Ford Assembly Line

 Ford tested various assembly methods to optimize the procedures before permanently installing the equipment. The actual assembly line used an overhead crane to mount the body. Henry Ford's production time went from twelve and a half hours to two and a half hours. Which caused cars price that was $900 to go down to $440. Many employees were not happy with the amount of work they were doing without any pay raise. So Henry Ford increased the pay wages to keep  employees happy.

According to Henry Ford:

"The principles of assembly are these:

(1) Place the tools and the men in the sequence of the operation so that each component part shall travel the least possible distance while in the process of finishing.

(2) Use work slides or some other form of carrier so that when a workman completes his operation, he drops the part always in the same place--which place must always be the most convenient place to his hand--and if possible have gravity carry the part to the next workman for his operation.

(3) Use sliding assembling lines by which the parts to be assembled are delivered at convenient distances."

• James Martin Miller; Henry Ford (1922), The amazing story of Henry Ford, M. A. Donohue & co.

• Clymer, Floyd. Treasury of Early American Automobiles, 1877–1925 (New York: Bonanza Books, 1950)

• David Raizman, History of Modern Design, Prentice-Hall

 

References:

William Morris

Morris first repeating wallpaper design was created in 1862, but was not manufacture for the sale till 1864.  Morris had his wallpaper printed by a commercial wallpaper maker.  Morris created his first fabric print in 1868, which he used the ancient technique of hand woodblock printing, over the roller printing.  Morris had spent time at Staffordshire to refine his work of dyeing and experimenting with old techniques and experimenting with new methods.  One of Morris's experiments was reinstating to indigo dye.  The woven fabric's Morris used were sometimes made by machine including intricate double-woven furnishing fabrics in which two sets of warps and wefts are interlinked to create complex gradations of color and texture.  His textile designs are still popular today, sometimes they are re-colored to match current trends.

References:

• Fairclough, Oliver and Emmeline Leary, Textiles by William Morris and Morris & Co. 1861–1940, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1981

• Parry, Linda, "Textiles", in The Earthly Paradise: Arts and Crafts by Wiliam Morris and his Circle in Canadian Collections, edited by Katharine A. Lochnan, Douglas E. Schoenherr, and Carole Silver, Key Porter Books

• David Raizman, History of Modern Design, Prentice-Hall

  
  

Harmony in Blue and Gold

Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room ( 1876–1877) is one of  Whistler's masterpiece art. He painted the paneled room in a rich and unified palette of blue greens with over-glazing and metallic gold leaf. It now is considered a high example of the Anglo-Japanese style. At one point, Whistler gained access to Leyland's home and painted two fighting peacocks meant to represent the artist and his patron; one holds a paint brush and the other holds a bag of money, which is said to represent the fight that had caused Whistler's termination. The contents of the Peacock Room was installed in his Detroit mansion. Now the Peacock Room was permanently installed in the Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. The gallery opened to the public in 1923.

^{Virtual Tour- The Peacock room}

References

• Merrill, Linda, and Sarah Ridley, The Princess and the Peacocks; or, The Story of the [Peacock] Room. New York: Hyperion Books for Children, in association with the Freer Gallery of Art, 1993.

• Merrill, Linda, The Peacock Room: A Cultural Biography. Washington, D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art, in association with Yale University Press, 1998

Louis Prang

Louis Prang (1824 –1909) was an American printer, lithographer, and publisher.  He is sometimes known as the "father of the American Christmas card."  Prang's early activities in the US publishing architectural books and making leather goods were not very successful, and he began to make wood engravings for illustrations in books.  In 1864, Prang went to Europe to learn about cutting-edge German lithography.  Returning the next year, Prang began to create high quality reproductions of major art works.  He felt that chromolithographs could look just as good as, if not better than, real paintings.  The reason Prang decided to take on the challenge of producing chromolithographs, despite criticisms, was because he felt quality art should not be limited to the elite.  Prang also began creating series of popular album cards, advertised to be collected into scrapbooks, showing natural scenes and patriotic symbols.  At Christmas 1873, Prang began creating greeting cards for the popular market in England and began selling the Christmas card in America in 1874.

References: 

•  Bethany Neubauer. "Prang, Louis"; American National Biography Online Feb. 2000. Taber Prang Art Co.

• David Raizman, History of Modern Design, Prentice-Hall

Bendwood chair

Michael Thonet (1796-1871) was a German-Austrian independent cabinetmaker in 1819.  In the 1830s, Thonet began trying to make furniture out of glued and bent wooden slats.  Thonet's essential breakthrough was his success in having light, strong wood bent into curved, graceful shapes by forming the wood in hot steam.  The No. 14 chair is the most famous chair made by the Thonet chair company.  Also known as the bistro chair, it was designed using a unique steam-bending technology, known as bentwood that required years to perfect.  Thonet’s No. 14 was made of six pieces of steam-bent wood, ten screws, and two nuts.  The wooden parts were made by heating beechwood slats to 100 degrees Celsius, pressing them into curved cast-iron molds, and then drying them at around 70 degrees Celsius for 20 hours.  The chairs could be mass produced and disassembled to save space during transportation.  With its affordable price and simple design, it became one of the best-selling chairs ever made.  About 50 million of Thonet's No. 14 chairs were sold between 1860 and 1930, and Chair No. 14, today known as 214, is still produced by Thonet's factory.

References

• Alice Rawsthorn (7 November 2008). "No. 14: The chair that has seated millions". International Herald Tribune. http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/10/style/design10.php.






David Raizman, History of Modern Design, Prentice-Hall

Wedgwood Jasperware

Jasperware is a type of stoneware first developed by Josiah Wedgwood. During his long career Wedgwood developed revolutionary ceramic materials, notably basalt and jasperware. It is noted for its matte finish and is produced in a variaty of different colors, but the best known is a pale blue that has become known as Wedgwood blue. Jasperware is his most successful innovation, was a durable unglazed ware most characteristically blue with fine white cameo figures inspired by the ancient Roman Portland Vase. The most famous artist Wedgwood employed at Etruria was the sculptor John Flaxman, whose wax portraits and other relief figures he translated into jasperware. Along with Wedgwood’s invention of jasperware he also impacted the pottery world by his invention of the pyrometer, a device for measuring high temperatures-invaluable for gauging oven heats for firings, earned him commendation as a fellow of the Royal Society.

References:

•  http://www.thepotteries.org/potters/wedgwood.htm

• David Raizman, History of Modern Design, Prentice-Hall

Michel-Eugene Chevreul

Chevreul has influential in the world of art after being named director of the dye works at the Gobelins Manufactory in Paris. After working at Gobelins Manufactory in Paris he received many complaints about the dyes being used there. The people told him that the blacks appeared different when used next to blues. Chevreul realized that the colors intracting differently depending on the base color. He determined that the yarn's perceived color was influenced by other surrounding yarns, which led to a concept known as simultaneous contrast. Simultaneous contrast identified by Michel Eugène Chevreul refers to the manner in which the colors of two different objects affect each other. The effect is more noticeable when shared between objects of complementary color. 

References:

• Chevreul, Michel Eugène (1855). The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colours, and Their Applications to the Arts (2 ed.). London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.

• David Raizman, History of Modern Design, Prentice-Hall