INQ-110 | The Age of the Model T

Full Title: The Age of the Model T

Topic Description:

What can the Model T Ford, the moving assembly line, and the man who developed them both reveal about how the United States was changing in the 1920s? The Model T, a wildly popular and affordable invention of the 19-teens, symbolizes tensions about the modern world that the nation would be forced to confront in the 1920s. For every seemingly positive development (efficiency, increased production, better wages, freedom of movement, cheaper goods) came troubling consequences (numbing working conditions, corporate interference in workers’ lives, the proliferation of advertising, changing sexual mores, standardization). Henry Ford himself was a walking contradiction, championing modern technology as he longed to preserve a “simpler” American past. In this class we will concentrate on building reading, writing, and critical thinking skills as we explore the tensions of the 1920s from the perspective of the discipline of History.

Counts as Global? No

Topic Approved: February 2016