Photographic Vertical File Series
The Photographic vertical file series is an assembled collection of photographs from a variety of sources. The series contains both original photographs and copy photographs, covering a wide range of topics.
Scope and Content Note
This assembled collection consists of the most often used images relating to Henry Ford and Ford Motor Company. Started in the 1950s, these photoprints were gathered from larger photograph accessions (particularly Accessions 188, 189 and 833) and from...
MoreThis assembled collection consists of the most often used images relating to Henry Ford and Ford Motor Company. Started in the 1950s, these photoprints were gathered from larger photograph accessions (particularly Accessions 188, 189 and 833) and from miscellaneous sources. In many ways this collection forms a synopsis of the larger Henry Ford / Ford Motor Company photographic accessions. This file contains vintage as well as copy photoprints.
Topics covered include an encyclopedic range of subjects concerning Henry Ford and his family from 1890 to 1955; a broad selection of Ford Motor Company products, buildings, activities, and subsidiaries from 1903 to 1955; and a sampling of automotive industry images other than Ford Motor Company (for views of automobiles other than Ford products see Accession 1671). This collection reflects Henry Ford's wide interests, and includes images of famous people such as actors, authors, kings, and scientists as well as his personal friends, John Burroughs, Harvey Firestone, and George Washington Carver (for Thomas Edison images see also Accession 1630). Henry Ford's interest in historic preservation at Botsford Inn and Wayside Inn also is covered (for images of Henry Ford Museum AND Greenfield Village see also Accession EI 1929).
Some cities and towns are documented in this collection, particularly where Henry Ford's Village Industries, farms and homes were located and the sites of Ford Motor Company plants and branches. Michigan is particularly well represented because of the company headquarters in Detroit and Dearborn. Reflecting the activity of the Ford Archives in the 1950s many views of automobiles on city streets, country roads, and camping from the early decades of this century are part of this collection, gathered for Ford Motor Company's 50th anniversary advertising campaign, "The American Road."
Additional topics include automobile exhibitions, Stout and Ford Tri-Motor airplanes, Ford Tractors and World War I and II defense production. Copy photoprints of graphics such as company advertisements and documents are also in the collection (for the original artifacts see Accession 19 for advertisements, and Accession 1, Accession 62, Accession 285, and other manuscript collections for the documents).
The original subject arrangement was based on an idiosyncratic set of subject headings developed for use with the Ford manuscript collections. Beginning in 1986, the subject terms were changed to reflect Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division standards for subject arrangement. In 1987, a large portion of the photoprints in this collection was cataloged in The Henry Ford's collection management system with a concomitant videodisc made of the images.
The accession was previously known as the Archives Print Collection, the Reference Photofile, the Aircraft Subject Boxes, the Automotive Addendum, and the A Series Prints by Subject.
LessCollection Details
Object ID: 84.1.1660.0
Creator: Ford Motor Company. Archives
Creator Notes: Created by Ford Motor Company Archives
Inclusive Dates: 1890-1980
Size: 53.33 linear ft.
Language: English
Collection Access & Use
Item Location: Benson Ford Research Center
Access Restrictions: The collection is open for research.
Credit: From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Ford Motor Company.
Keywords
United States, Georgia, Richmond Hill
United States, Michigan, Dearborn
United States, Michigan, Detroit
United States, Michigan, Charter Township of Ypsilanti
United States, Michigan, Charter Township of Van Buren
Ford Airport (Dearborn, Mich.)
Hotels (Public accommodations)
Carver, George Washington, 1864?-1943
Edison, Thomas A. (Thomas Alva), 1847-1931
Digitized Artifacts From This Collection
In many cases, not all artifacts have been digitized.
Contact us for more information about this collection.
