Posts Tagged digitization
One of the biggest misconceptions people have about The Henry Ford is that we are “a car museum.” Certainly, automobiles and related material form one of our core strengths, but our collections also cover the entire breadth of American history. Our ongoing project to digitize our collection and make it available online really demonstrates both sides of this coin: our vast and deep collections covering autos and auto racing, and then the wide breadth of other material documenting the American experience.
In that vein, instead of doing a typical “year in review” post for our digitization efforts in 2014, I played around with our collections database and came up with some interesting facts and figures about the portions of our collection that we digitized over the last year. I hope you’ll agree that the details below reveal the deep strengths of our collections, as well as their breadth—and that they encourage you to spend some time browsing our digital collections as well! Continue Reading
#Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford, by Ellice Engdahl, digital collections, digitization
The Henry Ford is busy with many projects right now, including an ongoing two-year grant awarded to us by The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to digitize and rehouse our communication collections - things like TVs, radios, phonographs, computers and typewriters. We have about 1,000 artifacts to process. With a project of this size, it’s important for the many people contributing to this project to coordinate and organize each step to make sure every artifact is processed correctly. Here is an overview of the steps that we are using:
Discovery: The artifacts are currently stored in our Collections Storage Building, so the team must first pull all the objects off of shelves systematically. Once that is done, our Curator of Communication and Information Technology, Kristen Gallerneaux, determines which objects are considered part of the grant using our proposal for reference. Continue Reading
digitization, photography, IMLS grant, by Clara Deck, by Cayla Osgood, collections care, conservation, #Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford
The Henry Ford, like other older, long-established museums, can only display a very small percentage of its artifacts at any given time. The remainder is kept in storage for future generations. In recent years, The Henry Ford has begun to digitize its collections, and put them online. This effort has helped expand what we can say about what is on exhibit, and importantly, has made it so that people don’t have to wait decades to be able to find out about artifacts that are in storage.
Thanks to a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services’ (IMLS) “Museums for America” program, The Henry Ford has an opportunity to digitize over 1,000 artifacts that tell the story of changing communications technologies from the late 1800s to the late 1990s. The project is focused on communications collections that are stored in a large, tightly-packed warehouse on The Henry Ford campus. Many of these artifacts have been in this building for many decades, with limited cataloging. This project will inventory, catalog, preserve, re-house and digitize for online access these computers, radios, telephones and televisions, cameras, printing presses, teletype and telegraph machines and other artifacts, making them available to The Henry Ford staff and the public to a degree never before possible.
Our computer collections have been the focus of the early work. This work has reminded us of how rapidly technological change has occurred with computers. Check out the (not so mini) DEC PDP-11/20 Minicomputer, 1970 mini-computer.
The challenges presented by this densely-packed storage area has meant that the project staff has really needed to live up to our mission of innovation. Before any work can be done on the artifacts, decades of accumulated dust, dirt and mold needs to be removed. Collections Specialist (and in-house McGyver) Jake Hildebrandt fashioned a downdraft table, complete with HEPA and charcoal filter, out of a portable ventilator, steel shelves and leftover grid for overhead lights. A downdraft table quickly pulls away dust and dirt as the artifact is cleaned, making the cleaning process faster and more effective.
We look forward to highlighting some of our exciting “re-discoveries” as we work on this project; collections digitization projects in museums around the world have led to new “re-discoveries.” We expect to add the tremendous collections of The Henry Ford to this ever-expanding resource of artifacts online.
Mary Fahey is Chief Conservator at The Henry Ford.
communication, IMLS grant, digitization, #Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford, collections care, conservation, by Mary Fahey
The Digital Collections of The Henry Ford: 20,000 Items and Growing
October 24, 2013, was a Thursday like any other Thursday in the offices of The Henry Ford—until 5:48 PM rolled around. At 5:48 PM precisely (not that we were counting), we completed digitization of our 20,000th collections item! There was much rejoicing and taking of celebratory screenshots of our collections management system.
Having seen this goal on the horizon, we had already discussed which item should be the auspicious 20,000th. We settled on something both significant and (we felt) celebratory: a photograph of the first industrial robot, Unimate, serving a drink to George Devol, its creator.
We also arranged to have cake, celebrating the many staff in the institution who work on digitization in large and small ways.
And, we commemorated some of the notable digitization projects we’d worked on over the past few years with stickers created from our digital collections images.
Long-time photographer Rudy Ruzicska proudly showed off his stickers to Henry Ford.
There is a good reason we made such a big deal out of this milestone. Even though digitization is a relatively new process for The Henry Ford (and for many other museums and archives), the potential of getting our collections online is enormous.
