Roadboy Visits The Henry Ford

Like Steam On The Mirror

As I made my way to the Detroit Airport this afternoon I found myself with many hours of time on my hands due to a very long flight delay courtesy of American Airlines. 

It seemed like a perfect chance to veer off the Interstate and go visit Greenfield Village in Dearborn, home of The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.

It was time very well spent in a museum of epic proportions (over 500,000 SF).

The Greenfield Village complex has 250 acres of attractions to choose from. It simply cannot be experienced in a single visit. The complex includes: Greenfield Village; the living history museum Ford meticulously assembled and crafted, The massive Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation,  The Giant Screen Experience and tours of Ford's Rouge automobile assembly plant.

I visited the museum and stunned at the impact just entering this enormous place. As you enter you find yourself looking straight ahead to a DC-3 suspended from the ceiling.  Then, gazing left, I the agricultural exhibit hall with its giant farm equipment. Gazing right brought an immediate chill as I gazed upon a string of Presidential Limousines led by the Lincoln Continental stretch limo President Kennedy's was assassinated in. 

The Kennedy Lincoln

Everywhere you look you find something that draws you in. The museum is filled with nostalgic images and artifacts chronicling American life. 

There is glittering neon and sparkling travel trailers. If it rolls (or flies), or if it is something we all rolled by,  it is probably here.

Iconic Images of Roadside America

 A Ford TriMotor

As you move through you also encounter other treasures; from the bus where Rosa Parks made history to Edgar Allen Poe's writing desk, to the seat Lincoln was sitting in at Ford's Theater when he was assassinated. 

There are giant steam engines presented with almost religious reverence.

Steam Engines Usher In The Industrial Revolution

There are huge railroad trains including the Ford family's personal parlor car.

There is even a complete 1960's era Holiday Inn Motel room just across the way from a fully operating diner. Step in and order a cheeseburger! 

Eat at Lamy's!

There is Mark Twain's drop leaf table and an Oscar Meyer WienerMobile circa 1952. There is even a complete Dymaxion House (sorry Millennials you'll just have to google it).  

R. Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion

This was fascinating to me since I spent many hours absorbing one of Bucky's famous (infamous?) 6 hour live lectures when I was an architecture student at the University of Idaho circa 1977.  We were advised to prepare in advance for the Fuller lecture by bringing food, water and snacks. 

The Dymaxion Living Room

Admiral Byrd's Arctic conquering Fokker is here.

First In The Arctic

This museum is a journey through innovation. It is a celebration of our popular culture. Anyone over the age of 15 will find themselves saying "I remember those!" Or "my father (or grandfather) used to have one of those!". 

This place is a reflection in the mirror for all of us. If you get bored here, you might want to turn off your smartphone and check your pulse.

So how did this amazing place come to be?  Spoiler alert, the backstory isn't all happy. 

Henry Ford was a driven man; a genius. He didn't invent the automobile or the assembly line, but he was the chief innovator of both.  Ford, the industrialist, changed more than industry, his influence changed this nation and the industrial development of the world. 

Ford began his company on a high note, demonstrating respect for his employees in his quest to insure their loyalty. But his love of automation blinded him to the increasingly de-humanizing workspaces he was creating.

And, like many geniuses, Ford personally was deeply flawed. He was openly anti-semitic and a Nazi sympathizer. He sometimes trusted the wrong people as long as they stroked his self-destructive ego. And it was his ego that sometimes drove him to publicly humiliate and degrade those that cared the most for him including his own son Edsel. 

Perhaps Ford's biggest lapse in judgement was the hiring of the former boxer Henry Bennett as his thug-in-chief to keep things in line at the factory. At Bennett's employment interview it was reported that Ford asked him something to the effect of "can you shoot a gun?". 

And, when production pressures increased, Ford looked the other way, allowing Bennett to escalate a reign of terror on the staff Ford had initially nurtured. It all culminated when Bennett combined his security staff with the Detroit Police in an organized attack on Ford workers trying to organize a union. Instead of preventing unionization, Bennett's killings and the well-publicized injuries of Ford workers, provided confirmation of their need for union protection.

As he grew older, whenever human driven challenges developed, Ford simply looked the other way devoting ever more time to his ultimate distraction; Greenfield Village.

Today, Greenfield Village is a national treasure.

It holds up a mirror to America's stunning achievements without ignoring its imperfections.

Don't miss it.

Roadboy's Travels © 2018