Automobile Racing--General, 1900-1909--Item 1
Artifact
Photographic print
Object ID
84.1.1660.1
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Automobile Racing--General, 1900-1909--Item 1
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Automobile Racing--Indianapolis, 1911--Item 1
Artifact
Photographic print
Summary
Indianapolis Motor Speedway opened in 1909 with multiple races each season. In 1911 track promoters decided instead to host just one spectacular event each Memorial Day. The inaugural Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, with its $27,500 in prizes, drew 40 qualifying cars and 80,000 spectators. Ray Harroun carried the day with his yellow Marmon Wasp, and the Indianapolis 500 became an American institution.
Keywords
Object ID
P.O.2702
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Ford Motor Company.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Automobile Racing--Indianapolis, 1911--Item 1
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Automobile Racing--General, 1910-1919--Item 1
Artifact
Photographic print
Object ID
84.1.1660.15
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Automobile Racing--General, 1910-1919--Item 1
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Ford Flivver Airplane #1 at Ford Airport, April 12, 1927
Artifact
Photographic print
Summary
This is Ford's Flivver #1, a quick, highly maneuverable plane that created a media buzz when it was demonstrated at the 1926 Ford Reliability Tour. The press called the single-seat plane the "Model T of the air," but it was purely experimental. Ford would never mass produce the Flivver.
Place of Creation
Object ID
P.189.4238
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Ford Motor Company.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Ford Flivver Airplane #1 at Ford Airport, April 12, 1927
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Will Rogers in Ford Flivver Airplane #1, 1927
Artifact
Photographic print
Summary
Popular humorist Will Rogers poses in a Ford Flivver airplane in 1927. The Flivver was Henry Ford's unsuccessful attempt to build a "Model T for the sky," a simple and affordable plane that anyone could fly. Rogers, along with aviator Wiley Post, died in an unrelated 1935 airplane crash in Alaska.
Creators
Object ID
84.1.1660.P.O.1228
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Ford Motor Company.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Will Rogers in Ford Flivver Airplane #1, 1927
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Charles Lindbergh with Curtiss P-1 B Airplane at Ford Airport, August 1927
Artifact
Photographic print
Summary
In August of 1927, pilot Charles Lindbergh flew his Spirit of St. Louis to Dearborn, Michigan. The pair had become famous just months earlier for completing the first non-stop New York to Paris flight. Lindbergh posed in front of a Curtiss airplane at Ford Airport as part of the celebration during his visit.
Place of Creation
Keywords
United States, Michigan, Dearborn
Lindbergh, Charles A. (Charles Augustus), 1902-1974
Object ID
P.189.4594
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Ford Motor Company.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Charles Lindbergh with Curtiss P-1 B Airplane at Ford Airport, August 1927
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Alexander Winton in the Bullet 1" Racer, Ormond Beach, Florida, March 1902
Artifact
Photographic print
Summary
Automotive industry pioneer Alexander Winton promoted his Winton Motor Carriage Company with a series of sleek race cars he named "Bullet." Winton, who drove the 1902 "Bullet 1" himself, set records and made headlines in the United States and Europe. "Bullet 1" was capable of 70 miles per hour or more on a straightaway.
Creators
Keywords
Object ID
84.1.1660.44
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Ford Motor Company.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Alexander Winton in the Bullet 1" Racer, Ormond Beach, Florida, March 1902
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
Ford Motor Company Executives at Launching of Freighter M.S. Henry Ford II, March 1, 1924
Artifact
Photographic print
Object ID
84.1.1660.P.833.36786
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Ford Motor Company.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
Ford Motor Company Executives at Launching of Freighter M.S. Henry Ford II, March 1, 1924
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
William Clay Ford, Age 1, May 1926
Artifact
Photographic print
Summary
William Clay Ford (1925-2014) was Henry Ford's grandson and the youngest of Edsel and Eleanor Clay Ford's four children. He is shown here at age one, probably at his grandfather Henry Ford's boyhood home in Dearborn.
Creators
Object ID
P.O.13143
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Ford Motor Company.
Location
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Get more details in Digital Collections at:
William Clay Ford, Age 1, May 1926
What is The Henry Ford?
The national attraction for discovering your ingenuity while exploring America’s spirit of innovation. There is always much to see and do at The Henry Ford.
