Where does one begin when writing about one's visit to the Henry Ford Museum? Well, let me start with a WIKI for a little official info: The Henry Ford (also known as the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, and more formally as the Edison Institute) is a large indoor and outdoor history museum complex and a National Historic Landmark in the Metro Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, USA. Named for its founder, the noted automobile industrialist Henry Ford, and based on his desire to preserve items of historical significance and portray the Industrial Revolution, the property houses a vast array of famous homes, machinery, exhibits, and Americana. The collection contains many rare exhibits including John F. Kennedy's presidential limousine, Abraham Lincoln's chair from Ford's Theatre, Thomas Edison's laboratory, the Wright Brothers' bicycle shop, and the Rosa Parks bus. Henry Ford said of his museum: I am collecting the history of our people as written into things their hands made and used.... When we are through, we shall have reproduced American life as lived, and that, I think, is the best way of preserving at least a part of our history and tradition...We arrived in Monroe, MI on Tuesday afternoon, Sept 23 and camped at Harbortown RV Park. It is a very nice campground. We stayed for We stayed for two nights and left Thursday morning, Sept 25.
Between Nancy and me, we must have taken over 400 photos. There is just so much to see and experience. I will offer little on photo captions in lie of loading the blog with photos. There are several themes within the museum itself, and there is the Village with the many original buildings and artifacts from the past two centuries of Americana. We have photos from each as we spent an entire day here. In fact, we are card-carrying members now of the Henry Ford. First, the machinery that made the farms.
Most of the machines had storyboards that described the machine and the period. But if I showed all of them, this blog would be way too long.
Now for some early 20th century power generation machines. What's amazing about these are there humonous size verses their power output compare to today's multi-megawatt monster power stations.
Miss Nancy taking it all in...
Notice how clean and shiny everything is and it's that way in the entire complex.
Above & below go together.
And now for some just good old Americana of many different varieties.
No, I never drove one of these for real. It was a little before my time even.
Charles Kuralt
Nancy on the Rosa Parks bus from Birmingham...
And then there's America's passion for the automobile. And boy was there all kinds to attract just about anyone's fancy and checkbook.
And now for a few pics from our time in the Greenfield Village...
Miss Nancy ran out of bottled water, so she drew a handful from the horse trough. :-)
Above & below go together, with the new invention, DC current lighting. Mr Edison and Mr Tesla never quiet agreed on what the future was to be regarding electricity. Edison for DC and Tesla for AC. Hmmm...something to think about....
Well, that about wraps up our visit to the Henry Ford. I hope you enjoyed the tour. If you're ever around the Dearborn, MI area, I recommend you spend a day there. It will certainly be worth your while. Till the next blog, RVing Beach Bums signing off. This blog was written & published from our home in Virginia Beach, VA on December 24, 2014.
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