Faces of America

     In the movie, Faces of America, I learned a lot about genealogy and the history of immigration into America.  Personally I found the records of entry and the pictures very interesting.  It is incredible how Mr. Gates and his teams were able to retrieve all of this information.  I more specifically learned that Europe contributed to the mass number of immigrants that came to America in the 19th-20th centuries.  I found this movie extremely entertaining and motivating because it emphasizes the significance and importance of your own family's history.

What do you think it means to be a "nation of immigrants"?

"Nation of Immigrants"

     Being a nation of immigrants can be considered both good and bad.  People can claim that we have no true original traditions or originality in general.  Also people can treat us as the greatest and biggest long-term gathering of different types of people.  America is in the making of becoming traditional and unique.  Although if you were to go back and trace the genealogy of every person in the United States, almost none, if any would only consist of only americans.  I believe that being this way is the most significant aspect of our modern culture and our past influences contributing to our modern architecture and many, many currently standing monuments and traditions.  Being a nation of practically no originally, we have done pretty darn good at making it our own.
     It is incredible to think of how millions or people literally dropped everything and left.  This movie and thought has made me totally aware of my connection to my ancestry.  But having all of these driven immigrants, with great new ideas and sights for their and their family's future, is what has shaped our nation and economy up to date.

Henry Ford

Henry Ford in 1888

     On July 30, 1863 Henry Ford was born in Dearborn, Michigan.  His parents, Wiliam and Mary Ford went on to have five children after Henry, but Henry was the first.  As a child his family lived on a farm.  In 1888 he married Clara Bryant.  And it was not even until 1891 that he got his first job.  Unfortunatelly for those three years, his wife and he were not under the best living conditions.  Little did he know, that everything would soon change and he will go on to become the 7th wealthiest human to ever walk this earth.  In 1891, Edison Illuminates Comany in Detroit hired him asa n engineer.  And it did not take until 1893 for Ford to be promoted to Chief Engineer.  This new position supplied the time and money for him to also work on some personal projects and experiments.  And with that time, Henry worked on internal combustion engines, which fascinated him more than anything else.  By 1896 he completed his first big project, the Quadricycle.  It was a self-proppelled vehicle with only two different speeds and no reverse.  The tires were similar to bicycle tires, but were a bit stronger and thicker.  And in 1903, Ford went off on his own and established Ford Motor Company.
     The establishment of Ford's new comapny was an entirely new adventure for him.  It only took five short years for the release of Ford's Model T.  By 1918, half of the cars in America were Model T's.  This fact made his company the largest automobile manufacturer in the world at the time.  But backing up to 1913, Henry Ford introduced a very futuristic invention that influences industry and production up to this date, the moving assembly line.  This new invention reduced assembling time drastically, reduced the cost of his products, enabled him to lower wages, and allowed for the mass production of products.  This invention was a giant contributer to the boom of industry in the early 20th Century and enabled comapnies around the world to mass prduce products faster and for a lower price.

He's got some Swag...

     Throughout the late 1910's and the early 1920's, Henry Ford was working on one his biggest projects ever, the Rogue Plant.  This was the largest industrial plant ever built in the world at the time.  This great, new resource for his research production, perfectly characterized his ideas of mass production.  About a decade later, in 1932, Henry built and released the first V-8 Ford vehicle.  And 15 years later, in 1947, Ford died at the age of 83 in Dearborn, Michigan at his home.

Source(s)
-HFMV