January 5, 1914: Ford Announces the 8-Hour, $5 Workday

A $5 bill was called a "fiver," and the Model T a "flivver."

January 5, 1914: The Ford Motor Company announces that all of its employees will be given an eight-hour workday, and a daily wage of five dollars. That's about $140 in 2022 money.

This followed, about a month earlier, on December 1, 1913, Ford's introduction of the assembly line for his cars. Henry Ford didn't invent the automobile or the assembly line, but putting them together was a stroke of genius.

I could have added a separate entry for that event, but chose not to, especially since that one didn't have any scores, either.

Henry believed that a man should be paid enough to afford to buy the products he built. In 1914, his Model T Runabout cost $440. At $5 day, one of his employees could afford to buy it in 88 days -- provided he spent money on nothing else. But at $5 a day, $25 a week, $1,300 a year, a Ford employee could afford to buy a new car every year.

Did it work? Absolutely: In just 2 years, Ford's profits doubled, from $30 million to $60 million. By the end of the 1910s, pretty much anybody who wanted to buy a car could afford to do so. In 1927, just as Ford was phasing the Model T out in favor of the Model A, the company sold the one millionth Model T.

Other companies began to see that, if Ford could limit its employees to 8 hours, and pay good wages, and see their productivity and profits increase, maybe they could, too.

Back to 1914: When that $5 a day was announced, it was announced for all employees, regardless of race. As black people were already escaping the poor, segregated South to look for industrial jobs in the North, Ford was paying his black employees the same rate as his white employees. This was huge.

As would later be found out, Ford wasn't so liberal when it came to religion. Or to labor unions.

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January 5, 1914 was a Monday. George Reeves, star of the 1952-58 TV series The Adventures of Superman, was born on this day.

Baseball and football were out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. The National Hockey Association was in business, but it had no games scheduled. Therefore, there were no scores on this historic day.