As featured on: The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation
Bandannas have been popular presidential campaign items since at least the 1840s. While wealthy, urban gentlemen sported neatly folded linen or silk handkerchiefs, farmers and blue-collar workers preferred to carry colorful cotton bandannas like this one. They dangled them from the hip pockets of their overalls or the front pockets of their frock coats worn to church on Sunday. At political parades and rallies, they would whip them out to twirl them by hand or swing them from atop a pole. They also used them to decorate front porches and even flew them from buggy whips while traveling by horse and carriage.
This bright red bandanna was created by the National Kerchief Company for Theodore Roosevelt’s presidential campaign of 1912. Roosevelt had assumed the Presidency in 1901 after the tragic assassination of President William McKinley and he was re-elected in a landslide in 1904. But he declared that he was not running for re-election in 1908 and, instead, backed his close friend and Secretary of War, William Howard Taft. Although Roosevelt’s backing helped Taft win the 1908 election, Taft became increasingly conservative and lacked Roosevelt’s energy, personal magnetism, and public support. Roosevelt’s own disenchantment with Taft finally convinced him to oppose him in the 1912 election. When Republican Party leaders decided to nominate Taft, Roosevelt organized his own party—the Progressive Party.
The rich imagery on this bandanna was intended to be an emotional appeal to voters, reminding them of how much Roosevelt had endeared himself to them a decade ago. First, the hat in the center of the bandanna symbolizes Roosevelt’s decision to run for President after a hiatus of four years, by proclaiming “My hat is in the ring.” But this is not just any hat. It is a slouch hat, a wide-brimmed felt hat that was commonly worn by the U.S. military since the Civil War and was still popular among cowboys and other Westerners. One side of the brim was often pinned up, allowing wearers to sling a rifle over their shoulder. This, in fact, was the type of hat that Roosevelt had made famous as he heroically led the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War in 1898.
Teddy Roosevelt’s initials printed around the outside of the hat were designed to look like a cattle brand, evoking Roosevelt’s ranching years in the Dakota Territory during the 1880s. During that time, he developed a love for the West, for cowboy life, for vigorous exercise, and for nature—all passions he brought to the White House and instilled in the American public during his Presidency.
Around the outer edge of the bandanna appears the caricatured image of Roosevelt himself, immediately recognizable through the slouch hat, spectacles, and mustache. The bandanna he is wearing was also a part of his Rough Rider uniform. Bandannas, in fact, became an iconic part of every Rough Rider’s uniform, popularized by the Western cowboys who joined Roosevelt’s volunteer cavalry and then embraced by everyone—even the high-falutin’ Eastern college men and intellectuals who were Roosevelt’s friends. Teddy Roosevelt himself had worn a blue bandanna with white polka dots with his custom-made khaki Rough Rider uniform. This likely accounts for the polka-dot background on the bandanna’s outer edge.
When Roosevelt joined the 1912 Presidential race, his run for re-election would prove to be the most impressive and exciting third party candidacy in American political history. In the end, however, the Roosevelt-Taft split in Republican votes opened the door for Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the election.
A bandanna full of symbols, in itself a symbol of Teddy Roosevelt—the Rough Rider, the hero, the cowboy, the everyman. It is a wonderful example of an object whose symbolic references people understood at the time and whose playful design can still delight us today.
20th century, 1910s, presidents, fashion, by Donna R. Braden
When Charles Sable, curator of decorative arts, was tasked with updating The Henry Ford's American glass collection, he accepted the challenge with enthusiasm. He envisioned creating an all-new gallery on the grounds of The Henry Ford, a place to exhibit portions of the institution's 10,000 glass artifacts currently in storage.
The gallery would also give him a strong talking point with Bruce and Ann Bachmann, private collectors of one of the most important Studio Glass collections. According to Sable, the Studio Glass Movement, which originated in the early 1960s, is recognized as a turning point in the history of glass as artists explored the qualities of of the medium in a studio environment. Their goal was to create fine art, in place of craft or mass produced objects.
While other museums were interested in the Bachmann Collection, it was The Henry Ford that garnered their full attention. "The Bachmanns had very specific criteria for their collection," said Sable. "They were looking for an institution that was in an urban area, preferably in the Midwest where they live, had a large visitation, and was capable of exhibiting and maintaining the collection."
After years of hard work, The Henry Ford recently added the Bachmann glass collection to its Archive of American Innovation. "As Bruce [Bachmann] told me, it was a good marriage," noted Sable of the donation. "He felt his collection would live here in perpetuity."
This month, the story of the Studio Glass Movement becomes a permanent exhibit in Henry Ford Museum with the opening of the Davidson-Gerson Modern Glass Gallery. "Our exhibit is a deep dive into how Studio Glass unfolded," said Sable. "It's the story of the combination of science and art that created a new and innovative chapter in the history of glass. As a history museum we look at the impact of Studio Glass on everyday life – we will include a section on mass-produced glass influenced by Studio Glass, but sold by retailers such as Crate and Barrel, Pier 1 Imports and others."
