The history of LGBTQ+ activism in the United States is long. For the past century, the struggle for equality has taken many forms and faced many challenges, as the LGBTQ+ community have fought for their rights and their lives.
Illustration, "We're Here. We're Queer. Get Used to It!," circa 1995 / THF627364
Inspired by the developing gay community he encountered while working in Weimar Berlin, in 1924 German immigrant Henry Gerber legally incorporated the first homosexual organization in the United States — the Society for Human Rights. Black clergyman John Graves served as the organization’s first president. The society would exist for only a year before being forced to collapse due to lack of membership and legal prosecution, but during its short tenure, it published two editions of its “homophile” (an early activist term for “homosexual”) newsletter, Friendship and Freedom.
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The current What We Wore exhibit in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation presents a variety of prom dresses dating from 1960 to 2006 — and uncovers the stories they tell about this important rite of passage.
Proms are a much-anticipated milestone for many teenagers. High school students dress up in their most glamorous formal clothing to enjoy the much-anticipated event — an occasion guaranteed to create special memories.
For teen girls, especially, choosing the perfect dress is key to the experience! Weeks before the big event, what to wear becomes the hot topic of conversation at school and with friends. Traditionally, young women wear evening gowns — the hunt may involve a trip to local stores, searching online retailers, or even having a dress custom made. For young men, it’s simpler — they usually rent a tuxedo.
Continue ReadingThe world’s expert on diners shares his start, describes his discoveries and explains his connection to The Henry Ford.
By Richard J.S. Gutman
My half-century immersion in the world of diners began with poached eggs on toast in the middle of the night at Bud’s Diner, hard by the railroad tracks, in Ithaca, New York. It was 1970, and I was on a break with classmates from an all-nighter at Cornell University’s School of Architecture. Seeking sustenance, I substituted a swiveling stool at the counter for an equally uncomfortable drafting stool up on the Arts Quad.
Photo by John Baeder
An authentic diner — a long, low structure built in a factory and hauled to a site equipped with cooking equipment, dishes and silverware — is a particular type of informal lunch counter restaurant, which in its heyday during the 20th century frequently appeared to be like an immobile railroad car, but a resemblance was the only connection to a train.
Continue ReadingHistory is often defined as a continuous, typically chronological record of important or public events or of a particular trend or institution. To this, Henry Ford would say “History is bunk.” Why would he say that? Because to him, history was more than stories or dates in books, famous pieces of artwork or even collections of the wealthy. History was much, much more. He felt, as many of us do today, that history is how people live and work every day and connect to the world around them, and that it can be kept in many different formats, from written to oral traditions.
With this mindset, Henry Ford sought a way to teach about everyday life. He did so by not only collecting the objects you can see in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation or Greenfield Village but by setting out to collect memories. This was done by instructing museum assistants H.M Cordell and J.A. Humberstone to create a questionnaire. In 1929, this questionnaire would be sent to people who were 75 years or older, Ford being 65 years of age himself at the time.
Continue ReadingJapanese design was a major influence in the development of American modernism, often referenced as inspiration for architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius and other early modernists. But it wasn’t just Japanese motifs that were influential. Many prominent Japanese American designers were active in the 20th century and were responsible for designing everything from the World Trade Center in New York City (Minoru Yamasaki) to the monitors kept in a child’s bedroom (Isamu Noguchi).
The following highlights a few of the Japanese American designers whose work is held in The Henry Ford’s collection.
Isamu Noguchi
IN-50 table for Herman Miller, designed by Isamu Noguchi / THF186033
Isamu Noguchi was born in 1904 to an American mother and Japanese father in Los Angeles, California. Noguchi spent his childhood in Japan and his adolescence in rural Indiana. He attended the Interlaken School in La Porte, Indiana. The school emphasized both craft and industry — a tension Noguchi would work within all his life, sometimes moving toward handicrafts and other times toward mass production and new technologies. After graduating from high school, he worked for the sculptor Gutzon Borglum (best known for his work on Mount Rushmore) for a short time and then enrolled at Columbia University in New York City as a premedical student. Simultaneously, he took classes at the Leonardo da Vinci School of Art under Onorio Ruotolo. He soon quit university and committed to life as an artist. He encountered the modern abstractionist sculpture of Constantin Brancusi in 1926 and traveled to Paris the following year to work in Brancusi’s studio. In the following years, Noguchi created sculptural busts on commission and worked in industrial and packaging design to make a living.
