Herman Miller and The Henry Ford

The Henry Ford and the Herman Miller Furniture Company have a long history together. Artifacts made by the renowned company hold a prominent role in our collection and on the museum floor. Numerous acquisitions and donations by the company have made The Henry Ford is one of the primary holders of objects and archival materials related to Herman Miller products and projects.

In 1988, the Herman Miller Furniture Company established the Herman Miller Consortium to share the historical product collection that had been accumulating as part of Herman Miller’s corporate archives in Zeeland, Michigan. Herman Miller approached The Henry Ford due to its focus on innovation in America, an interest in design processes and prototyping, and the societal implications of manufactured products. The collection contained approximately 800 pieces of furniture as well as a large quantity of product literature. Instead of all this material going to just one institution, twelve additional art and history museums were chosen due to their proximity to Herman Miller manufacturing facilities. These 13 institutions now make up the Herman Miller Consortium. A database was created in 2004 that provides searchable records of all furniture collectively held by these 13 consortium members.

The Henry Ford welcomed the Herman Miller Collection (89.177) in 1989, which includes several hundred pieces of furniture and components, as well as hundreds of archival documents, such as advertisements, postcards, trade catalogues, product manuals brochures, and hangtags. Additional donations from the company followed, including a large acquisition of material related to designer Alexander Girard in 1992, called the Girard Fabrics Collection (92.48), and in 2005, the Aeron Chair Presentation Collection (2005.92.19). Building upon these donations from Herman Miller, curatorial staff at The Henry Ford have since acquired artifacts and collections related to the company’s designers, including archival collections like the Bill Stumpf Papers (2009.141), the Robert Propst Papers (2010.83), individual artifacts like the Prototype Eames Fiberglass Chair and the Kiosk From IBM Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair — and even an entire exhibit, Mathematica: A World of Numbers and Beyond…

Included in the donation of the Bill Stumpf Papers (2009.141) are the personal and studio libraries of Stumpf. These collections include more than 1,300 titles that were used by Bill Stumpf in his design work, as well as titles that were related more to his personal interests. The libraries together give a holistic look into Stumpf’s research practices and inspiration.

While some of this material has been digitized and is searchable in our Digital Collections, much is not. Researchers interested in specific topics related to the company’s history should reach out to research.center@thehenryford.org for additional assistance.

Charles and Ray Eames — perhaps more than any other designers — came to symbolize the ideals of modernism to the American public. A husband-and-wife design team, they founded the Eames Office in 1943. Their early venture to create a complex-curved plywood chair in a single shell led to the development of numerous groundbreaking furniture forms. But they weren’t only furniture designers — together they designed everything from buildings to toys and films to museum exhibits.

Isamu Noguchi was a Japanese-American designer working in product and furniture design, lighting, sculpture, and landscape architecture. Over the course of his six-decade career, Noguchi was driven to synthesize the traditions and materials of Japanese culture with the clean-lined abstractions of modernism. His belief that “everything is sculpture” and that objects should exist as part of a “total environment” led to an impressive roster of commissions for fountains, public art, parks, playgrounds, gardens, and stage sets. In 1937, he styled the Zenith “Radio Nurse” receiver — the first baby monitor. His collaboration with Herman Miller began in 1947 with the creation of the iconic glass-topped “Noguchi table,” which remains in production today.

Bill Stumpf specialized in ergonomic chair and seating design. From 1970 to 1973, Stumpf served as Vice President of the Herman Miller Research Corporation in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He later shifted into a role as an independent contractor with the company. In 1976, Stumpf’s created the first ergonomic office chair, the Ergon. Some of his best-known work for Herman Miller was co-designed with Don Chadwick, including the Equa (1984) and Aeron (1994) chairs. In collaboration with Chadwick, Stumpf also contributed to the Metaform project, which used Universal Design principles to create home and hospital furniture that would allow people to age in their own homes. With Jeff Weber, he designed the Embody chair and served as principal designer of the Ethospace office system with Jack Kelley.

Don Chadwick is one of the noted Herman Miller industrial designers, responsible for projects like the Ergon and Aeron chairs in collaboration with Bill Stumpf, as well as the Chadwick Modular Seating system and the Ethospace system. The grandson of a cabinet maker, Chadwick credits his grandfather with his own interest in working with his hands rather than being “a numbers guy.” His interest in furniture was sparked in college after attending a lecture by Charles and Ray Eames. After graduation, Chadwick worked for architect Victor Gruen, where he continued to develop his signature style of structured, innovative designs that value form just as much as function. While many of his designs were produced in partnership with Herman Miller, Inc., today, Chadwick maintains his own design studio — Chadwick Studio — in Los Angeles, where he continues to produce new work.