railroad station, you had to get up before dawn to catch the 9:30 train. two hours, the carriage went creaking down the old, familiar road while the countryside moved slowly past. if you were leaving the farm for good, to go to the city, you had mixed feelings on that long ride to the station. it is not easy to pull up roots and start a new life. use saw the faces of old friends as you passed their houses, waving goodbye, and you felt sad leaving them. but you felt to, how old and tired they looked, locked on the land. wasman looked 50 before she 35. in a way, you were glad you were leaving. schoolhouse and you remembered the long miles you walk morning after morning to get there. get insiderun to before the bell stopped clinging. -- clanging. or perhaps you past the doctor's buggy and you remembered the terrible night your mother laid upstairs sick and the weight for the doctored come. when he finally arrived, there was nothing he could do anymore. after that, you never saw his buggy without wondering whether he got there on time. you past the church, too. but you knew you were not leaving got behind, he would be with you in the days behind -- ahead. still, there were good times to remember as well as bad, and by the time you reached the station you wondered if you are making a mistake. some people might call you a to run off to the city. but they were things you want to do that you cannot do on a farm. if you are interested in machinery or wanted to tinker with injuries that ran on gasoline, the country was no place for you. the train was late, you could have slept another half-hour. you look down the empty tracks, waiting. somewhere out there beyond the horizon lay the city where your destiny waited. ♪ >> the people who lived in the city state in the city. they walked the hard pavements. were well healed, -- cab.heeled, he took a the fastest thing in town was the fire engine. ♪ >> in the good old summertime, the streets were hot. vegetables and people will did under the blazing sun. everybody swell thir --swelter ed together on the cobblestones. uptown lay the ballpark. and if you went for a long boat ride down the bay, you finally arrived at an amusement park with roller coasters. chutes, camels to ride in a real beach where the kids could swim in the ocean. but it took the better part of a back, sot there and you settle for the nearest fire hydrant on your block. bicycles were all the rage. on sunday afternoons, you could pedal past the city limits and see real trees and grass and here bird sing. that was fun. as long as your legs held out, you could go wherever you want to do, right up to the end of the road. town, thes out of pavement ended, and from then on, bicycling was no pleasure. a lot of people accepted the end of the road and turned back. but the bicycle wheels had a greater destiny. in detroit, a man named henry ford, who had left the farm to come to the city to tinker with machinery was making what was called a quad recycle. from asepower would come gasoline engine he made himself. he did everything himself, working nights and holding down a daytime job at the detroit illuminating bunny -- company. to makea long while this machine, but henry ford stuck to it and it finally was ready. one moment this night, he pushed it out for its first trial run. ♪ >> up and down the dark and empty streets he ran, past the dark houses was the shape of things to come. look out thes to window, he probably would've thought he was still dreaming. that night, history was made and the streets were never the same again. it did not happen overnight. the going was rough for those early cars on the american road. we should pause to remember and admire not only the adventurous man who kept on making automobiles but the reckless few who had courage enough to drive them. some people thought that the sale wagon had a more promising future than the automobile. it could hit almost 50 miles per hour if the wheels stayed on. on a public road, it really stopped traffic. ♪ were salutinge the wind blow them in various directions, men like henry ford were putting their faith in the gasoline engine. he built a big one and put it in a racing car called the 999. , was a heavyuge monster and spent most of its time in the shop getting tuned up. nobody at the time probably realized it, that the 999 had a prophetic look. this was no horseless carriage, it was long, low and powerful and built for speed. in a crude but unmistakable way, it forecast the shape of cars to come. 1902, a world record was set in the 999 and ushered in a new era. there was -- the first payroll for the ford motor company did not take much. car of the new company was called the model a, it could go 30 miles per hour. it sold for $850, a lot of money soldose days, and it chiefly to those in the upper bracket. it was smart and fashionably designed with a door in the rear like a pony car. it cranked from the side, a good safety measure to prevent the crank or -- person cranking from being run over if they slipped. the farmer was a forgotten man during this early. -- this early period. he saw occasional cars go by on the road, but these strange mechanical contraptions seemed out of place in the country, they were for city people. he kept on a grooming his reliable horse. appeared.one day, it it was called the model t. it had a four-cylinder, 20 horsepower engine. maybe it did not look fancy, but he could take a beating on country roads and still get to their. -- you there. it was a farmer's car, built by a farmer. there was only one thing wrong with that. a cost $850. millions of citizens looked at the model t and licked their