1913 Society (3)

Society

1913. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics computes its first monthly Consumer Price Index to help determine the fairness of wage levels.

1913. The first diesel-electric locomotives go into service in Sweden. Diesel-electrics will generally replace steam locomotives.

1913. New York Evening Sun reporter John Henry Mears circles the world in a record 35 days, 21 hours, 31 seconds.

1913. Russian aeronautical engineer Igor Sikorsky builds and flies the world's first multimotored aircraft. He built a prototype helicopter 4 years ago.

1913. Lord Northcliffe of the London Daily Mail offers a 10,000 pound prize for the first nonstop transatlantic crossing by aeroplane.

1913. The assembly line introduced at Ford Motor Company, October 7, reduces the time required to assemble a motorcar from 12.5 hours to 1.5 hours. Factories producing a wide variety of products will convert to assembly line production. The line will revolutionize much of industry, but increase worker boredom and permit industry to hire unskilled and semiskilled workers at wages lower than those of skilled workers.

1913. French Protestant missionary-physician Albert Schweitzer founds Lambarene Hospital in French Equatorial Africa.

1913. New York public relations pioneer Ivy Ledbetter Lee persuades John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to travel to Colorado and speak personally to the miners, an act that improves relations between the Rockefeller family and the outraged strikers.