Practice 2
Henry Ford did not invent the automobile, but he was the first man to mass-produce it, and this made it available to the ordinary man. Many automobiles were being built by the hand at the turn of the century and were much too expensive for all but the wealthy. In 1903 Henry Ford's first mass-produced Model T cars cost $850. By the early 1920s he was able to reduce the price, to $350. Between 1903 and 1927 Ford manufactured 15 million Model T Fords and earned a profit of $700 million. In 1927 he produced his sedan Model A, which was much more comfortable than the open, windswept Model T.
Henry Ford was himself a born mechanic and could build a car with his own hands. So he respected his workers and treated them well. In 1914, when the basic wage for an industrial worker in Detroit was $11 a week, Ford announced that he would pay his Workers $5 a day. Ford believed in the dignity of work, and did not wish his men to become underpaid robots. He also built them a special town on the outskirts of the city.
Exercice 5 La France, qui a inventé la cinématographie en 1895, reste très dynamique dans ce secteur. Berceau du Septième Art, la France demeure une de ses terres d’élection. Le cinéma française continue ainsi à jouer un rôle international reconnu. ll a bénéficié d’un système très complet de soutien à la création, à la production et à la distribution, organisé sous l’égide du Centre national de la cinématographie (CNC). Ainsi la France arrive au troisième rang mondial après l’Inde et les Etats-Unis pour la production de films. Enfin, situation unique en Europe, les films français représentent près de 35% des entrées en salles, ce qui traduit une bonne resistance de la production française face aux films américains, qui ont une situation quasi monopolistique sur de nombreux marches étrangers.