Why Detroit Was Once the Richest City in America

In 1950, Detroit had the highest median income of any major city in America. Factory workers bought homes, owned cars, took vacations, and sent their kids to college. This wasn't Wall Street wealth — this was the wealth of ordinary people. Assembly line workers. Machinists. Welders. Detroit was where the American Dream wasn't just a slogan. It was a paycheck. So what happened? How did a modest fur trading post on the Detroit River become the richest city in the most powerful nation on Earth?

In this video, we explore how Detroit's strategic position on the Great Lakes created the perfect industrial hub — with iron ore from Minnesota, coal from Pennsylvania, and Michigan timber all converging at one extraordinary location. We trace the rise of Henry Ford, the revolutionary assembly line, the radical five-dollar workday that shocked the business world, and the Great Migration that transformed the city forever. This is the story of how geography, innovation, and timing aligned to create something unprecedented: a city where working-class Americans lived middle-class lives.

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