The American Road

[@pianophilo]

Thanks very much for posting this. I've never seen this film until today - 64 years after my family was featured in the "beach sequence" filmed in February 1953 in Santa Monica. I'm the 5 year old boy running and playing the beach. I remember the experience vividly. So grateful that the film has finally resurfaced - as I thought it had been lost forever. Apparently it was shown widely in public schools during the 50's and 60's. They did an excellent job of integrating the new black and white footage (circa 1953) with the archival footage. The color sequence at the end of the film was added in 1973.

[@Hyprmtr]

Wow that's really amazing! Thanks for sharing!

[@steamdriver6964]

What minute was it?

[@pianophilo]

My segment starts at 23:30

[@archae108]

Nice! What is your favorite type of car? Hot rod, supercar, or performance car?

[@archae108]

Sorry. I just thought that you liked cars, seeing as how you were in a film about cars.

[@Mr19thcenturyman]

I've recently given up my decade long job at an Army Navy surplus store. My new career will be in the field of providing parts and restoration of Henry Fords Model A. One must persue a passion in life for we do not have all the time in the world. Thank you for this vital history lesson. Englewood, Colorado.

[@fromthesidelines]

Originally released in 1953. However, new footage (at 35:09) replaced the original closing scenes when this was reissued in 1973.

[@TimGrimes-q2q]

the newest car i saw was a 73 Mavrick grabber

[@franm.k.5832]

I love these old documentaries. Very interesting. Thanks for posting! I live in a rural area and my neighbors collect vintage cars. They always toot the horn and wave on Sundays when they drive past. We wave too. It reminds me of these old days in this video!

[@kenw.1112]

Yes indeed ! Love these films. They are educational showing the way it was years ago 😊😊😊😊

[@sincityq]

In order to appreciate today, we have to understand and appreciate yesterday. The two, they are connected, as they always have been and always will be. Excellent vid, thanks for sharing :)

[@genespell4340]

There is little in general use today that is not connected to the past.

[@andrewspence3171]

This is a picture of the American way of life. The car made such a difference to many people, changed so much, went so far. Mass production, and the making of parts so accurately that any one would fit another. wonderful commentary, Raymond Massey's voice seemed to carry the feeling of the people of the time. It's important that we keep these documentaries, so future generations can know how things were. Thanks for posting this.

[@barbaraldellinger]

My Uncle, Leonard Davis, restored many of the cars in the museum. He played Henry Ford in some of the scenes because he was the only one who could keep the quadracycle running.

[@hersonlamolli6276]

This history has made me so fortunate to live at this age. The man that changed the world of transportation.

[@shogunMR]

thanks Mr Phil for that history i didnt know all of that. I learn something everyday. thanks my friend

[@VinnyDaQ]

Historical note - there were 9 models made from 1903 to 1908, namely the Models A,B,C,F,K,N,R,S and T. The Model T was made until 1928, when it was replaced by the new Model A (the first modern-style Ford, with the standard accelerator, brake and clutch pedal arrangement still used today).

[@unitedstatesdale]

There were 12 models.

[@internetpuppettheater613]

@@unitedstatesdale what were they?

[@unitedstatesdale]

AE , ⁴ the premodel of the T called FT

[@burken47]

my left ear enjoyed this

[@DalV]

burken47 it’s mono, take off your headphones

[@anom3778]

@@DalV lol

[@Kaniela-xq8vl]

Hahahahahaha 😂

[@o.5193]

really interesting , thank you for sharing

[@kevinmacnally5096]

Raymond Massey (the narrator) was a Canadian and a fine actor, also a member of the Massey Ferguson tractor family His brother Vincent became Governor General of Canada!

[@tluns810]

Thanks, I appreciate the added insight. His voice sounded familiar to many B&W documentary films I seen as a grade school kid in the 60s.

[@HansDelbruck53]

He also memorably portrayed Abe Lincoln.

[@hyzercreek]

Note at 18:17 he steps over the door because only the passenger door opened, the drivers door was painted on and didn't open.

[@genespell4340]

If memory serves me correctly, the vehicles were built that way with the safety of the driver in mind. Basically the belief was that the drivers would get hit by passing traffic. If anyone knows different, please comment about it.