chops. the car there dreams but they could not afford it. back in detroit, henry ford wondered how we could bring the pot -- price of the model t down so that everybody could buy it. he figured the more cars he made and sold, the cheaper he could sell each one. he went to work on this idea. in those days, each car was built from the frame up on stationary wooden horses. there was a different crew for each car, and the same crew stayed on the car until it was finished. that meant duplication of effort and a lot of time wasted. so they tried moving the men from car to car. doh man had a special job to and as soon as he finished it, he moved to the next car and did the same thing there. it was better, but it still took 12.5 hours to assemble each model t. henry ford watched it for a while and had an inspiration. instead of moving the men asked the car, why not move the cars past the men? on one hot, august morning they tried it that way. a husky young fellow put a rope over his shoulder and henry ford called, let's go. ♪ >> at that very moment as the workman again to fasten parts onto the car, the assembly line was born, at technique that would revolutionize mass production all of the world -- all over the world. ♪ ideace they found that the would work, they began to improve it, refine it. ony would roll the chassis the track, pushing it from crew to crew. the more experts they became at this new method, the faster the cars came off the assembly line and prices began to drop. ♪ they tried the same idea on all the various parts of the car and created what was called sub-assembly. one man did one thing and did it perfectly and then passed it on to the next man. minute by minute, production was winning the battle against wasted time and effort. were fed to workman by gravity's lives so they would not have to stop and wait. they put the parts on moving conveyor belts. this was a great step forward because now they could regulate the flow of work and keep it moving at a constant rate of speed. belts grewveyor longer and more complex as they moved to work from place to place in the shop. fantastice masterpieces of planning and engineering. the battle against wasted time -- won.rt was being one ♪ the cars began coming off the assembly line at the rate of one every 40 seconds. what henry ford have foreseen happened. mass production and the assembly line drove the price down from $850 to $300. now everybody could have one. ♪ >> what a wonderful feeling it was to own your own car. the sunday afternoon drive became a national pastime. ♪ >> off you went to visit your jolting youhe car out of your seat every time it hit a bump. mother would keep saying, poppa, don't drive so fast. suddenly met another car coming the other way on those narrow roads, that would stand your hair right up on end.- ♪ >> at first, just being able to drive a car was enough. pretty soon the novelty wore off and people began to get angry at the bad roads. so they started to make the roads better. in every state across the nation, machines and men went to work. ♪ >> the mud gave way to smooth ribbons of pavement wide enough for two cars to pass each other. the roads became longer and pushed out in every direction. t,n every road ran a model panting and quivering, always wanting to go farther. now an interesting thing began to happen. people from the cities began writing out into the country and people from the farms begin going into the city and a whole section of the population began getting acquainted with each other for the first time. no roadmaps in those days. ♪ >> if you got lost, a kindly native would give you directions so complicated you cannot find your way home with a compass. everything was down the road a piece. if you got lost, just stay lost. ♪ >> everywhere you look, you saw the model t, it became part of the american scenery. it took the housewife to market. ♪ it brought the doctor to his patients in time to save their lives. ♪ upit saved time and speeded business. filling stations sprang up by the thousand and a whole new industry in gas and oil was created. not only did it saved time, it gave the average citizen a wonderful new way to spend the time he saved. now for the first time, americans were able to travel inexpensively across their own country in their own cars and see the grandeur of their inheritance. they could visit the great national parks, which had been created for the people, and which so few people have ever had an opportunity to see. ♪ now the whole family could get away from the noise and heat of the city. people could go camping over the weekend and get back to work monday morning with three new to ed energy.renew they can go to the mountains, or if they preferred the beach, it would carry them to the sea's at. -- edge. there were many new images in the people's minds now, things they had seen along the american road. wonderful things they would never have been able to see at all without the motor car. ♪ a new look in people's faces, a look of discovery and wonderment and pleasure. a new world had been opened up for them. ♪ >> the nation took the model t. people make jokes about it but loved it. they said it could go everywhere except in society. ♪ hollywood comedians had a field day with it. ♪ >> the model t was more than an motor car, it was a symbol of the industrial revolution. -- mass production and the assembly line was now able to bring the price down on many products and put them into reach. a created new jobs and higher wages. under this powerful stimulus, the nations economy expanded enormously. the man who is chiefly responsible for this, what was he like? let us take a