WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

They're not craft projects made by buggy makers anymore.

They're industrial production.

Long before Toyotathon, people went crazy for the Model T, how Henry Ford forged the auto industry

and changed American life forever.

It's Friday, March 20th, and this is here and now anytime from NPR and WVR.

I'm Chris Bentley.

Today on the show, more than 50 years ago, a groundbreaking musical helped redefine the face of Broadway.

It's not only a show of Black America at the time, but it's also a show about the African

diaspora.

We are continuing our look at 25 objects from the Smithsonian that helped tell the story of America.

And The Whiz is part of that story.

Also, a part, is the first ever mass-produced car, the Model T.

It's hard to imagine America today without thinking of cars, for better or worse.

And that's why a 1926 Model T now sits in the Smithsonian's collection, which we are checking in on every other Friday

in this podcast. Indira at Lachmanon took a field trip to the museum to see it up close, though

I'm pretty sure she took the Metro to get there.

I'm here at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History with curator Kathleen France. And we're looking at the

1926 Ford Model T Roadster. So Kathleen, in the early 1900s, there were hundreds of small

companies who were making small numbers of cars for rich Americans. But suddenly, Henry Ford

changed the game with the Model T. Explain to us how he did

that. He invents what becomes called Fordism, which is thinking about how to make these cars,

...