The Second Industrial Revolution: Expanded Markets, Investment, and Labor - Essay Sample

Introduction

The period between 1870 and 1914 is famously referred to as the Second Industrial revolution. During this period, the country experienced an expanded market for processed goods, ease access to investment capital, and availability of labor from European and African immigrants. The industrial revolution changed the locals' approach to business because of enhanced techniques of production and new labor laws that enabled these businesses to grow from the shadow of large regional economies. The second industrial revolution saw the emerging of great innovations in transport that linked communities that were previously isolated. This paper discusses the innovation of Henry Ford and Madam C. Walker and their contribution to the industrial age.

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Henry Ford

He was born in the year 1863 in Michigan and passed on in 1947, and he is regarded as the greatest American industrialist credited with revolutionizing the assembly line in factory production. His technological innovation rapidly changed the face of transport and impacted reshaped the economic and social direction of the United States from agricultural to industrial.

Henry Ford worked as a chief engineer at Edison Illuminating Company at the time; he is also believed to have started building a horseless carriage that would be powered by gasoline. The quadricycle was completed in 1896 that was made of a bright frame running on four bicycle wheels and was powered by a two-cylinder gasoline machine (History.com Editors, 2019). Over the preceding years, Ford was supported by several investors into forming the Detroit Automobile Company that changed its name to Ford motor company.

In its first month of operation, the company established an eight-horsepower model car in Detroit. During this time, very few cars could be assembled in a day and required about three employees working on it manually. His dedication to producing a reliable and efficient automobile that everyone could afford led him to produce the Model T Ford car in 1908. This car was a success because the orders for the car surpassed the production capacity of the company.

This forced him to acquire innovative techniques that would enable the mass production of these vehicles. As a result, the production time for one automobile was reduced, and the workers' daily wage was also increased (Carey, 2002). The demand for Model T Ford intensified until 1927 when Ford introduced the Model A Ford automobile that had greater improvements such as better brakes and horsepower. Ford was able to open operation plants across the globe as the company became the leading automotive manufacturer.

Model A was not a big success due to increasing competition from other automotive such as Chevrolet and Chrysler. Its production was discontinued four years, opening the way for the introduction of the Ford V-8 engine model. Henry Ford is remembered for his policies of progression towards the minimum wage. He had divergent political views that had him criticized such as his stand against America's involvement in the First World War, and his attempt in elective politics did not succeed. He installed his grandson, Henry Ford II, as the CEO of Ford Motor Corporation in the year 1945 and passed on two years later at the age of eighty-three years.

Madam C. J. Walker

Sarah Breedlove that was famously referred to as Madam C. J. Walker, was born in 1867 in Louisiana. As the descendant of sharecroppers, she worked hard to grow from a farm laborer without education to one of the leading women entrepreneurs of the twentieth century. Orphaned at a young age of seven and got married at fourteen years to escape abuse from a ruthless brother-in-law.

She suffered scalp ailment in the 1890s, a situation that led her to experiment with several medications as she sought for a solution. She started as a sales representative for Annie Malone's hair products before establishing Madam Walker's Wonderful Hair Growers Company that sold scalp healing formula (Gates, 2013). She devised strategies of marketing moving door to door and performing demonstrations in churches and as she expanded, she set up Lelia College meant for training hair culturists.

She set up a company in Indianapolis and a second training school and traveled widely to Central America as well as the Caribbean as she sought to grow her business. She later moved into her New York office in the year 1916 leaving the daily running of Madam C. J. Walker Corporation to Ransom and Alice Kelly (A'Lelia, 1912). As she grew her business, she also took a special interest in Harlem's political life and got directly involved in several movements. She organized the Madam C. J. Walker Hair Culturist Union meeting in Philadelphia as the first meeting of women business leaders, where she not only used the platform to reward her hard-working agents but advanced her activism in politics.

By the time of her passing on, she had helped reshape the twentieth century as a leader in hair care and cosmetics business. She had redefined the black American community standards of giving back and sharing as well as her encouragement to all people in the society to oppose oppression and injustice (Gates, 2013).

The contribution of Madam C. J. Walker and Henry Ford on American road to industrialization was immense and opened the way for many entrepreneurs. Henry Ford supported the progressive improvement of his employees by investing in machinery to ease the workload and advocating for their better pay. He had a strong belief that his employees were his foremost customers. Both Madam C. J. Walker and Henry Ford had strong political views advocating encouraging more black women to take up entrepreneurship as well as participation in social and political events meant to improve service delivery.

References

A'Lelia, B. (1912). Madam C.J. Walker: A Brief Biographical Essay. http://www.madamcjwalker.com/bios/madam-c-j-walker/

Carey, C. (2002). American inventors, entrepreneurs, and business visionaries. New York: Facts on File. https://www.cengage.com/search/productOverview.do?Ntt=the+entrepreneurs%7C1135629938846451551392394684129316753&N=197&Nr=197&Ntk=APG%7CP_EPI&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial

Gates, H. (2013). Madam Walker, the First Black American Woman to Be a Self-Made Millionaire. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/100-amazing-facts/madam-walker-the-first-black-american-woman-to-be-a-self-made-millionaire/

History.com Editors. (2019). Henry Ford. https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/henry-ford