Explaining the growth of Detroit 1701-1950

Explaining the population growth of Detroit, 1701 - 1950s.

There are many reasons to explain the population of Detroit grew between 1701 and 1950. These factors also explain why growth during the 18th century was slow and why the growth accelerated quickly during the 19th century and during the first half of the 20th century.

Between 1700 and 1800 the area around Detroit was a frontier area and still being explored. Settlement and population growth took off after 1830 as the rich natural resources of the surrounding area were recognised and exploited. Detroit became the city that serviced this area and the people. The big growth trigger during the 1850-1900 period was the Industrial Revolution, with its new technology having an impact across North America. Manufacturing in the Detroit area developed and grew rapidly.

Several factors led to the development of manufacturing

Factors that led to the growth of Detroit

Detroit had a favorable location partway between the east coast of North America and the interior of the continent. This helped the city grow as a trading centre that connected the interior of the continent with the east coast and then via the Atlantic Ocean with the rest of the world. Also, the city site next to a large navigable river gave the city access to the whole Great Lakes waterway system. Canals were built connecting up the Great Lakes with the St Lawrence Seaway, giving Detroit direct access to the Atlantic Ocean and making it an important seaport and trading center.

The area around Detroit had a lot of resources and raw materials such as timber, copper, iron ore, coal and lead. Water transport as well as overland transport made these raw materials accessible to Detroit. As settlements and farms in surrounding rural areas grew, so the farm produce of livestock and grain began to be shipped through Detroit along with the timber and mineral resources. These natural resources also began to be manufactured in Detroit. Early manufacturing used timber as the raw material to make ships, railway wagons and carriages. After 1850, as the impact of the Industrial Revolution took hold across the USA, business people with money and ideas set up businesses in Detroit. The city became a centre for paint and soap making (chemical industries) and of cooking stove and steam engine manufacture (metal-based industries). Steelworks soon set up in Detroit as well. Detroit for a while in the 19th century was the shipbuilding capital of the USA.

The growth of manufacturing in 19th-century Detroit meant the city developed a skilled manufacturing labour force and also became a place of wealth and innovation. A momentum of growth (cumulative causation growth cycle) became established. By the end of the 19th century, Detroit was thriving and the growth momentum continued into the 20th century.

The Ford Motor Company was set up in the city in 1903 by Henry Ford, who was an entrepreneur, i.e. a small businessperson with a new idea who was prepared to take on the risk of trying out the idea. The result is financial wealth if the product is successful, but financial ruin if it does not sell. Ford's idea was to mass produce cars on an assembly line. Production of the Model T began in Ford's factory in 1913. General Motors and Chrysler soon followed Ford's lead and also began using the assembly line method to manufacture their brand of cars. The city became the auto capital of the world. In the 1930s, Ford alone employed 100,000 workers. Linked industries producing car components like tyres, spark plugs, drive shafts and windscreens set up in and around Detroit.

Workers and whole families migrated to the city in huge numbers from across the USA and the world. Between 1910 and 1920, the population of the city doubled from 465,000 to over one million people. Poverty, unemployment and a struggle to survive in the rural Southern states of the USA and the destruction caused by World War One in Europe acted as push factors for people. Pull factors, especially unemployment and a chance to become wealthy, attracted thousands of workers to move to Detroit. Detroit was seen as a city of opportunity and a city of prosperity. People saw a move to Detroit as a 'move to the Promised Land'.

THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE MIGRATED TO DETROIT BETWEEN 1910 AND 1930

The Depression years of the 1930s slowed the growth of the city as factories produced and sold less and unemployment rose. World War Two led to a revival in Detroit as the auto factories switched their production to the making of jeeps, tanks and aircraft for war use.

After World War Two, in 1945 and into the 1950s, full production began again in car manufacture and other industries as wealth grew and American families had money to buy the ever-increasing range of consumer products available. The new-model cars rolling off the assembly lines were in big demand. New highways were built across the city and were linked to the fast-expanding national highway network. In the mid-1950s, Detroit was described as the 'most modern city in the world, the city of tomorrow'. It may have seemed this way at the time but the rot soon set in, and the 1950s became a time of transition from a growth city to a decline city.

LINKED INDUSTRIES IN CAR MANUFACTURING