[@hyzercreek]

@@genespell4340 That's not the reason. The reason is, when cars came out the road was still full of horses and horse poop. You step on the sidewalk, you don't step in the road it was all horse poop.

[@KingOFuh]

This was Robert Downey, Sr's first professional credit. He is one of the camera operators.

[@kevinloving5688]

32:40 To fix one of those Model Ts especially the one on the wrecker hook Henry was right mechanically those Model Ts still ran just they just needed some body work.

[@brianshoubert7803]

God bless the he American Road!

[@genespell4340]

You can thank General John J. Pershing, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

[@TimGrimes-q2q]

nice, great to see the cars from 1970, I was 5 yrs but i knew my cars back then

[@mariekatherine5238]

A stage of road development was skipped, that of oil drippings to semi-waterproof them and keep the dust and mud at bay. Unfortunately, this resulted in oil getting into the water table in some areas, and has largely become illegal in most places. I remember tar and bluestone chip roads very well. The road outside my home was paved this way every three years. The tar made a mess on the undercarriage of your car and we kids tracked it inside the house on our shoes. I also recall picking blobs of it to use as chewing gum. It had a unique taste, a cross between medicine and liquorish. My grandmother saved it up in glass medicine vials, balls wrapped in waxed paper, and used as a stomach and sore throat remedy. She also mixed it with camphor and spread it on boils to bring them to a head. Once a small area of pus could be seen, she’d take a sterilized needle and drain them before applying a little more beneath a white cotton gauze or flannel. We were then made to drink a half cup of spruce tea, morning and evening until the wound was healed. I don’t recall anyone ever getting sick or a worse infection like cellulitis forming.

[@genespell4340]

5/14/23. How y'all didn't get some sort of cancer from chewing tar like chewing gum is beyond me. My maternal grandmother used saccharine which is a byproduct of coal tar which can be turned into an oil and other products. I believe it caused the cancerous tumors that took her life.

[@Nexfero]

I cant believe the SAIL WAGON didnt take off... 9:47

[@soavioes153]

Great documentáry , Very interesting.

[@manfredrange5127]

all bias aside,...this is indeed a cleverly made film, which is probably one of the best historical automotive accounts. fanciful. stirs the creative imagination!

[@pheidgerd60]

+Manfred Range I whole-heartedly agree! I was born in 1960-- It makes me remember how wonderful the time I was fortunate enough to "get in on" at the last minute-- How great a time it was. Many of us knew it back then, and certainly, with a twinkle in our eyes, KNOW IT NOW! Look at where we are NOW. HOW SAD!!!!!!!

[@Stal_Wolf]

I've scrolled and yet no one in the comments section noticed that Robert Downey is one of the cameramen for this

[@pianophilo]

Robert Downey Sr. not Jr.

[@THRASHMETALFUNRIFFS]

Didn't you see Madonna hollering at her husband when they were lost at that intersection in the country?!

[@homersharp7567]

Awesome footage.

[@lw4268]

"Edsel" Ford. I was one of the few people (just a kid) who really liked (and still do) the Edsel when it debuted in the late 50's. A marked difference from the run-of-the-mill Ford and classier than any model Mercury offered (Lincoln Continental excluded). "Edsel" was the "White Elephant" vernacular voiced in the 1960's and 70's.

[@mikeadrover5173]

As always, thanks’ for taking the time to make this video! ~M~

[@kamenjapipoussa9594]

Poulailler

[@garymorris1856]

Very interesting and well-presented, and a fine job of narration by Raymond Massey.

[@steves7896]

"......but you knew you were not leaving God behind, he would be with you in the uncertain days that lie ahead." Wisest statement in the whole of this.

[@bux49]

