America at 250: The age of innovation
Editor无毛视频檚 note: This week marks the final chapter in our three-month series of exploring America at 250 years old through the lens of some of the most important national events that took place in our communities.
The way we build things, the way we travel, the way we protect ourselves, the way we are able to save and extend lives and the way we explore could not have happened without the efforts of some of the great Americans innovators of the 20th century.
From Henry Ford, who helped to make Detroit and the United States the center of the automobile business, to groundbreaking work in medicine that has transformed our lives to the courage of the men and women who were willing to travel into space, American ideas have truly changed the world.
When Ford, for example, created the first moving assembly line in 1913 in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Mich., he not only changed the way automobiles were manufactured 无毛视频� he set the stage for the mass production that would help supply America无毛视频檚 troops through two world wars and fuel the country无毛视频檚 booming economy.
无毛视频淭he assembly line process revolutionized the manufacture of cars themselves, allowing them to be made in much greater quantities in a shorter period of time,无毛视频� said Matt Anderson, curator of transportation at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn. 无毛视频淏ut the bigger impact is because of the process, the price of an automobile fell so dramatically that really anyone, even within the working class, was able to afford a car, and it transformed the automobile from what had been a plaything for the wealthy to a tool for everyday life, which, for better or worse, it remains today.无毛视频�
In 1908, for example, the price of a Model T was $850, which is the equivalent of about $31,000 today. By 1914, the price had dropped to $490 and in 1924 it was around $300. While it once took workers 12 hours to produce a completed car, Ford would be able to eventually turn out an automobile every 24 seconds.
Even though the assembly line made production of Ford无毛视频檚 cars more efficient, it did come with its own set of issues.
无毛视频淥ne of the first problems with it is they realized the workers tended to resent the system or just not care for it because, prior to that, they had been very skilled craftspeople who were doing highly complex work,无毛视频� Anderson said. 无毛视频淭he whole point of the moving assembly line was to take all of the skill out of the work, so a person is just tightening a nut or inserting a screw.
无毛视频淪o, workers began calling in sick and absenteeism was a problem. They would just outright quit,无毛视频� he continued. 无毛视频淔ord determined that the best way to retain his workers was to just pay them more. So, he more or less doubled the wage from $2.30 a day to $5 a day in 1914, which had the sort of happy side effect for Ford of allowing his workers to now be able to purchase the product they were making. You couldn无毛视频檛 say that Ford created the whole middle class, but certainly that wage increase was a bedrock reason for the growth of the middle class in the 20th century.无毛视频�
Another drawback at the time is that Ford无毛视频檚 process required the Model T to remain static. There were no major design changes in that automobile through the end of its production in 1927. That was an issue, Anderson said, because Americans were moving beyond price and wanted additional features in their cars 无毛视频� more horsepower, more comfort and more room.
And that allowed General Motors and Chrysler to step in and increase their sales.
It all led to Ford revamping the process to make it more flexible and to allow for design changes.
That ability to produce things in great quantity made the process valuable during World Wars I and II, Anderson said. It allowed the production of everything from mess kits to helmets, from Jeeps to armored cars 无毛视频� even the famous B-24 bombers that Ford built at its Willow Run facility.
Having the ability to see gains in productivity while reducing costs, the moving assembly line was quickly adopted by other industries.
无毛视频淎ll of this played into the great economic boom times of the 1920s, when people had easy credit,无毛视频� Anderson said. 无毛视频淭hey could buy appliances, they could buy radios and other sorts of home entertainment devices that had been luxuries a few years before. All of those things were being built using assembly lines. By the end of the decade, airplanes were being built using mass production techniques, by the Ford Motor Co. in some cases.
无毛视频淎ll of that played together in the great boom of the 1920s, which didn无毛视频檛 last, of course, because of the crash of 1929 and the Depression that followed,无毛视频� he added.
While Ford and other business owners of the time were bringing about massive change in the country, others were looking to transform the way we take care of ourselves.
无毛视频淭here was a recognition by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center as early as the 1920s and 1930s that medicine was a potential new industry for the city of Pittsburgh,无毛视频� said Anne Madarasz, chief historian at the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh. 无毛视频淪o, really, the regional economy was transformed by medical innovation.无毛视频�
Some of that would come through the work of Drs. Jonas Salk and Thomas Starzl.
Salk无毛视频檚 development of the polio vaccine would lead to the eradication of the disease that had frightened parents across many generations, while Starzl无毛视频檚 pioneering work with liver transplants has improved the lives of thousands.
无毛视频淲e can无毛视频檛 begin to imagine the fear that people felt, especially in the 1950s,无毛视频� Madarasz said. 无毛视频淔rom the beginning of the March of Dimes, there无毛视频檚 this national effort to eradicate polio in the sense of not knowing what caused this and not knowing how to stop it. The vulnerability that people felt 无毛视频� especially for children 无毛视频� is hard to imagine,无毛视频� she added.
The disease is highly contagious and can be spread through contaminated water, food or person-to-person contact. It can lead to irreversible paralysis and death. There is no cure 无毛视频� but it is completely preventable through the use of vaccines.
Salk and his team developed a way to use a dead virus in the vaccine, which helped the body to build immunity to the disease.