With donor support and fundraising, Sable's vision for an all-new glass gallery in Greenfield Village is also a reality. The Gallery of American Glass will open in the Liberty Craftworks District in spring 2017, giving thousands of visitors the opportunity to see the artistry and evolution of American glass through artifacts, digitized images and interactive displays.
Did You Know?
The Bruce and Ann Bachmann Studio Glass Collection numbers approximately 300 pieces, with representation of every artist of importance, including Paul Stankard, Harvey Littleton and Toots Zynsky.
The all-new Gallery of American Glass is a careful redesign of the McDonald & Sons Machine Shop in Greenfield Village's Liberty Craftworks District. The Davidson-Gerson Modern Glass Gallery in Henry Ford Museum is located in the hall that once displayed the sliver and pewter collection.
Additional Readings:
- Vase Made by Harvey K. Littleton at the Second Toledo Museum of Art Glass Workshop, 1962
- "Devils Blowing Glass" by Lucio Bubacco, 1997
- Tiffany and Art Glass
- Artist in Residence: Shelley Muzylowski Allen
Greenfield Village, Henry Ford Museum, philanthropy, art, glass
Henry Ford Museum’s newest exhibit, the Davidson-Gerson Modern Glass Gallery, formally opens on October 14, 2016. In this exhibit, you’ll learn about the evolution of modern studio glass, and how it blends art, science, and technological innovation.
We’re happy to announce that we’ve already digitized about 80% of the pieces on exhibit, with the remainder to be available online by early next year. One example, shown here, is “Scarlet Macaw” from the Parrot Series by Noel Hart, an Australian artist.
Get a feel for studio glass by visiting our Digital Collections and browsing this and dozens of other pieces from the Bruce and Ann Bachmann Glass Collection that you’ll see in the exhibit, including many with 360-degree images—and then be sure to plan a trip to see these pieces and more in person!
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
Additional Readings:
Every year, the first Friday in October brings Manufacturing Day, a time to celebrate the contribution that modern manufacturing makes to our lives. We see it not only in the countless products we use every day, but in the many jobs that manufacturing provides to American workers.
We thought it would be appropriate to mark the day with a look back at the most influential manufacturing innovation of the 20th century: Henry Ford’s moving assembly line. By combining interchangeable parts with the subdivision of labor and the movement of work to workers, Ford dramatically increased the speed with which his employees built Model T automobiles – reducing the car’s price and boosting sales as a result. The moving assembly line quickly spread to other automakers, and then to manufacturers of all types. Today, almost anything you can name is made on an assembly line, from helicopters to hamburgers.
Here, in honor of Manufacturing Day, is an Expert Set of 25 photos, documents and artifacts that tell the story of Henry Ford’s ground-breaking manufacturing technique.
Henry Ford: Assembly Line
Matt Anderson is Curator of Transportation at The Henry Ford.
by Matt Anderson, Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford, cars, manufacturing
The Cornell-Liberty Safety Car – space age and safety conscious. (THF90867)
We have our share of unusual-looking automobiles in Henry Ford Museum. The Tucker, the Belly Tank Lakester and the Comuta-Car all turn heads. But there’s only one that looks like it just flew in from the Spacely Space Sprockets factory: the 1957 Cornell-Liberty Safety Car. Behind that endearingly odd exterior, though, was a serious five-year effort to save lives by making American cars safer.
Over the first half of the 20th century, many automakers focused their efforts on making cars more reliable, more comfortable and more powerful. Safety was a lesser concern. There were exceptions – laminated windshield glass, which didn’t break into sharp pieces, was in use by the late 1920s – but conventional wisdom held that safety didn’t sell. Customers wanted their cars to be faster, not safer.
By the 1950s, that attitude began to change. Cars were certainly faster by then, but they also had roads to accommodate the higher speeds. State-built turnpikes and federally-funded Interstates had drivers zipping along at 75 miles per hour, and the booming postwar economy put more Americans behind the wheel each year. It’s little wonder that more drivers traveling at faster speeds led to a rise in accidents. By 1950, some 35,000 people were dying in auto accidents each year. Faculty members at Cornell University and officials at Liberty Mutual insurance took notice. In 1951, the two institutions teamed up to research a simple question: What causes injuries in automobile accidents?
Steering wheels and sharp edges could be lethal. (THF103543)
America’s highways became a laboratory, and police officers and emergency room doctors became research assistants. By carefully studying accident reports and medical records from around the country, the Cornell-Liberty team made several key discoveries. Car doors were a weak spot. Too often in an accident, a door was smashed open and one or more of the occupants was thrown from the vehicle. Furthermore, the team discovered that someone thrown from a car was more than twice as likely to receive serious injury. They learned that back seat passengers were three times safer than those in the front during a crash.
