Vintage photos show what American car manufacturing looked like 100 years ago

In the US, the earliest car manufacturers were metalworkers, blacksmiths, and the makers of bicycles and carriages, according to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

The cars were powered by electric, steam, and gas.

By 1910, Henry Ford had introduced the next model of his in-demand automobile, the Model T, and William Durant had founded his company, General Motors, per History.com.

Henry Ford had big plans for improving how his cars were manufactured, so he constructed a new plant in Highland Park, Michigan, in 1910, helping to establish the state as the industry's home, according to the company's history.

At his plant, Ford innovated mass-production techniques with his moving assembly line, which was first used in 1913.

His innovation was inspired by conveyor belts he'd seen in grain warehouses and assembly lines in slaughterhouses, according to Ford's website.

The vehicle was initially pulled into place by a rope — later, a chain — so the car could be built step-by-step.

With the moving assembly line, his Model T could be built in only 93 minutes, a dramatic decrease from the 12 hours it previously took, according to Ford.

The innovation also made employees' jobs more repetitive and tedious — like those pictured making flywheels — and they began quitting in droves.

In 1914, Ford doubled wages to $5 per eight-hour day, which is about $150 in today's money, per The Bureau of Labor Statistics. This competitive wage and its impact on productivity helped the middle class thrive, NPR reported.

A shorter workday also allowed Ford to create a third shift, and the plant was able to hire more workers and essentially make the company a 24-hour operation, according to Ford.

By 1926, the Ford Motor Company would become one of the first companies in the US to implement a five-day, 40-hour work week in its factories, History.com reported.

Ford halted production of its Model T in 1927, by which time 15 million units had been sold.

By the 1920s, Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors — all founded in Michigan — would be known as the Big Three automakers.

By 1929, the Big Three were responsible for 80% of the industry's output, History.com reported.

By the 1930s, smaller manufacturers were going out of business, unable to keep up with the large-scale production of the Big Three.

Photos from the 1930s show how the production line continued to thrive in America's car factories. That decade, European car makers adopted the same processes.

More than 6 million women stepped up in response to the shortage of male labor during World War II. In the car industry, the population of female employees increased from 28,300 in October 1941 to 203,300 by November 1943, according to The University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Here, workers are putting the finishing touches on the 1947 models of the Mercury, one of three cars made by Ford at the time, at the River Rouge Complex in Dearborn, Michigan.

That year, the company employed over 120,000 people in the US, according to the company's annual reports.

Ford workers in Dearborn, Michigan, are photographed finishing the Custom Deluxe at the end of the assembly line, which could produce 500 cars in a single, eight-hour shift.

In 1955, General Motors, Chrysler, American Motors (Nash-Hudson), Ford, and Studebaker-Packard were making 99.7% of all cars, The Saturday Evening Post reported.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the practice of importing foreign-manufactured cars began to rise. The trend continued through the end of the century and until today, when nearly half of cars purchased in the US are imports from foreign countries, as reported by the BBC.