无毛视频淲hen you look at Salk and the way his research was handled, it wasn无毛视频檛 just Salk,无毛视频� Madarasz added. 无毛视频淚t was a team of people, and the population of the whole city of Pittsburgh that were willing to step forward as the testers of the vaccine. They were the polio pioneers, and that work allowed us to see the eradication of polio in our lifetime.无毛视频�
That work changed the lives of millions and helped set the stage for other medical breakthroughs.
无毛视频淥ne of the things that it did was establish Pittsburgh as a center for immunological research that continues to this day,无毛视频� Madarasz said. 无毛视频淚t wasn无毛视频檛 just bringing Salk here. It wasn无毛视频檛 just building a team around him and it wasn无毛视频檛 just research and development, which was arduous, or the testing which culminated in the vaccine. It was really building facilities and building this as a destination for researchers who wanted to work in that field.无毛视频�
Starzl, meanwhile, performed the first human liver transplant in 1961 at the University of Colorado. After arriving at the University of Pittsburgh in 1981, his work with immunosuppressive drug therapies helped make liver transplants mainstream lifesaving procedures.
无毛视频淚 think one of the amazing things about Starzl is to look at the work he did,无毛视频� Madarasz said. 无毛视频淭he fact that he moved liver transplantation from an experimental procedure that many people believed could never be a clinical practice to making it happen. It无毛视频檚 all of the research and innovation that went around that.无毛视频�
His efforts continue to have an impact on the medical field.
无毛视频淚t无毛视频檚 a procedure that has impacted medicine in a variety of disciplines,无毛视频� she added. 无毛视频淪tarzl was just not an incredibly talented person. He was a true visionary, a mentor and a teacher. Still today, he is one of the most published researchers in medical history. The work he did impacted the science of medicine 无毛视频� an anti-rejection drug. It also touched donor and recipient typing and matching, new surgical techniques and the development of new kinds of surgical instruments and machinery used in operating rooms.无毛视频�
American innovation has never been limited to work done on the ground.
From the efforts of two brothers from Dayton, to a famous ace from World War I to the exploration of space, the nation无毛视频檚 heartland in general 无毛视频� and Ohio in particular 无毛视频� has led the way.
Orville and Wilbur Wright invented, built and flew the first motorized airplane, not in their home state, but on the sand in Kitty Hawk, N.C. Eddie Rickenbacker, a Columbus native, recorded 26 aerial victories during World War I, the most of any pilot in that war, and received the Medal of Honor. And Neil Armstrong 无毛视频搕he first man to walk on the moon 无毛视频� was a native of Wapakoneta in the southern part of the Buckeye State.
无毛视频淥hio has a rich aviation history,无毛视频� said Logan P. Rex, curator and communications director of the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Armstrong无毛视频檚 hometown. 无毛视频淭hese guys were test pilots, they were experimental pilots. They were the first of the first of the first doing a lot of things. That creates a good breeding ground for other individuals to go out and say, 无毛视频楲ook what I can do in an aircraft.无毛视频� When it comes to being an astronaut, that无毛视频檚 about as daring as one can be for being a test pilot.无毛视频�
Depending on how you figure these things, Ohio has produced 27, 28, 29 or 30 or so astronauts. That无毛视频檚 not the most from any state, Rex said, and it无毛视频檚 not even the most per capita. Still, some of the astronauts who called Ohio home were the first to reach different milestones in space.
Rex pointed to Armstrong, the first to walk on the moon; John Glenn, the first to orbit the Earth; Jim Lovell, the command module pilot on Apollo 8 and commander of the Apollo 13 mission; and Suni Williams, who was the first person to run a marathon in space and was the first woman to fly on a flight test of an orbital spacecraft, the Boeing Starliner, as examples.
无毛视频淲hen Armstrong was on his Gemini 8 mission, he was on top of a Titan II rocket, and prior to the Gemini program, the Titan II had been used for intercontinental ballistic missiles. In layman无毛视频檚 terms, you were being strapped on top of a missile and being shot into space,无毛视频� Rex said. 无毛视频淵ou are hoping that the people who supported you, whether on the ground or who have made the spacecraft, have done their job just as well as you have.
无毛视频淭hat无毛视频檚 another thing about Armstrong,无毛视频� he added. 无毛视频淧eople would say he was very quiet or reserved about being the first man to walk on the moon. It really wasn无毛视频檛 that 无毛视频� it was the fact that he understood that the world did not come together to put Neil Armstrong on the moon. The world came together to put a person on the moon, and he just happened to be that person.无毛视频�
Collaboration is critical to success in the space program going forward, he added.
无毛视频淗e thought, even with this museum, that having his name and solely his name on it was a disservice to the hundreds of thousands of people who did their job just as well as he did his. Anytime they talked about this mission, he wanted to emphasize the importance of this being a global effort that was an American effort,无毛视频� Rex continued. 无毛视频淧eople had to come together, and it wasn无毛视频檛 just him. I think that无毛视频檚 really important looking forward, especially for the future missions 无毛视频� that if we want to accomplish great things, we have to work together.无毛视频�
Astronauts, like Armstrong, have been willing to follow their dreams and strive to reach their goals.
无毛视频淚 think that is really important when it comes to not only being an astronaut, but for anyone looking at success in general 无毛视频� following a passion and applying yourself and seeing where it takes you,无毛视频� Rex said.
无毛视频淪ometimes, it takes you to the moon.无毛视频