Monthly Archives: September 2012
We get questions from young and old alike regarding our national treasures. Everything from such topics as historic figures: Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and the Wright Brothers, to our historic objects: the Rosa Parks Bus, George Washington’s camping equipment, or the John F. Kennedy Limo, just to name a few. As Research Specialist in the Benson Ford Research Center, it's my job to respond to these requests.
Some of my favorite requests come from elementary students, kindergarten to sixth grade. I personally love working on these inquiries and absolutely love seeing how the information we have is used for so many different projects.
Typically museums can display only a small portion of their collections at a given time, so I am grateful for these amazing questions that lead me to explore objects I have never seen, such as the "Monkey Bar" Diorama (Object ID 15.1.1/THF49084) or Circus Poster, Barnum and Bailey Present "Marvelous Performances of the Troupe of Trained Cats and Pigs," (Object ID 35.784.119/THF81700).
One of our library books is actually among these gems. It’s called Talleyrand Meets the Car Makers. In this circa-1960s book by Ford of Britain, Talleyrand (a very cute toy dog similar to today’s Flat Stanley) goes on tour of a Ford plant to entertain and educate.
#Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford, educational resources, education, childhood, research, by Stephanie Lucas
I spent this summer interning at the Benson Ford Research Center helping the effort to digitize the museum’s enormous collection. When I started working here, I told a friend our collection has more 20 million 2-D objects. They replied, “Wow, that’s a lot of stuff about cars.” Well, we do have a lot of stuff about cars—everything from old concept car drawings to bumper stickers through the ages. But The Henry Ford collection also includes many other objects.The Henry Ford Museum was established in order to collect and preserve pieces of everyday life that would tell the story of America to later generations. In my time as a scanner, I helped to digitize many objects that we are not exhibiting — I helped to prepare these objects for digital exhibition on our website so we could continue to tell stories about the history of America, and not only that, but reach an even wider audience for those stories.
The Henry Ford online collection is a 24/7 digital exhibition of various artifacts from American history that the museum has collected over the years, an exhibit that keeps growing, an exhibit that you can visit any time, anywhere, for free — if you have Wi-Fi. Before working here, I knew the museum’s collection was impressive, but I never understood how big the collection really was. If I were to keep scanning images, adding about 60 new artifacts to the website every day, it would take me over 50 years to finish updating the website — and I’d be old enough to retire.
The collection is not only enormous, it is also incredibly diverse. I have scanned old trade cards, original baseball handbooks, and pictures from events at the Chicago and New York World’s Fairs. This was an awesome opportunity because many of these objects have never been on exhibit in either Greenfield Village or the museum. Working here, I learned more about the museum’s impressive collection, and in the process, more about American history, facts that we often ignore in history courses, the experience of everyday life.
For example, I spent some time scanning albums of the Unser family. I did know about Bobby Unser’s career in NASCAR, but I learned more about his day-to-day life and his relationship with his family — I saw him as a person I could relate to instead of a distant historical figure. I learned about his love of travel, his fondness for deer, and his passion for cooking chili.
Perusing the archives changed the way I think about history — I understand how events and people from the past are similar to my own life. Drawing these parallels makes the past more familiar and helps to explain how and why things have changed. I enjoyed my time working at the museum very much, and I encourage readers to spend some time looking at the online collection, a fun and enriching historical resource.
Keshav Prasad is a sophomore at University of Michigan, and spent the summer interning for The Henry Ford Digitization Project.
#Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford, archives, digital collections, digitization, by Keshav Prasad
Some followers of The Henry Ford’s blog may remember that back in January we told you about our 2012 project to digitize the most “significant” artifacts in our collections. We have been working furiously on getting these artifacts identified and digitized, and while we’re not finished yet, we’ve gotten a lot done, and wanted to share some interesting tidbits about our work thus far.
The basic assignment we set ourselves was to divide the collection into categories, and ask our curators to select the 25 most significant items at The Henry Ford in each of the categories. Though there are many ways one can group items in our collections, for the purposes of this exercise, we chose these groupings:
The curators established lists for each grouping, which was no easy task. Criteria of national significance, uniqueness to our institution, and resonance to museum visitors helped guide selections, but there was still a laborious and sometimes painful process of culling to get down to 25 (or 26 or 27 — a few extras snuck through!) objects in each category.
We also considered the issue of overlap. In the end, less than 10 objects ended up on lists in multiple categories, and where they did, the rationale was very clear. These include the limousine in which John F. Kennedy was shot (which relates to both Transportation and American Democracy and Civil Rights), the Fordson tractor Henry Ford gave to Luther Burbank (which relates to both Henry Ford and Agriculture and the Environment), and a Westinghouse steam engine, pictured below (which relates to both Henry Ford and America’s Industrial Revolution). Most of the overlaps involve Henry Ford, which is not surprising when you consider the origins of this institution.
Another really interesting thing about the lists is that though these are some of our most significant artifacts, not all of the items are currently on public display. The majority of the objects the curators selected are indeed located in the Henry Ford Museum: from George Washington Carver’s microscope, located in our Agriculture exhibit; to the Noyes piano box buggy located in Driving America; to the Jazz Bowl, located in Your Place in Time. A few objects are located in Greenfield Village, including the Edison electric pen, which you can view in Menlo Park Laboratory; and Firestone Barn, which is a building, a working barn, and a significant artifact, all rolled into one!