Case in point, only about 9% of all the material we’ve digitized thus far is items currently located in public areas in the Museum or in Greenfield Village. About 60% of our digitized content is located in our archival stacks, previously accessible only through a visit to the Research Library in the Benson Ford Research Center. About half a percent of our digitized collections are items currently on loan to another institution, ranging from a few miles away (this Hudson, for example, is currently on loan to the Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Collection) to halfway across the world (as witness this Rolls-Royce hood ornament, currently located in China). The remaining 30% or so of the collections items we’ve digitized are neither on public display nor accessible through the Research Library—they are items the public (and even many of our staff and volunteers!) would never otherwise get to see.
This is where the digital world offers a whole new way for our visitors to learn the stories behind our collections—not just by paying us a visit in person, but by making a virtual visit to the treasure trove of documents, photographs, and objects that we hold in trust for current and future generations.
We hope you enjoy viewing all of our growing digital collections. If you have a suggestion for what we should digitize next, or have thoughts on how we can make these digital collections more useful and meaningful, please let us know in the comments below!
Ellice Engdahl, Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford, is already counting down to our next digital collection milestone.
digitization, #Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford, by Ellice Engdahl, digital collections
Monumental Enterprise: Our Artifacts, an Exhibit, a Digital Story, a Partnership
As we digitize the collections of The Henry Ford, we try to find and tell complete stories—for example, we don’t just digitize the race car, but also trophies it won, and photos from some of its most famous races. Because of our broad collecting approach and the resultant depth of our collections, we uncover these stories all the time.
Sometimes fate and/or current events help us out. Though The Henry Ford is an independent institution, we do maintain a warm relationship with Ford Motor Company and often work together on projects. Recently we discovered a series of items in our collection that played a big role in Ford Motor Company’s history, both nearly 90 years ago and again just six years ago.
The items include a number of paintings, magazine advertisement proofs created from those (and other) paintings, and correspondence that formed an impressive ad campaign. The campaign itself consisted of 16 ads that ran in the Saturday Evening Post and other magazines in 1924 and 1925. The ads, two-page spreads that contained both visually arresting artwork and a significant amount of text, explained the backstory of the Ford company at a time when, as Marc Greuther, Chief Curator and Curator of Industry and Design at The Henry Ford, states, the company was at “a certain kind of pinnacle” with their signature product, the Model T, but “the product is slipping.”
As fascinating as it is, this ad campaign might have disappeared into relative obscurity if it hadn’t been rediscovered by Ford Motor Company’s new President and CEO, Alan Mulally, in 2007. In a recent interview with Fast Company, Mulally said, “I was looking for a compelling vision, a comprehensive statement to deliver that strategy.” This ad campaign from the previous century provided just the fundamental sense of purpose that Mulally was after, and allowed him to create a new strategic vision that was embraced across Ford Motor Company.
As we discussed this backstory with Ford Motor Company, both organizations were extremely interested in highlighting the ad campaign. Marc Greuther conducted a one-on-one interview with Alan Mulally about the impact the earlier campaign had on today’s Ford Motor Company (you can view clips from that interview here and here). As discussions continued between our institutions, the Ford Motor Company Fund generously provided a grant to conserve and reframe some of the materials, as well as create videos covering the conservation process and interviews. We made plans to highlight some of the newly conserved paintings within our Driving America exhibit. The new exhibit was officially unveiled on June 24, with Alan Mulally and other luminaries (including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who checked in at the Museum on Foursquare) in attendance.
The interactive kiosk within this section of the exhibit was updated to include new video clips featuring Marc Greuther’s interview with Alan Mulally, as well as additional analysis of the campaign by Marc. It also now features an electronic collections set containing all of the paintings, ad proofs, and correspondence connected to the campaign, as well as other related materials.
In case you’ve ever wondered what it takes to pull this kind of historical story together, in both physical and digital formats, here are some of the groups that played a role:
It certainly took a lot of time, effort, and funding to put this all together, but we hope you’ll agree that the resulting exhibit in Driving America within the Museum—as well as the digital assets, available to anyone around the world—are worth it. Let us know what you think.
Ellice Engdahl, Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford, is always trying to integrate the physical and the digital.
correspondence, art, paintings, 21st century, 20th century, technology, research, Henry Ford Museum, Ford Motor Company, Driving America, digitization, by Ellice Engdahl, advertising, #Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford
This year we're proud to celebrate what would have been the 150th birthday of our institute's founder, Henry Ford. Throughout the year we'll be sharing content and stories here on The Henry Ford's blog about one of America's greatest innovators.
At The Henry Ford, we often think and talk about Henry Ford, our institution’s founder. This is particularly true this year, which marks 150 years since Henry Ford was born. To commemorate this major milestone, we wanted to tackle a digitization project in Henry’s honor.
