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The Henry Ford


 

In 2009, Detroit, also known as Motor City or Motown, depending whether you are car or music orientated, was voted the worst city in the world by Lonely Planet website users, followed by Accra in Ghana, Seoul in South Korea and Los Angeles in the USA. Whether this title is justified is open to question, as despite the city’s notoriety for violent crime and drug problems, it has a rich and important history, not least as the hub of American automotive production, together with numerous cultural centres, historic buildings and monuments.

One such cultural centre is The Henry Ford, a complex in Dearborn, located in the southern Detroit Metro area. On the site there are numerous historic buildings from around the USA, carefully removed and reconstructed. Greenfield Village is old time small town America, with the house where Henry Ford was born, plus the workshop where he built his first cars, along with the Thomas Edison’s “idea factory”, a living 19th Century working farm, showing how people really lived off the land, and working steam trains at Railroad Junction, are just a few of the numerous attractions. Then there is the Henry Ford Museum, a massive building with 12 acres (48,562 square metres or 522,729 square feet) of floor space under a single roof. As might be expected from the museum founder and producer of the famous “Tin Lizzie” Model T Ford, the museum is car orientated. However, it also reflects on, and records, American life the way it was lived by the people, with a number of themed exhibition areas devoted to a broad range of subjects.

The themed areas are truly diverse, as Henry Ford had eclectic tastes when he started collecting things privately for his own interest, which expanded to the Henry Ford complex as it is today. The exhibits an area entitled “With Liberty and Justice For All”, amongst whose features are the struggle of the native Indians for rights, women’s fight for the vote and the black struggle for equality. The latter features the bus in which Rosa Parks stood up for (or should that be sat down for) black rights, when she refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in December 1955. Other areas include “Heroes of the Sky”, with pioneering aircraft from the first 40 years of aviation history, including a 1939 Douglas DC-3, which logged more than 12 million miles and was in flight for nearly 9½ years! Then there is R. Buckmaster Fuller’s all aluminium Dymaxion House, a twenties idea of the house of the future, agricultural machinery, a 50ft high working steam engine, and a section dedicated to furniture, including the chair in which American President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.

The automobile areas are equally wide and varied, ranging from working vehicles like pick-up trucks, including the Weinermobile “hot dog” advertising truck and a Texaco fuel tanker, through various competition cars to the land speed record breaking “Goldenrod”. One of the displays is “Automobiles in American Life”, showing how the automobile has become an integral part of the country’s society, from the first car for the masses, with the last of 15 million Model T Ford’s produced on display, along with a wide variety of well known and not so well known examples from motoring’s rich history. These include a 1946 Tucker Torpedo, then there is the car that started the “Pony Car” craze in the mid sixties, the Ford Mustang, featuring the very first production car, and the mid engine prototype, plus foreign imports like the VW Beetle and an MG TC model. There are also five American Presidential cars, including the Lincoln in which John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, plus the 1967 Le Mans winning Ford Mark IV, NASCAR, Indy race cars, dragsters and custom cars, together with a wide selection of regular street cars. Thus there is virtually something for every taste.

The museum also features a gallery area, where themed exhibitions are held, one of which during 2009 was “Rock Stars’ Cars and Guitars”, and others have included “Bond. James Bond” and “Baseball as America”. Within the complex there are two restaurant areas, one at either end, so that you can refresh yourself as you trek around. If you enter through the central main entrance, and then walk around the perimeter only, you will have walked half a mile. There is also a museum store, and adjacent to the museum is the largest IMAX Theatre in Michigan, so that you can relax and catch a film after your visit.

Location

20900 Oakwood Boulevard, Dearborn, Michigan 48124-5029

Open 7 days a week
9:30am-5:00pm
(Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas Days)

Members

Free

Adult:

$15.00

Senior (62+):

$14.00

Youth (5-12):

$11.00

Children under 5:

Free

Further information can be found at www.hfmgv.org

 

Keith Bluemel01/2010Images David O'Neill