I don't know what all the fuss is about? My Grandpa told me when he was a young fellow in Arkansas he would go work on farms bringing in crops. Sometimes he would be the only white fellow there, as it was a Black owned farm. The Black ladies would cook the supper for the men and Grandpa would sit and eat right along with the men and he said it was the best food he ever had. No one thought anything about the color of peoples skin, maybe because my Grandpa was as poor as the other men? This was during the Depression. One time we traveled to Bentonville, Arkansas in 1961 to visit my Dad's Aunt. It was still a small place as Sam Walton had not really done more then his dime stores. My Dad was born there. One day Dad and I were walking down the street. Two Black fellows were walking towards us. As we passed each other they stepped off the curb and into the street. After we passed they returned to the sidewalk. I was puzzled, growing up in Southern California I had never experienced such a thing. Dad told me that is how it was there. Behind my Dad's Aunt's house lived a black family. The husband shined shoes in the town. One of the few black businesses at that time, maybe the only one? I was told when he passed away he owned most of the downtown shops. I don't know if that was true or not? I won't tell you the name people addressed this man as. It was right at the start of the Freedom Riders through the South. A side note. During the Civil War outside Bentonville there was a battle that kept Missouri from leaving the Union. It is called the Battle of Elkhart Tavern and Pea Ridge. Our relations owned the Tavern. About 1983 my wife and I traveled to Nashville, Tennessee. As we drove from Illinois we traveled through some very beautiful country. We stopped in a small town as they were having a tobacco festival . We parked and walked into the main square. There was a museum so we decided to see what was inside. To our shock it was a museum honoring the Night Riders the forerunners of the KKK. Even the horses had hoods on and robes. In the town there seemed to be an invisible line that separated the Black part from the White part of the town. My wife had never been exposed to such a thing. Wonder if it is still like this?

[@samseale2071]

R. Johnson a

[@fayazahmed9074]

R. Johnson I'm from Pakistan by profession I'm a technologist and history is also my favourite subject this is why I like such documentaries, I read your comment one thing I noticed that there is still a worm excite in the minds of confederates that is racism if you have not read the civil war history ( war against and in favour of slavery ) so I'm telling you that the feudal confederate south was so badly defeated by industrial north, that the southern can not wash the black spot of that defeat on their forehead till day of judgment. I salute to General Sherman who burned down Atlanta and give humiliating defeat to southern states whose believes on racism and slavery.

[@coloradostrong]

@@fayazahmed9074 LOL. Go cry to those slave owners in Afrika right now. Slaves were and still are being caught by their own race- blacks. And go ask the jews how much money their ancestors made on the ships they owned that carried slaves around the world.

[@little442]

Henry Ford got the idea for the assembly line after touring the Oldsmobile plant in 1901. Olds had the assembly line going two years before the Ford Motor Company was created

[@thatsmrharley2u2]

The assembly line and the first use of mass produced parts was first done by Col. Colt at the Colt Firearms factory in Hartford CT. He and Eli Whitney Jr. came up with the idea of interchangeable parts.

[@T-41]

Meat packers in Cincinnati in the middle of the 19th century used conveyors to transport hundreds of thousands of animal carcasses from work station to work where workers removed the different cuts of meat.

[@servicarrider]

Henry Ford never did have an idea for the assembly line. An employee of his saw the disassembly line in a meat packing plant and simply reversed the process, Ford had nothing to do with it. Actually the assembly line goes back to ancient times.

[@genespell4340]

​@@T-41and create carpal tunnel syndrome.

[@genespell4340]

​@@thatsmrharley2u2Eli Whitney came up with the idea in 1798 and started the mass production of muskets. Samuel Colt knew a good idea when he saw it and ran with it with the help of Elisha K. Root.

[@jerrywatt6813]

My dad and my uncle drove from Oklahoma to LA in the 30's in a model a it took a month due to bad roads and flat tires and break down! Now you could do it in hours !

[@alexander1485]

Mrs. Ford was the woman, since she got Henry to switch the steering wheel from the right to the left. :D

[@Hogger280]

It must be noted here that Henry Ford did NOT invent the assembly line, he merely adopted it like most of the ideas that went into his cars. The gas engine was already two decades old when he built his first car.

[@shogunMR]

Henry Ford your the Man plain and simple

[@Baldwin587]

24:43, Harold Llyod, "Get Out and Get Under"!

[@pheidgerd60]

+Baldwin587 Boy was Harold Lloyd FUNNY?!! I love the New York 1928 ditty on KZbin... Hah!!!! I watch it now and then when I need a quick pick me up!!!!

[@kfl611]

Baby Henry sure looked happy.

[@VinnyDaQ]

Is it just me, or does Raymond Massey remind anyone else of the guy from the old Pepperidge Farm commercials? "Ayyuh, Pepperidge Faaaahm remembaaahs !! "

[@TheMaxundmoritz]

Ford gave us the Bronco. Where would O J Simpson be today without one?