During World War II, Noguchi was exempt from incarceration in one of America’s 10 internment camps because he lived in New York City (and Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced internment of people deemed a threat to national security — typically Japanese Americans — but only those who lived on the West Coast). However, Noguchi voluntarily entered the Poston War Relocation Center in Arizona in 1942 with a goal to help his community. He remained for two years and remarked, “Thus I willfully became part of humanity uprooted.”
Noguchi was prolific and utilized a variety of mediums throughout his career. He designed furniture and lighting, like the Noguchi Table for Herman Miller and the electrified sculptures known as his Akari lamps. He ventured more fully into mass production and industrialization with the striking design of the molded Bakelite Radio Nurse — the first baby monitor. And he experimented with sculpting environments, from stage sets to installations, as well as public parks and playgrounds. Noguchi died in 1988 at the age of 84. The Noguchi Museum in Queens, New York, preserves and amplifies his legacy.
Ray Komai
Side chair for J.G. Furniture, designed by Ray Komai / THF199350
Ray Komai was a Japanese American designer who worked in furniture, graphic, textile, interior and exhibition design. Komai was born in 1918 in Los Angeles, California, and raised there. He attended the ArtCenter School from 1936-1941, learning from architects and designers like Richard Neutra, Frank Lloyd Wright and Kem Weber, who were part of the faculty during Komai’s tenure. In 1942, he and his wife, Harumi Kawahara, were forcibly relocated to the Manzanar War Relocation Center, a central California internment camp. While interned at Manzanar, Komai worked in the Industrial Division, designing children’s toys. During the 1940s and 1950s, Komai worked with and for many of the industry’s leading businesses, including CBS where he focused on graphic design for trade periodicals and brochures.
Komai’s best-known works today are the textiles and wallpaper for Laverne Originals and L. Anton Maix and his chairs for J.G. Furnishings. These objects were celebrated at the time of their design too — two of his textiles were selected for the Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) Art in Your Life exhibition in 1949, and his chair designs were selected for MoMA’s Good Design exhibition in 1950. He went on to become an associate art director for the prestigious publication Architectural Forum and designed over 30 of the magazine’s covers during his tenure. In 1963, Komai joined the U.S. Information Service to design graphics and exhibitions and left the United States for the following two decades, perhaps a contributing factor to his lesser-known status today. He held postings in India, Europe, Japan and the Soviet Union, helping to explain American values abroad through his design work. Upon his return to the United States, he further proved his design versatility and worked in book design. Komai passed away in 2010 in Switzerland when he was 92 years old.
Tomoko Miho
Herman Miller Inc. Library Group Trade Catalog, designed by Tomoko Miho / THF147737
Tomoko Miho (neé Kawakami) was born in 1931 in Los Angeles, California, to a family of florists. Not only did her parents own a flower ship in Los Angeles, but her aunt owned one down the street from her parents and her uncle owned a flower shop in nearby Glendale. She recalled that “it was a wonderful way to grow up, seeing flowers all the time and watching how my parents arranged them in the shop.” But their world was disrupted during World War II, when the family was forced to move to the Gila River War Relocation Center, an internment camp located on a Native American reservation 50 miles south of Phoenix, Arizona.
After their release, the family moved to Minneapolis, and Miho enrolled in high school, where she began coursework in art and design. She received a full scholarship to the ArtCenter College of Design in Los Angeles, where she graduated with a degree in industrial design in 1958 and met her husband, James Miho. She worked as a packaging designer for Harley Earl Associates before moving to New York City and was then hired by the prominent designer George Nelson in 1960. As the graphic designer (and later colleague of Miho) John Massey stated, Miho was “a master of the dramatic understatement.” Her designs are masterfully well-balanced and serve well their primary purpose — conveying information.
Miho worked for the Nelson office until 1965, eventually becoming head of the graphic design department. She then she worked for the Center for Advanced Research and Design In Chicago, before she and James began their own firm under the name Miho Associates. In 1982, she started Tomoko Miho Design to continue her work. Miho passed away in 2012 in New York City.
