The process was perfected bit by bit between 1906 and 1914, not so much as a progressive, systematic plan, but more as a series of desperate expedients to try to keep up with demand. The basic idea of the assembly line—or “progressive assembling,” as it was at first known—came from the movement of animal carcasses through the slaughterhouses of Chicago, which, as has often been noted, was actually a kind of “disassembly line.”