[@bwanabwana9523]

Maxundmoritz Hautala , OJ would have had to walked all the way to the switchblade knife store and then walked all the way to his ex wife's house so he could kill her and her new WHIMPY boy friend !!! 😂😂😂💃💃💃

[@drivin379]

In a blazer

[@kamararat7552]

can not belive it how the world changed to this where we are now in during 100 years,wish i was born that time .easy life,2020

[@frequencyfluxfandango8504]

Hey I thought it was some American fire arms company that first thought of the production line idea..Colt was it ? -or Remington maybe ? It was a rifle maufacturer anyway, and not Henry Ford with a rope over his shoulder Haha.

[@roberthaworth9097]

The firearms firm was the first to offer interchangeable parts. The guns were still hand-assembled, in workshop fashion. Ford used both -- interchangeable parts and the conveyor belt.

[@christophermapes5176]

The firearm idea only went as far as interchangeable parts, Eli Whitney also invented the cotton gin. But interchangeable parts were not put together in a production line system. It only allowed one part to be used on all the rifles so each rifle didn't have to be hand made from scratch.

[@ogarnogin5160]

People have been mass producing things since before they invented the reusable mold

[@RobfromPortland]

Neat movie, but it sure makes Henry Ford to be some sort of a god among men.

[@pheidgerd60]

+Rob from Portland ...And many of us thankfully already know that he was NOT! I agree.

[@walkerbelle]

Just think, in just a brief 100 years that 1915 Ford went from $300 to $30,000 in 2015. Talk about greed for the almighty dollar! My 1,860 sq. ft. home only cost me $22,500 in 1980 & that same home sold for $235,000 in 2005. This is total insanity for sure!

[@TheMaxundmoritz]

There is a 2000 year old network of roads in Asia and Europe built by the Romans. It has been paved over and can be used to drive astounding distances today. BTW it carries the designation of nr.95.

[@1N73RC3P7OR]

It's called "inflation", buddy. Every currency has it, not only the dollar. It is standard.

[@geraltrivia951]

Much more profitable to take 50 years of work from everyone as opposed to just 5. 10x as profitable in fact!!! Lovely money!

[@coloradostrong]

@@1N73RC3P7OR Yes, and _who_ is the cause of _inflation._ Any _small hats_ come to mind? Usury is what it is called. On worthless paper and metal money. Usury, instituted by _the small hats._

[@rollingstopp]

Hey Henry quit tinkerin with that thing OK Maw

[@luisnitro91]

American Road, traveling to a better tomorrow? What ever happen to us?

[@KillroyX99]

Good show. It is fairly easy to do this, but they left out the importance of the bicycle as the gateway to the automobile. Most of the technology for early cars and even planes came from bicycles including the assembly line. The first assembly lines were for the Bicycle Craze of the 1890's. One of Fords partners was a professional bike racer which was much bigger then baseball basketball and football back then. The Leave of American Wheelmen (cycling) were the ones that started road paving. Look up the Good Roads Movement. I don't blame thembecaus a lot of history leaves out these facts.

[@JimmyKraktov]

Food production was done on an assembly line long before there were automobiles. So were many other products.

[@jonnygarland4741]

I don't know who made this but really is so true how it really was back in the old days

[@seannillson2126]

Super! Jätte intressant.

[@jasoncarpp7742]

Fascinating history.

[@Modeltnick]

These were great films! So much great history!

[@homegrownson]

It was either Oldsmobile or Buick that had first Assembly line for Autos, Not Henry Ford, he like many others Edisin and Bell Stole ideas using connections in patent office to do so

[@CamaroAmx]

Also ford wasn’t not only not first person to make an automobile, he didn’t even popularize it. Benz and Daimler came up with the first patented automobile (though automobiles were invented in the early 1800s). All ford did did was to sell it cheap enough that not just the rich could afford it. And olds and Buick didn’t invent the assembly line. They borrowed it from the industrial meat factories that used the assembly line years prior and it probably goes back even further in other industries. Nothing is really new. Just a modernized (for whatever time) version of old ideas.

[@hugglescake]

At 21:04 it appears that a car in the background is speeding by.

[@lassenforge7648]

He's my hero.