Katherine White is the curator of design at The Henry Ford.
To celebrate the completion of another six months of work on our 2022-2024 IMLS Museums for America Collections Stewardship Program, the Conservation staff are showcasing some standout objects we have conserved. We are now in the second year of a two-year project to conserve, rehouse, relocate and create fully digital catalog records for 1,800 objects related to agriculture and the environment that have resided in the Collections Storage Building. Many of these objects will be used to support our Edible Education and Green Museum initiatives.
Stop by the back of the museum, near the steam engines, to peek through the Conservation lab windows and see what staff are conserving.
The first object is a declaratory or advertising artifact for Dr. W.E. Coomer Dog and Cat Hospital, circa 1920. Dr. Ward E. Coomer (1883-1963) was a veterinarian in Bay City, Michigan.
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Henry Ford Trade School students eating lunch, May 24, 1937 / THF626068
Feeding students. It sounds like a one-way street. Food arrives. Cooks prepare it. Students consume it. But evidence in The Henry Ford collections confirms that students played an active role in growing food, planning menus and preparing lunches. They assumed the responsibility for feeding themselves.
The following overview of student-food interactions confirms the central role that school gardens played in educating students about food. The German province of Schleswig-Holstein engaged teachers and students in hands-on, garden-based agricultural education as early as 1814. The Swedish parliament called on teachers to establish and maintain gardens with their students in 1842.
Continue ReadingRelevancy Remains
In Your Place in Time, guests explore past technology, examining how it connects generations both present and absent
By Kristen Gallerneaux, curator of communications & information technology and editor-in-chief of digital curation at The Henry Ford.
Since 1999, visitors to Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation have experienced the Your Place in Time exhibit — and have increasingly found it challenging to find their place within it. The original concept for this exhibit was to use artifacts and immersive vignettes in such a way that our guests could learn how everyday technologies shaped the social and cultural values of various generations that came of age in the 20th century. Your Place in Time addresses five such moments: the Progressive or “Greatest” Era, the War or “Silent” Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers and the Next Generation — now more commonly referred to as millennials.
But how does this exhibit remain relevant, given the fact that we are now almost two-and-a-half decades into the 21st century? And how does it serve visiting Gen Y millennials and Gen Z “zoomers,” born on the cusp of the two centuries? Or even more so, the current generational cohort — born between the early 2010s and mid-2020s — that social researchers have dubbed Generation Alpha?
Continue ReadingKaysera Stops Pretty Places, a member of the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Tribes of Montana, should turn 23 this year. Like many other Indigenous women and girls nationwide, Kaysera went missing and was found murdered, with no one held accountable after almost five years.
Kaysera Stops Pretty Places grew up in Big Horn County, Montana, and on August 14, 2019, she celebrated her 18th birthday. Ten days later, Kaysera was reported missing. Her body was recovered on August 29. However, her family was not notified until September 11. There are still many questions concerning Kaysera’s disappearance and death.
In 2018, the Urban Indian Health Institute released an extensive study on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) crisis. As of 2016, there were 5,712 reports of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women. Still, only 116 were logged into the Department of Justice’s database, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. The study examines various factors that led to the MMIW crisis, an issue within reservations and urban Indian populations.
Continue ReadingOn April 30, 1789, 235 years ago, in the nation’s first capital of New York, George Washington was sworn in as the first president of the newly formed United States of America. From that moment on, many aspects of Washington’s legacy would be built on myth, leaving out important parts of history that would help us understand the man and tell a fuller story. This isn’t to say that Washington didn’t do extraordinary things in his lifetime. Still, when we peel away the layers, we find that he was an ordinary man who lived in exceptional times and wasn’t as perfect as he is often portrayed.
Washington was born on February 22, 1732, on Popes Creek Plantation, (also known as Wakefield) in Westmoreland County, Virginia. In 1734, the Washington family moved to another property they owned, Little Hunting Creek Plantation, which was later renamed Mount Vernon. While Washington never received a formal education, he did have access to books and a private tutor. At the same time, he studied geometry and trigonometry on his own, for his first job as a surveyor.
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