A number of objects selected live in our archival collections, which may be viewed via a visit to the Benson Ford Research Center. These include two-dimensional objects such as a photograph of the first Highland Park Ford assembly line and Ford Motor Company’s first checkbook.
Other objects are just too fragile to be on permanent display or don’t have a spot in our current exhibits, so The Henry Ford’s collections site is the only place you’ll be able to view them. These include an embroidery sampler from 1799, a gold bugle, and a Moog synthesizer.
One object that made the list, the kinetoscope that Thomas Edison invented to play moving images, is not even in Dearborn at the moment—it is on display at the Epcot theme park at Walt Disney World in Florida. If you have upcoming travel plans that include Epcot, stop by the American Heritage Gallery and say hi to one of our most significant objects!
So what’s next for this project? Well, we still have about 20 percent of these significant objects left to digitize and make available online, and there are a number for which curators are still writing brief descriptions. Once all the objects are online and well-described, we’ll create sets for each category, so you can browse these gems from our collection by the topic they relate to. Watch for a future blog post when this is complete!
Ellice Engdahl, Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford, would definitely include on her personal list of significant collections objects everything from the Rosa Parks bus to the Monkey Bar.
#Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford, by Ellice Engdahl, digitization, digital collections
The Goodwood Revival is world renowned for celebrating the living history of motor sports. One of the great stories of this year's Revival is the 45th anniversary of the Ford Mk IV win at Le Mans. Dan Gurney and A.J. Foyt were the first American drive team and all-American car to win the 24 hours of Le Mans race. This incredible win was supported by the best team in the business, led by Carroll Shelby.
Many obstacles were overcome to win the race, including the failed windshields of the Ford cars, which were cracking just days before the race was about to start. The millions of dollars that Ford had spent to win Le Mans and beat Ferrari were at risk, because the cars could not be allowed to run with damaged windshields. Ford immediately had a new set of windshields made in the United States and flew them all in first-class seats on a commercial airliner to France. Ford then flew in Terje Johansen, a Norwegian glass engineer living in Brussels, to install the windshields to ensure they would not crack again. Terje worked from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. installing the windshields just hours before the start of the race.
The rest was, of course, history.
Today Terje Johansen, pictured on the left and Dan Gurney, pictured on the right met for the first time - 45 years later after the famous win at Le Mans. Terje Johansen brought a set of photographs taken while he was installing the windshields at Le Mans and gave them to Matt Anderson, our Curator of Transportation for the Racing in America archives as part of our Collections to further document the process of innovation in racing.
Christian Overland
Executive Vice President
race car drivers, Henry Ford Museum, Driven to Win, Mark IV, car shows, cars, events, engineering, Goodwood Revival, by Christian W. Øverland, racing, race cars
Here at The Henry Ford, we participate in a lot of car shows. From the events we host here, like Motor Muster and Old Car Festival, to those organized by members of the car enthusiast community, we love to show off the cars in our collection. While our presenters dress the part for events held in Greenfield Village, it’s not everyday that our team dresses the part of a 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans pit crew just to be able to gain access to a car show.
This week our Executive Vice President Christian Overland, Curator of Transportation Matt Anderson, and Conservation Specialist Robert Coyle took a step back to the 1960s and left Dearborn for West Sussex, England, to take part in the Goodwood Revival, a car festival celebrating post-World War II (1948 to 1966) road racing automobiles and motorcycles.
The Revival started in 1995 as a throwback to the original days of racing on the Goodwood Motor Racing Circuit. Races stopped at the track in 1966. Today vintage clothing is a must and you won’t see a modern day car anywhere on site.
Our THF team accompanied our 1967 Ford Mark IV in tribute to racing legend Dan Gurney, who’s being honored at this year’s revival. Dan and his co-driver A.J. Foyt wheeled the Mark IV to victory in the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans. While the Revival allows cars only from 1948 to 1966, our 1967 Ford was considered very important in the celebration of Dan’s achievements and was allowed to be displayed.
A big part of the preparation for the Revival was making sure our team had period-correct clothing to wear on site. Robert and Matt are dressed as 1967 Mark IV pit crew members. Our research team, led by Jeanine Miller, Curator of Domestic Life, used photos from the race to make sure every piece of the outfits was correct. In addition to the photos, our Senior Curator of Transportation Bob Casey spent time talking with Charles Agapiou, a Ford mechanic at LeMans in 1967 to insure the accuracy of the clothing.
What exactly do their outfits look like?
- Burgundy short-sleeve shirt with orange buttons: Matt and Robert’s shirts were purchased from Lands End. But our period clothing department expertly tailored the shirts to recreate the more fitted look of the mid-1960s.
- Blue on a white background Ford oval patch: We had these custom made locally for the work shirts to match the special patches worn at LeMans in 1967.
- White pants: Lands End jeans were tailored to be shorter for a decade-appropriate look.
- Chukka boots: The mechanics often wore these to provide some ankle support.
Christian is dressed as an American businessman traveling with the racing team. Jeanine outfitted Christian in a vintage 60s-era sport coat; new, but decade-appropriate slacks; and a fedora from our period clothing shop. His ensemble is topped off by the classic 60s skinny tie.
For the visitors to the Goodwood Revival, the three-day event is a celebration of an era gone by. We’re proud to be a part of it – hopefully we’ve played the part as authentically as possible!
To see what this weekend's action was like, take a look at their streaming feed.
Henry Ford Museum, Driven to Win, Mark IV, events, race cars, Goodwood Revival, racing, fashion, cars, car shows