[@Monnie6677]

Lieber Stefan, vielen vielen Dank für dieses und die anderen Videos von dieser Baustelle, weil meine Mama wohnt in einem davon und ich wohne im Ausland....das zu sehen hat mich zu weinen gebracht... dort bin ich aufgewachsen,das war mein Spielplatz...das ist echt toll das ist es jederzeit wenn ich Heimweh habe anschauen kann... jetzt ist alles fertig gebaut und sieht total anders aus... vielleicht könntest Du das auch aufnehmen.... before and after.. Vielen Dank ❤

[@lassenforge7648]

You can run a Model T into a block of explosive shit, and it would come out on top. I've driven mine into situations a modern car would NEVER survive, and yet, 100 years old, it STILL kicks butt, Tell me another machine 100 years old that can do that.

[@covvie]

Not the *first* Model A. It came out in 1903. They worked down the alphabet to the T. They re-set things in 1928 going to the new A, then B/V8, then forgot about letter designations.

[@anthnylder8136]

im only thirteen. i hate the modern world, why cant we just go back to when life was slow, happy, and valuable?

[@bux49]

When I was a little boy and we visited my Mom's family in Illinois it was real different then California even in the 1950's. My uncles lived out in the country side. No inside bathroom they had an outhouse. No running water. They would send me out to the well and I would pump the water out of the well. There was a tin can kept there with water in it to prime the pump. I had, and still have it, a Daisy BB rifle. I'd shoot birds all day long. the farmers didn't like the birds as they ate the seeds. We'd stop in Texas and my Dad would buy fire crackers and cherry bombs. For 2 weeks there was a battle going on at my uncles with me setting off fireworks. However, on the 4th of July we would only light railroad flares as the local Sheriff would set across the road from uncles place. Now on the 5th of July back to fireworks. One time one of the local kids and I were hanging around together. He had a paper route and he asked me to come along with him. The first house we came to he walked up, opened the door and walked in. I was shocked! He laid the newspaper on the coffee table, no one was home, and we left. I said he'd never do that in California. That was the way he did his route and didn't know what I was talking about. We did have a farmer chase us out of his new plowed field. Believe it or not things have changed to some extent back there today. My cousins don't have a dog on their farm anymore because it might bite someone and they could be sued. My cousins farm was started in 1865. They never locked their doors until lately, never had to. My uncle passed away in 2005. He left me his house. I sold it to a neighbor on a hand shake. No escrow, no realtor, no inspections. The local realtor told me to go to Walmart and get a for sale sign. Put it in the front yard and see what happens. The place sold in 5 days. I came home and in a week a certified check came from the neighbor for the full price we shook hands on and the lightening rod off the roof. That's country folks.

[@davidmaslow7473]

Great stories below!

[@davidmaslow7473]

I meant above!

[@gojoe283]

This video is sponsored by Ford. At the beginning, it appears to be a film made in the 1930s or so, but the ending, which features Ford's latest 1971 models, shows it's more modern. And,isn't Ford's Deaborn address, "The American Road?"

[@Dr.Pepper001]

"You can get a Model T in any color you want...as long as it's black." -- Henry Ford

[@msharmony2001]

Just down the road where the red barn used to be.

[@nojunkwork5735]

Ransom Olds created the auto assembly line, not Henry Ford.

[@groovygames3114]

Ford created the moving assembly line

[@wolfpak8228]

Sweet little buggy car

[@ronaldclark2624]

The good old days, thank you! When most Americans still did what was right and Law Enforcement and the courts punished Evil doers. Ron PTL USA

[@stevehartman1730]

I like films like this

[@이남순-t9t]

very interesting thanks a lot

[@EricJamesHanson]

The cars at the end are nearly all 1971 model Ford Motor Company Products, ranging from the Pinto to the Continental Mark III, and everthing in between.

[@repairdrive]

Back when they used to put the credits at the beginning. 😬

[@netshell]

That's why I like human beings they try to solve the problem

[@Cudesnik666]

Some districts in Russia still looks as USA one hundred years ago. Come to us for real off-road. :-)))

[@سبيسفريم]

علم الانسان ما لم يعلم صدق الله العظيم

[@coloradostrong]

حصلت على أي جذابون هناك?

[@danc.2457]

22:42 , Don't feed the Bears !!! ... lol

[@the308capital]

Back when America still looked ahead to the future optimistically. What's happened to us?

