Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 - April 7, 1947) was the founder of the Ford Motor Company and the Henry Ford Company (which later became Cadillac). He was one of the first to apply assembly line manufacturing to the mass production of affordable automobiles. This achievement not only revolutionized industrial production in the United States and the rest of the world, but also had such tremendous influence over modern culture that many social theorists identify this phase of economic and social history as "Fordism." Some credit him with contributing to the creation of a middle class in American society.