Long ago, most things were made by hand. Cloth was made in small workshops and homes. Then new machines came. They made cloth faster. They needed fewer skilled hand workers.

More people moved from farms to cities. They went to work in the new factories. A factory is where people and machines make things. Workers there make the same thing over and over.

Some British workers lost their jobs to the new factories. They broke machines to protest. They were called Luddites. Britain had plenty of coal and iron. They helped power and build the machines.

Ford's company built the Model T car. His moving line began running on October 7, 1913. It was an assembly line. A car was built step by step as it moved along.

By the end, Ford had built about 15 million Model Ts. The line made them cost less. So most Americans could buy one. A conveyor belt was one way to move things along a line.

Words to know

• factory: makes things
• Luddites: machine breakers
• conveyor: moving belt
• assembly: putting together