Researchers determined that the head was the most frequently injured part of the body, and that one in ten victims received a facial disfigurement. Contrary to popular belief at the time, the steering wheel provided no extra protection to the driver. Indeed, the wheel was often a cause of injury, being pushed into a driver’s chest during a crash. What’s more, control knobs, window frames and decorative ornaments often maimed accident victims.
Bucket seats cradle passengers while seat belts keep them secure. (THF90862)
The Cornell-Liberty team put its findings into practice by building a concept car that reduced or eliminated many of these dangers. Working from a 1956 Ford Fairlane, the team produced a car incorporating more than 60 protective features. In effect, they thought of their car like a giant egg carton designed to keep its fragile contents secure. The safety car’s accordion-style doors latched in three places, keeping them closed in a crash. Its bumper wrapped completely around the vehicle, protecting in low-speed accidents. Seat belts were prominent. Head restraints prevented whiplash injuries. The steering wheel and column were replaced by a pair of control handles. The dashboard, like other interior surfaces, was padded. Door handles were recessed. Unnecessary badges and baubles were removed.
The dashboard is uncluttered and the gauges are easy to read. (THF90865)
The best way to survive an accident is to avoid one, so the Cornell-Liberty team took driver visibility and distraction into account. The panoramic windshield – cleaned by five wipers – gave the driver an unobstructed view (as did the driver’s position, in the middle of the car rather than on the left side). Controls were kept to a minimum, and the oversized speedometer dial and gauges were placed directly below the driver’s sightline. The fuel gauge even had a “low level” indicator – something of a novelty in 1957. Indeed, the Cornell-Liberty team seemed to have anticipated every possible distraction; contemporary press reports noted that the offset front seats discouraged “necking while driving.”
Neither Cornell nor Liberty Mutual had any plans to manufacture or sell safety cars, of course. Instead, they hoped that their project would bring more attention to crash protection from the public and – more to the point – from automakers. A decade later, after some additional prodding from Ralph Nader and new government regulations, safety was an established priority in Detroit. And while the car you drive today may not have five windshield wipers or handlebar steering, it’s certainly got a bit of the 1957 Liberty-Cornell Safety Car inside.
Matt Anderson is Curator of Transportation at The Henry Ford.
research, Driving America, Henry Ford Museum, cars, by Matt Anderson
In the early 1960s, designers Charles and Ray Eames set out to reveal the wonder they saw in math through an engaging and interactive exhibit they called Mathematica: A World of Numbers … and Beyond. The designers, perhaps best known for the iconic Eames lounge chair, used models and demonstrations to bring to life concepts such as probability, geometry, the Moebius strip, and more.
In 2015, The Henry Ford acquired an original Mathematica exhibit, and is currently working to restore the interactive components before installing the exhibit on the Museum floor in 2017. We’ve begun to digitize some of the signage and reading material from the exhibit, including this reading stand that discusses, among other things, the “Man Machine Interface.”
Visit our Digital Collections to view zoomable detail shots, or to see the other Mathematica signage digitized so far.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
Henry Ford Museum, by Ellice Engdahl, Eames, digital collections
There has been a lot going on at The Henry Ford lately – our Beatles exhibit has just closed, the new Davidson-Gerson Modern Glass Gallery is soon to open, and the conservation department has been involved with those goings-on and more. Even though there’s a lot of change and activity, our IMLS-funded grant project to work on our electrical collections continues at a steady pace. As we approach the halfway point in the grant, we are also approaching 450 objects conserved – the halfway point of our 900-object goal!
Conservation Specialist Mallory Bower and Senior Conservator Clara Deck clean objects in the Collections Storage Building.
We have been continuing to make regular trips to our Collections Storage Building (CSB) to select artifacts for inclusion in the grant; while we’re out there, we give them an initial clean, before bringing them into the museum to be fully conserved, then photographed and packed.
Collections Specialist Cayla Osgood brings down the dynamo on a forklift while Mallory “spots”, keeping a watchful eye for corners, overlapping edges, or any other potential issues.
We have recently brought our third “extra-large” object in from CSB, an Eickemeyer Dynamo. When choosing objects to bring in, we take into account the wants and needs of other departments of the museum, and we chose this object as there was some interest in it from the curatorial department. Since it was high up on a shelf, it had been a little while since they were able to inspect it up-close – there was a lot of excitement when we brought it in! Although it will not be going on display, it is now clean and accessible, and soon it will be digitized and available online. 
The Eickemeyer Dynamo, retrieved from storage (32.107.1)
The dynamo did not need an excessive amount of treatment, largely a brush/vacuum to remove storage dust, plus removal of a little copper corrosion on some of the fittings on the ends. (Want to read more about our “extra-large” objects? Check out our previous blog post!)
