The Henry Ford
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Henry Ford (also known as the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village) is a collection of museums and attractions located in Dearborn, Michigan, USA. Named for its founder, the noted automobile industrialist Henry Ford and based on his desire to preserve items of historical significance and portray the Industrial Revolution, the property houses a vast array of famous homes, machinery, exhibits, and Americana.
Henry Ford said of his museum:
- "I am collecting the history of our people as written into things their hands made and used.... When we are through, we shall have reproduced American life as lived, and that, I think, is the best way of preserving at least a part of our history and tradition...."
History
The original name for the complex was "The Edison Institute", which was dedicated by President Herbert Hoover to Ford's longtime friend Thomas Edison on October 21, 1929 – the 50th anniversary of the invention of the incandescent light bulb. Of the 260 people in attendance, some of the more famous were Marie Curie, George Eastman, John D. Rockefeller, Will Rogers, and Orville Wright. The dedication was carried on radio with listeners encouraged to turn off their electric lights until the switch was flipped at the Museum.
The Edison Institute was originally composed of the Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village, and the Greenfield Village Schools (an experimental learning facility). Initially, Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum were used as a laboratory for the school which included practical work in the machine shops. Admission to the Village was free to the public for the first few years. By 1937, the school had 300 students ranging from kindergarten to college age. The last original school on the grounds closed in 1969 although informal community education classes and school field trips continued. The Henry Ford Academy opened in 1997 and is now a 400-student secondary level charter school with admission open to all county residents by lottery. Students have classes in a glass-walled section of the Museum, a converted carousel building and in Pullman cars on a rail siding, feet away from the active Village railway.
Lovett Hall in the complex is a formal dance hall named for Henry Ford's dance master Benjamin Lovett. Ford was interested in saving the dances of his youth in the age of jazz and made contra dancing required for his executives and for the Village school students. Local public school students were also taught with 22,000 participating at the program's peak. Contra dances occurred monthly at the hall until early 2005.
The Henry Ford is still closely tied to the Ford family which still provides museum board members and the Ford Motor Company which cooperates with the Henry Ford to provide the River Rouge Plant factory tour and is a sponsor of the school. The Henry Ford is sited between the Ford test track and several Ford engineering buildings with which it shares the same style gates and brick fences.
Exhibits
Henry Ford Museum began as Henry Ford's personal collection of historic objects, which he began collecting as far back as 1906. Today, the 12 acre (49,000 m²) site is primarily a collection of antique machinery, pop culture items, automobiles, locomotives, aircraft, and other items:
- a nuclear-powered Ford Nucleon automobile.
- an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.
- President Kennedy's Death Car, a 1961 Lincoln Continental.
- the rocking chair from Ford's Theater in which President Abraham Lincoln was shot.
- George Washington's camp bed
- Thomas Edison's alleged last breath in a sealed tube
- Buckminster Fuller's prototype Dymaxion house
- the bus Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on, leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott
- Igor Sikorsky's prototype helicopter
- Fokker Trimotor airplane that flew the first flight over the North Pole
Greenfield Village is considered the first outdoor museum in America. Nearly one hundred historical buildings were moved to the property from their original locations and arranged in a "village" setting. The museum's intent is to show how Americans lived and worked since the founding of the country. The Village includes buildings from the 17th century to the present, many of which are staffed by costumed interpretors who conduct period tasks like farming, sewing and cooking. A collection of craft buildings such as a pottery, glass-blowing shop, tin shop provide demonstrations while producing materials used in the Village and for sale. The transportation system provides rides by steamboat, horse-drawn bus, steam locomotive, and authentic Ford Model Ts. Greenfield Village has 240 acres (970,000 m²) of land of which only 90 acres (360,000 m²) are used for the attraction, the rest being forest, river and extra pasture for the sheep and horses.
Some of the most notable homes and buildings include:
- Noah Webster's Connecticut home.
- the Wright brothers' bicycle shop from Dayton, Ohio.
- Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratory from New Jersey.
- Henry Ford's birthplace
- Harvey Firestone family farm
- William Holmes McGuffey's birthplace
- Luther Burbank's office
The Ford Rouge Factory Tour is a first-hand journey behind the scenes of a modern, working automobile factory. Boarding buses at the Henry Ford, visitors are taken to the River Rouge Plant and Dearborn Truck Plant – an industrial complex where Ford has built cars since the Model T and which once employed 100,000 people.
Behind the scenes, the Benson Ford Research Center uses the resources of The Henry Ford, especially the photograghic, manuscript and archival material which is rarely displayed, to gain a deeper understanding of American people, places, events, and things.
The museum also features an IMAX Theater, which shows scientific, natural, or historical documentaries; as well as major feature films.