When it comes to our Henry Ford–related collections, the problem is narrowing down our vast holdings on all of Henry’s interests, activities, and businesses. A team of curators and educators from The Henry Ford had a series of meetings and discussions earlier this year, and came up with 17 topics that represent major themes in Henry’s life. After that, they made selections from our collections that best represent each of those themes. Their selections have now been digitized and are up on our collections website for anyone to browse.
The thing most identified with Henry Ford is the Model T, a car introduced in 1908 that was reasonably priced, reliable, and effective on the bad roads of the day. Three sets of collections items help tell this story. On the Way to the Model T shares some artifacts that show how Henry’s career progressed, such as the 1896 Quadricycle, the first car Henry ever built, and a 1901 photograph showing the race (featured above) that helped Henry gain notoriety and financial backing for his auto ventures. The Model T set shows a few of the Model T’s in the collections of the Henry Ford, including an early 1909 version, and also shows how quickly the Model T was assimilated into all aspects of daily life, from rural families to ingenious work applications. Post-Model T covers many of Henry’s business activities following the Model T, including the introduction of the V-8 engine and war production at Willow Run.
There was more to Henry Ford and Ford Motor Company than the Model T. A set represents the Assembly Line, from early inspirations for the idea (such as this slaughterhouse line) through many gradual refinements to the system, and another tackles the related $5 Day, which Ford implemented to win over critics of the assembly line system, like this outraged wife of a line worker. Two sets cover some of Ford’s non-automobile output: Tractors, including this experimental model from 1907 and the first production model of the popular Fordson tractor from a decade later; and Aviation, from the Ford Tri-Motor to the radio beacon.
One thing that makes Henry Ford such a fascinating figure 150 years after his birth was his wide breadth of interests, many of which tied back to his business activities. A set explores Henry’s interest in Soybeans, from an extremely dramatic presentation of the strength of soy plastics to photos of his working Soybean Laboratory in Greenfield Village (which still stands, now displaying agricultural artifacts). Another set discusses participation by Henry and the Ford Motor Company in various World’s Fairs, from the massive edifices erected to the exhibits inside.
A set on Village Industries, Henry Ford’s vision for small factories set in rural locations, shows the geographic coverage of these plants and also covers individual plants such as Nankin Mills. Another of Henry’s lifelong interests was social engineering, as demonstrated by the Sociological Department he established at Ford Motor Company. This is a story also covered on our website; the collections set we’ve created supplements the story with some of the statistics Ford collected on its employees and photographs taken during visits to employee homes.
Some of the sets give you a deeper glimpse into Henry’s life. A set covering his Youth demonstrates that from an early age Henry showed a fascination with both the mechanical and the natural world. His love of nature would persist and can later be seen in his frequent camping trips; a set on the Vagabonds, as he and his comrades called themselves, covers both stereotypical camping activities and objects that might lead one to suspect the Vagabonds were not exactly roughing it, like a photo of their extensive entourage.
Not everything Henry did was a success. A set on his Failures covers some of the areas where Henry struggled, such as the Detroit Automobile Company and the Ford X-8 engine. Conversely, if you want to know where Henry got inspiration, check out some of his Heroes, from his mother to William Holmes McGuffey to Thomas Edison. To see Henry’s likeness captured at various seminal points in his life, from his teenage years through his final decade, check out our set of Portraits.
Finally, no review of our Henry Ford collections would be complete if we didn’t talk about ourselves just a bit. You can get a concise story of the founding of The Henry Ford, aka the Edison Institute, on our website, but we have now created a set of collections items related to the Founding of the Edison Institute as well. From the construction of the Museum building to our cornerstone, inscribed by Thomas Edison himself, these artifacts will give you a glimpse into the early days of The Henry Ford.
Check out all our Henry Ford collections sets via the list below and let us know what you think!
Henry Ford: On the Way to the Model T
Henry Ford: Model T
Henry Ford: Post-Model T
Henry Ford: Assembly Line
Henry Ford: $5 Day
Henry Ford: Tractors
Henry Ford: Aviation
Henry Ford: Soybeans
Henry Ford: World's Fair
Henry Ford: Village Industries
Henry Ford: Sociological Department
Henry Ford: Youth
Henry Ford: Vagabonds
Henry Ford: Henry Ford's Failures
Henry Ford: Heroes
Henry Ford: Portraits
Henry Ford: Founding of the Edison Institute
Ellice Engdahl, Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford, wishes Henry a happy 150th and thanks him kindly for founding this amazing collection.
Vagabonds, Ford Motor Company, educational resources, Model Ts, by Ellice Engdahl, digitization, Henry Ford
The Henry Ford, like many cultural institutions, has been working on digitizing its collections—i.e., photographing and describing them, and making this information available online. While what we have completed is only a drop in the bucket given the vastness of our collections (25 million archival documents and photographs, and 1 million objects), we have made a lot of progress this year and wanted to share what we’ve accomplished.