A circuit breaker with a marble base, during treatment (29.1333.292)
Although the “extra-large” objects have been focused on quite a bit in our blogs, most of what we do involves much smaller objects. There are so many different materials and types of objects, we have a lot of interesting challenges to work through. Something of particular note that we have come across a few times now is objects with marble bases, like this circuit breaker. The marble is frequently very dirty, with staining and significant accretions, and, as in this case, also cleans up fairly well! This “in progress” shot shows how different the object can look from when we get it out of the Collections Storage Building to when it’s clean and finished, ready to be digitized and packed.
So that’s where we stand currently, nearly halfway through our IMLS grant, working away on lots of electrical objects. Keep your eyes peeled for future blog posts with updates on our progress!
Louise Stewart Beck is former IMLS Project Conservator at The Henry Ford.
power, electricity, IMLS grant, #Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford, collections care, conservation, by Louise Stewart Beck
American Style and Spirit: 130 Years of Fashions and Lives of an Entrepreneurial Family is a temporary exhibit opening in Henry Ford Museum on November 5. The exhibit is based on an extensive donation of garments and accessories, all used by the Roddis family of Marshfield, Wisconsin. These artifacts are exceptional in demonstrating how clothing tells us something about the person who wears it, while also illuminating broader stories of American life. We have just digitized a number of Roddis Collection pieces, including this 1952 day dress.
To learn more, visit our Digital Collections to see the other pieces digitized thus far and watch for more to be added in the weeks leading up to the exhibit opening.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
Wisconsin, women's history, fashion, digital collections, by Ellice Engdahl, American Style and Spirit, 21st century, 2010s
Elizabeth Parke Firestone (1897–1990) was the wife of Harvey S. Firestone, Jr., son of the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. As a well-heeled and fashion-conscious woman, she both traveled to and corresponded with many famous couture houses in Paris, including the House of Dior.
An inquiry from Dior last year led to our digitization of many of the articles of Christian Dior clothing in our collection that belonged to Mrs. Firestone, but when we dug even further, we turned up over 370 Dior design drawings, mostly dating from the 1950s. Many, like the 1955 “Fête a Trianon,” are intricately colored, and include handwritten notes and fabric swatches, giving potential customers a taste of their glamour. Visit our Digital Collections to peruse all of these Dior design drawings.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
drawings, design, Firestone family, Elizabeth Parke Firestone, women's history, fashion, digital collections, by Ellice Engdahl
The attendees are members of the Presidential Commission on the Development of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. From left, they are: Dr. Robert Wright, commission Chairman; Renee Amoore; Vicky Bailey; Andrew McLemore, Jr.; Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.; Senator Rick Santorum, R-Penn.; Michael Lomax; Congressman John Lewis, D-Ga.; Harold Skramstad, Jr.; Barbara Franco; Robert Wilkins; Senator Sam Brownback, R-Kan.; Cicely Tyson; Lerone Bennett, Jr.; Congressman John Larson, D-Conn.; Eric Sexton; Claudine Brown; Larry Small, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; Currie Ballard. White House photo by Paul Morse. 
We celebrate a new national museum for the citizens of the United States – the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. The idea of a national museum for African Americans started 100 years ago when black Civil War veterans announced their intentions in Washington D.C. to create a building on the Mall that would commemorate the deeds, struggles and contributions of Black Americans for the advancement of our nation. In 1929, the same year Henry Ford opened his museum complex in Dearborn, Michigan, President Herbert Hoover appointed a commission to study the idea of establishing an African American museum. However, the commission languished and was eventually dissolved 15 years later.
The Civil War veterans’ dream to commemorate the history and culture of African Americans was revived by civil rights icon and U. S. Representative John Lewis, who knows about perseverance and leadership through his many key roles in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. For 15 years, Representative Lewis co-sponsored and reintroduced legislation annually to establish a national museum to preserve and present African American history and culture. The museum bill finally passed in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and, on December 16, 2003, President George W. Bush signed the National Museum of African American History and Culture Act authorizing the creation of the new Smithsonian Institution museum. John Lewis attended the presidential bill signing ceremony along with members of the African American Presidential Commission, including The Henry Ford’s President Emeritus Harold Skramstad.
In July 2005, Lonnie Bunch was appointed as the founding Executive Director to lead the establishment of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Mr. Bunch’s vision is that the stories, objects and lives presented in the museum will “make America better.” On September 24, 2016, the museum opened to the public with a dedication ceremony led by President Barack Obama. Our new national museum enables current and future generations to engage in their history at an institution destined to, as Mr. Bunch hopes, “make America better.”
Christian W. Overland is Executive Vice President of The Henry Ford.
Washington DC, 21st century, 2010s, 2000s, presidents, by Christian W. Øverland, African American history