[@knighttuttruptuttrup8518]

I wish I knew, it seems everything is being intentionally destroyed from within these days.

[@andyharman3022]

I saw this film in elementary school in the early '70's. Since my dad was a faithful GM guy, I scoffed at the way the film made it seem like the Quadricycle was the first gasoline car.

[@JeffDeWitt]

I didn't get that impression, just that it was the first Ford, and it led directly to the Model T.

[@andyharman3022]

That was just my impression when I was 10 years old. I've learned some things since then.

[@cbgreenbay]

Sounds a little like Raymond Burr to me.

[@fromthesidelines]

Wrong Raymond. It was Raymond Massey, distinguished actor- famous for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" (1940), and later known as "Dr. Gillespie" on "DR. KILDARE" (1961-'66).

[@chinabluewho]

1:39 I wonder how many kids today will recognize what that small house out there was XD

[@carywest9256]

If you're talking about what's in the background of the man chopping wood. That's a outhouse, otherwise known as a dungheap!

[@DyedPlays]

I have a 1932 ford model t in my neighborhood

[@steves7896]

No you don't.

[@highwatercircutrider]

Definitely a mistake to leave a ‘good’ farm for any ‘crap hole’ city !

[@crispchaos]

The guy feeding the bear from his car like it was a dog was grizzly man's dad.

[@Kevin-jb2pv]

29:28 "That's... Edison, in the background." Oh, yeah, just _that_ guy. NBD. The announcer seemed reluctant to name drop, too lmfao.

[@tonyaxeman4381]

It is sad to know that Henry`s first car got lost thru time.

[@shogunMR]

yesss lol good old Ironside

[@Kevin-jb2pv]

21:43 "I gotta get to Mr. Jones right away or he could die! Oh, let me tip my hat to the passing lady, priorities."

[@saketroy7914]

My left ear loved this video

[@stevenroberts970]

The horseless carriage was coming without the discovery of oil . So but i fink they could do so much more nowadays to improve the situation if it looks like a model t but with modern hybrid engines n etc restricted to forty five mph maybe

[@rollingrecords9019]

As Americans through taxes we all paid for the road system we have today

[@lassenforge7648]

So who did this??? Eli Whitney did the first assembly work in the 1850's with his cotton gin... Henry went to a cattle slaughter house, and saw that disassembling beef was relayable to assemblying cars... it was a success that EVERYONE stole, but he realized, like a cow carcass he could build a car like a cattle was disassembled, This is kind of cool and the model T tech is part of building cars in the 2020s because without the connect between breaking down cattle and building cars, our cars today would be in the 100K range,,, and he put 1+1 together and made it happen. When you drive your 2025 Ford cars, remember THEY put YOU on the path to the future.

[@rdrogel]

The year is actually 1973.

[@keithneely3276]

The Model A was after the Model T

[@mamz1404]

اللهم صل وسلم وبارك على عبدك ورسولك محمدﷺ

[@oldsjetfire8975]

Alot of wrong information in this video. Ford did not invent much of anything. Olds was the first car in the USA and Olds had the first assembly line. Ford was the first to patent it but the idea came from Oldsmobile. An Olds worker quit and went to Ford and give Ford the idea. Olds did not patent it because that was just how it was done.

[@JimmyKraktov]

The assembly line was alive and doing well long before autos. Canning plants, dairies, etc all had assembly lines. They were nothing new to Olds, or Ford.

[@RobertGuidry-f3f]

A mile a minute. Wouldn't that be worth 60 miles an hour? (Signed-Richard.)

[@sandypoint63]

everybody's a critic.

[@superlegoboysz]

Thats it Sail car.

[@john48132]

This America is now a past talk

[@johnnyhawkins43]

Ford is good!

[@JamesWylde]

Holy mid roll spam Batman!

[@Nexfero]

lol they are feeding a Black Bear from their car at 22:46

[@TestECull]

Huh. A silent movie eh.

[@JeffDeWitt]

No it's not, KZbin has audio problems at times, try a different browser. I usually use Chrome but when a video doesn't have sound I'll try watching it again in IE and it almost always works.

[@CENTAURE1312]

Henry Ford, l'inventeur de l'esclavage moderne.

[@shogunMR]

whats funny is as i was reading this my dad says hey thats Raymond Massey..