look at the family album. is at his home. walking with his wife through the garden. laughing with a friend at a cartoon of himself. hishe ice covered pond with grandchildren. is back on the land, tinkering with one of the old steam engines. he was always wondering how we could take the burden of work from a farmer and put it on a machine. maybe it was at times like this that the idea of a tractor came to him. tractor was the realization of one of his oldest dreams. office havinghis a conference. the man who startled the industrial world. , startingfamily scene out on a transcontinental trip in getting a big sendoff. a drive like that was a big event in those days. liked to dance country dances. a grandchild, henry ford the second. babyng his grandchild a bird. still the farmer, teaching his grandchildren to love the soil. otheriversaries and occasions, he would get out the acycle and drive it with his wife. what memories in must have brought back. ♪ gosometimes he liked to camping with his old friends. burroughs and naturalist. he still knew how to swing and ax. cooking,wn ideas about too. a vigorous man with vigorous mind and a healthy appetite. he used to say, you can take the boy out of the country but you cannot take the country out of the boy. whatever he did, henry ford kept a rugged simplicity. burroughs had always looked down his beard at the model t, but finally even he overcame his prejudices. narrator: these are men whose side is changed our way of life and made it better. ♪ theytor: father and son, walk side-by-side reviewing the past, planning the future together. ♪ how quickly it had all happened. in less than 25 years, henry he personified the american credo of individualism and freedom of enterprise. he will long be remembered. ♪ narrator: as the american road became better, the cars that drove along it began to change. they became larger and heavier, the highway had become an extension of the city streets, and people began to demand boulevard comfort and luxury. shock absorbers to the roughness out of driving. ritz, even ae the crystal face to hold a single, elegant flower. ♪ narrator: henry ford sold the trend and began making the lincoln, one of the finest and most luxurious cars in the world. alongside of such grandeur, the old model t began to look more and more like a country cousin. the times had changed, and the car that change them was no longer needed. henry ford decide to stop producing it. million1927, the 15th model t him out of the plant, and the assembly line closed down. from then on, it began to disappear from the roads. as old cars were sent in, they were taken back to the plant. scrapped,they were the steel salvaged or use in new models. ♪ narrator: once in a while, a car , as ifalk at the furnace in an effort to save itself, the model t died hard. began tothe model t fade from the american scene, the emphasis and new direction he gave to our way of life did not stop there. that carriedmentum y 1920's. gat ♪ even the grim depression of the 30's could not stop the powerful forces that had been set into motion. ♪ narrator: the lessons learned from the assembly line in mass production helped us to win a long and terrible war. ♪ narrator: nothing has been able to stop it. , andve kept on working today, this is how the american road looks. the whole nation has become mobile, flowing along over a great network of highways, more than 3 million miles long and constantly growing. the american road has lifted itself high above the muddy ruts of 50 years ago. ♪ has bridgede road the gap between city and country , their ways of life have mingled and both share the fruits of progress equally. machines have taken the burden of the work from the back of the , no longer do the women on the farms grow old before their time. and the people of the cities have been able to move out to quite communities full of sun and fresh air that seemed almost like living in the country. the old country schoolhouse has vanished, and the energy of the children is no longer wasted and walking miles to get there. ♪ the workers today no longer have to live close to the plants that employ them. their home is in pleasant surroundings, and he drives to work. road,car on the american every new building the towers against the sky, is a sign of our progress towards a better way of life, but perhaps the most wonderful thing about the american road is the freedom it gives us. you only have to get in your car and start driving to feel it, the american road, what magnificent distance open up before us as we travel along it. we have come along way since the quadricycle and the model t. these short years, our whole way of life has changed. we have accomplished much, but the achievements to come will dwarf our own. the american road stretches ahead of us towards a new horizon. we are all traveling along that road, all moving ford towards an even better tomorrow. ♪ >> interested in american history tv? visit our website, c-span.org/history to see our upcoming schedule or watch a recent program. artifacts, wrote to the white house rewind, lectures and history and more at c-span.org/history. up next from the international spy museum, the story of slave and revolutionary wars fight games lafayette. general,or a french james lafayette posed as an escaped slave to infiltrate british camps. jamestown-yorktown foundation curator katherine egner gruber describes how the enslaved patient gain the trust of benedict arnold and general cornwallis, and how the information together to help the american cause at the decisive battle of yorktown in 1781. the smithsonian associates and international spy museum