is believed by some to be apocryphal, but still recounted in many telephone histories states that the committee appointed to investigate the offer filed the following report:

"We do not see that this device will be ever capable of sending recognizable speech over a distance of several miles. Messer Hubbard and Bell want to install one of their 'telephone devices' in every city. The idea is idiotic on the face of it. Furthermore, why would any person want to use this ungainly and impractical device when he can send a messenger to the telegraph office and have a clear written message sent to any large city in the United States? ... Mr. G.G. Hubbard's fanciful predictions, while they sound rosy, are based on wild-eyed imagination and lack of understanding of the technical and economic facts of the situation, and a posture of ignoring the obvious limitations of his device, which is hardly more than a toy ... This device is inherently of no use to us. We do not recommend its purchase."

As reported in the book "Bell" by Robert V. Bruce, Kate Field, a British reporter who knew Bell, predicted in 1878 that eventually:

"While two persons, hundreds of miles apart, are talking together, they will actually see each other."

Sir William Preece, chief engineer for the British Post Office, 1878, as reported in "The Telephone in a Changing World" by Marion May Dilts:

"There are conditions in America which necessitate the use of such instruments more than here. Here we have a superabundance of messengers, errand boys and things of that kind ... The absence of servants has compelled America to adopt communications systems for domestic purposes."

AT&T chief engineer and Electrical Review writer John J. Carty projected in his "Prophets Column" in 1891:

"A system of telephony without wires seems one of the interesting possibilities, and the distance on the earth through which it is possible to speak is theoretically limited only by the curvation of the earth."

Carty also wrote:

"Someday we will build up a world telephone system, making necessary to all peoples the use of a common language or common understanding of languages, which will join all the people of the earth into one brotherhood. There will be heard throughout the earth a great voice coming out of the ether which will proclaim, 'Peace on earth, good will towards men.'"

In the 1912 article "The Future Home Theatre" in The Independent, S.C. Gilfillan wrote:

"There are two mechanical contrivances ... each of which bears in itself the power to revolutionize entertainment, doing for it what the printing press did for books. They are the talking motion picture and the electric vision apparatus with telephone. Either one will enable millions of people to see and hear the same performance simultaneously .. or successively from kinetoscope and phonographic records ... These inventions will become cheap enough to be ... in every home ... You will have the home theatre of 1930, oh ye of little faith."
View history of other information technologies: <Telegraph> <Radio> <Telephone> <Television> <Internet>

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The Development of the Telephone As with many innovations, the idea for the telephone came along far sooner than it was brought to reality. While Italian innovator Antonio Meucci (pictured at left) is credited with inventing the first basic phone in 1849, and Frenchman Charles Bourseul devised a phone in 1854, Alexander Graham Bell won the first U.S.

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The History of the Telephone CNET, Youtube, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3RbnsHTuVw

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Lewis H. Latimer,
https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/science-and-technology/alexander-graham-bell/ , 1876