Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2001. [Vol. 7.] Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 27)
Studies - Sándor Végh: Adoption or Adaptation?: Interpretations of the Automobile
development —was a pioneer in the new consumer culture and manifested the change which the American citizen experienced. Mass production and its technical realization, the assembly-line, had far the greatest social impact on the industrial workers of the era. It proved to be a controversial issue with its enormous industrial success, but serious social consequences and bitter public response. The success was hardly disputable in the light of the rising production curve. It was apparent at the same time that early manufacturers did not consider the human factor of mass production. True, however, that Henry Ford attempted to compensate his workers by paying five dollars for an eight-hour day, but it came at the price of the Ford Company's direct interfering with the private lives of its employees to verify their qualification for this new "profit sharing plan." Mass production caused many changes in everyday life that were perceptible by the mid-1920's. The simplicity of the task the workers had to perform allowed a considerably wider range of possible labor force. In fact, young and energetic people became more valuable workers than their fathers (quoted in Automobile Age 119); therefore, in blue-collar families respect for age, as well as parental authority was undercut. At the same time, since the newly available workers also included women, the democratization of the American family was actually furthered by mass production. On the other hand, from the perspective of traditional American values, the impact of mass production on the worker was disastrous. The slightest chance to become a self-made man, or to move upward socially simply vanished. This social cul-de-sac made the assembly-line worker rightfully frustrated. Flink also points out that the meaning of work "long sanctified in the Protestant Ethic" diminished to mbneymaking at a job was rather a "treadmill to escape than a calling to find fulfillment" (.Automobile Age 120). At the Ford Motor Company workers were already protesting against inhumane working conditions, because they felt that their identity and personality were being oppressed. The assembly-line workers had no chance for social advancement at Highland Park. In this new era and new concept of life with the economic stabilization and prosperity of the country between the turn of the century and 1929 people quickly adopted technological inventions 81