There are two big projects we took on this year (in addition to many smaller ones). The first was digitization of 250 objects in support of the mobile version of our website. This included adding photographs and descriptions for the many Greenfield Village buildings—for example, check out the Menlo Park Laboratory, the Daggett Farmhouse, the Armington & Sims Machine Shop, and even the Firestone Farm Chicken Shed.
In Henry Ford Museum, we photographed and described objects from each of the permanent exhibits that we considered “can’t miss” artifacts. You’ll see some things you might expect, like the Wienermobile, the Dymaxion House, and the Rosa Parks bus, but have you ever gotten to see some of our lesser-known treasures, such as Cornelius Vanderbilt’s rocking chair, a Brownie camera, flintlock pistols, and a Paul Revere coffeepot?.
The second big project for 2012 was creation of our Curators’ Choice lists. We asked our curators to select the 25 most important objects in our collections in each of 7 categories. (Henry Ford got 50, because, well, his name is on our door—and because 2013 will mark his 150th birthday.) There were three criteria the curators used for their selections: national significance, uniqueness to our institution, and resonance to museum visitors. It tells you a bit about the scope and import of our collections that many of these significant items are not on display—but you can now view them all online. They range from a massive cable strander to a tiny scrap of a poem, from a 17th century horse racing trophy to a 1990s cell phone, from an elegant evening dress
In addition to these two major projects, we also spent 2012 digitizing selections from throughout our collections, many with ties to current exhibits and events. Have you seen our visiting LEGO® exhibit and want more? Check out our digital collection of building toys. Did you make it out to Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village or Holiday Nights? Take a look at some of the vintage greeting cards that help inspire our décor for these events. Were you able to participate in some of our special weekend muster events? Learn more about our collections relating to the War of 1812 or the American Civil War—you may have seen some of these objects on display during your visit!
In addition to the above, we have digitized selections from the following areas of our collections for your immediate browsing pleasure.
From our transportation collections, you can review the Morgan Gies collection, wonderful lantern slides from the early 20th century New York to Paris and New York to Seattle races, and classic design drawings from Bill Mitchell and Virgil Exner.
If you prefer paper-based artifacts, you might take a look at our digital cabinet cards, cartes-de-visite, and trade cards. These provide a glimpse of many aspects of 19th century life.
If you are interested in the historical figures who helped shape American history, try our digital collections relating to designer Don Chadwick, racecar driver Lyn St. James, agricultural pioneer George Washington Carver, and a vastly expanded selection of artifacts related to Henry Ford. We also have a variety of personal documents from notables including Abraham Lincoln, Aaron Burr, George Washington, Mark Twain, and Alexander Graham Bell. Read their own words in their own hand from the comfort of your home!
But wait, there’s more! Check out quilts, coverlets, stoves, telephones, lunchboxes, patent models, steam engines, toys, typewriters, and violins, as well as many objects from our World’s Fair and agricultural collections.
Phew.
In total, with all of the above objects digitized (and, believe it or not, many more I did not mention), we added about 8,000 new objects to our collections site in 2012! Still, we have much, much more to do. We are still in the process of putting our 2013 list together, but we know we will be tackling areas of our collections related to agricultural, industrial, and technological innovations, as well as automobile racing. In addition, we’ll continue digitizing collections objects to bring some context to several 2013 milestones: the 150th birthday of Henry Ford, the 100th birthday of Rosa Parks, and the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s death.
The single biggest reason we have embarked on this massive digitization project is to provide easy public access to our collections, the vast majority of which are not on display. As we reflect on our efforts last year, I and everyone on our digitization team hope that you are finding our digital collections as fascinating, enjoyable, and informative as we are. If there are areas of our collection you would like to see us digitize in 2013, please let us know in the comments below or via our Facebook page.
Ellice Engdahl, Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford, is very excited by the digitization promise of 2013.
Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, digitization, digital collections, by Ellice Engdahl, #Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford
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
My name is Danielle and I am currently a museum studies graduate student interested in becoming a museum registrar. I spent this summer at The Henry Ford, working in the department of Historical Resources to digitize the museum’s typewriter collection.
As an intern in the Registrar’s office, I had the opportunity to work with the museum’s extensive typewriter collection, which consists of over 100 typewriters. The typewriters range from a Sholes & Glidden, invented in the 1870s, to a Typatune musical typewriter (above). The collection also includes typewriter accessories, such as stands and cleaning kits, as well as trade catalogs produced by typewriter manufacturers and photographs of typewriters found in offices and workspaces. Continue Reading
21st century, 2010s, communication, research, digitization, conservation, collections care, by Danielle Bowman, #Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford
