Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum near Detroit, Michigan

by Lee Foster

As Americans, we continue to ask: What is our unique place in the world and role in history?

One important answer can be found at Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum, near Detroit.

These entities celebrate American inventiveness, the uniquely American drive, from 1776 to the present, to produce technical advances in farming, manufacturing, communications, all areas of life.

The inventiveness of millions of Americans has been an important contributor to our liberty. The prosperity that results from inventiveness encourages social harmony and provides a constructive outlet for human energies.

Greenfield Village’s buildings and artifacts were gathered near Detroit by Henry Ford. The Father of the Automobile began accumulating material for this special collection, called Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum, in 1914 and formally opened it to the public in 1929. Greenfield Village and the Ford Museum aim to interpret how American inventiveness hurtled the country forward from an agrarian to an industrial economy.

THOMAS EDISON: HENRY’S FORD’S HERO

Ford’s personal hero, ideal, and role model, the progressive inventor Thomas Edison, receives due homage here as a man who earned 1093 patents in his lifetime. Ford even named the umbrella organization managing Greenfield Village and the Ford Museum as the Edison Institute. But Ford also aimed to honor all the Americans who made the slightest advance in fields of farming, household management, education, and mechanical applications. Ford’s vision for Greenfield Village, which the trustees have continued to nurture since his death in 1947, was to recreate the ambiance in which an inventor, such as Edison, lived, so that his research lab or house might be a lesson and an inspiration to future generations.

The ongoing interpretive effort at Greenfield Village received a major boost in 1985 with the addition of the Harvey Firestone Farm to the collection. This farm, brought brick by brick the 200 miles from Columbiana, Ohio, fleshes out the story of how Americans farmed in the 1880s. Accompanying the two-story brick farmhouse, barn, and fields is an elaborate interpretive effort, a living history re-creation of farm life, showing the practice of agriculture at the time.

The farm was built in 1828 by Peter Firestone, Harvey Firestone’s great- grandfather. Harvey Firestone, the pioneer tire-maker and friend of Ford, was born at the farm in 1868 and spent his childhood there. As a visitor, you walk past the field and chat with the fieldhand, who will explain what seeds they use for pumpkins and how the selection of seeds improves the crop. Similarly, the breed of sheep on the farm approximates the sheep type of that day. When you enter the farm house, you see a woman preparing a meal with the materials and techniques of the 1880s.

GRASSROOTS INVENTIVENESS

What interested Henry Ford and what fascinates the visitor of today, as you observe the Firestone Farm and the entire milieu of Greenfield Village, are those moments of grassroots creativity when a better technique, process, or tool was devised. This cumulative inventiveness of the average American was a major contribution to modern culture. Ford wanted to remind the country how quickly America had advanced, how change itself was a constant, what sheer technological prowess the country was developing, and how we ought not to lose sight of where we had been. When Ford, in a famous interview, said that “history is bunk,” he meant that history as commonly taught was woefully incomplete because it failed to document the milieu and progress of the average man.

Greenfield Village is unlike some other major interpretive efforts, such as Williamsburg, because it celebrates a longer timespan (1650-1950) and diverse places, all brought to this site. Unlike conventional museums of Ford’s day, the objects collected reflect the everyday experience of the common man, not the rarefied art collections and artifacts of aristocrats. Achievements rather than noble birth qualify one for mention here, so horticulturalist Luther Burbank, peanut- product inventor George Washington Carver, and lyricist Stephen Foster are among the luminaries.

Greenfield Village is 12 miles from downtown Detroit, whose Renaissance Center and Isamu Noguchi sculptures in Hart Plaza suggest America looking toward the next century. At Greenfield Village and the adjacent Ford Museum you gaze primarily at the past century, roughly 1850-1950. Complement a visit to Greenfield Village with a stop, nearby, at the Fair Lane Estate of the founder, Henry Ford.

Allow a half day or a day to immerse yourself in Greenfield Village. Time is needed if you want the cumulative weight of these glimpses of Americana to attain their proper effect. As you enter, start with a look at the Henry Ford Birthplace, a stable and spartan environment. One of the first buildings that Ford brought to the site was the Schoolhouse where he learned to read, write, and calculate. Greenfield Village in Michigan

THE WRIGHT CYCLE SHOP

Then move on to the Wright Cycle Shop and Wright Home, where the airplane inventors flourished. Like all the structures at Greenfield Village, these are the actual buildings or suitable re-creations. Photos of the Wrights and their aeroplane are steeped in nostalgia, but when you examine the letters and documents displayed, what emerges is the process of invention, the ever-so-slight modification of detail that finally produces the breakthrough.

Similarly, in the complex of structures that recreate the laboratories of Thomas Edison, inventor or technical advancer of so many items (from the electric light to phonograph), it is interesting to realize what reverence Henry Ford felt for the refuse pit of Edison’s research lab. Ford saw that all the broken glass and other discarded apparatus were dug out and displayed, like first class relics, as if to emphasize that invention is a process, not a one-shot effort. The hits came after a long succession of misses. The Edison complex is quite complete, consisting of his Machine Shop, Carpenter Shed, West Orange Laboratory, and Menlo Park Laboratory. Ford lauded Edison partly for his genius in assembling teams of skilled people to work on a problem. Edison advanced the Research & Development concept so central to modern corporate life. The 240 acres of Greenfield Village are divided roughly into the Ford Area, Edison Area, Historic Homes Area, Community Area and The Green, Trades and Manufactures, and Firestone Farm. The place is pleasant to stroll, walking in and out of the homes of celebrated or representative Americans. The house of Noah Webster, dictionary maker, is an example of a celebrated site. The Cohen millinery typifies a generic store, showing what a woman’s clothing business in the 1890s looked like. Another exhibit: the log cabin that served as birthplace for William McGuffey, famous for his reader.

Some views of Greenfield Village are postcard America, such as the Martha-Mary Chapel, built to honor the mothers of Ford and his wife. Other experiences are culinary pleasures, such as an 1849 lunch, open to the public, at the Eagle Tavern, complete with hard cider, corn soup, and fried oysters. The specialness of Greenfield Village lies in the thoroughness with which it portrays developing American industry, which often was on almost a cottage-industry level. You can visit the Printing Works, Textiles Works, and Pottery Works. The Carriage Repair Shop, Armington Machine Shop, and Loranger Gristmill indicate the diversity involved. You see such crude historic firsts as the electric light wires that Edison strung to light the Sarah Jordan Boardinghouse, the first domestic structure in the world to benefit from an electrical illumination.

FORD ON SOYBEANS

A visitor also glimpses some lesser known eccentricities of Henry Ford. For example, Ford believed in the soybean as a food source. He once said, “A good cook should be able to make a ten-course meal out of soybeans.” At the Soybean Laboratory you can see experiments Ford supported to develop soy milk and soy food products, which he encouraged his workers to consume.

After perusing Greenfield Village, walk over to the Henry Ford Museum, an unparalleled collection of Americana. Here, again, you will see both the celebrated artifact and the representative development. The automobile in which John Kennedy was assassinated or the airplane in which Byrd flew to the south pole will attract some visitors. Others will be more fascinated by the representative devices that led up to the automobile, the airplane, or even to more ordinary inventions such as the bicycle and the washing machine.

The museum holdings divide into Transportation, Power & Shop Machinery, Agriculture, and Home Arts sections. Anything that showed the progress of actual American life drew the attention of Ford and the trustees who have managed the museum since his death. Watches, pottery, and toasters are equally intriguing to view if you see them in a timeline of development. Elaborate collections of musical instruments, glassware, and firearms are part of the encyclopedic mix. Crucial inventions, such as John Deere’s steel plow from 1837, are highlighted. The museum is the largest assemblage in the U.S. of historic consumer products.

Both at Greenfield Village and at the Henry Ford Museum the living history exhibits enliven the scene. You may encounter Will Rogers speaking about the 1920s, Mae West basking in her notoriety, or Groucho Marx entertaining.

The dedication of Greenfield Village and the Ford Museum on October 21, 1929 involved millions of Americans, who listened via radio. The era’s innocence and naivete is suggested by the coincidence that the dedication occurred a few days before the stock market crash. To memorialize the dedication, Thomas Edison signed his name to a cement slab and dug the first earth with horticulturalist Luther Burbank’s spade. Ford arranged the dedication as a tribute to Edison, whom he regarded as the greatest living American of his era. Following an elaborate dinner, congratulatory remarks of Professor Albert Einstein were transmitted to the hall by transatlantic radio from Berlin, Germany. Then President Herbert Hoover, Edison, and Ford rode by carriage to Mr. Edison’s re-created laboratory, which Ford had moved to Greenfield from Menlo Park, New Jersey. Americans listening on the radio were alerted to turn off their lights in honor of Edison. At the lab Edison re-created his invention of the incandescent light. In honor of Edison, listening Americans then turned back on their lights.

FORD’S FAIR LANE ESTATE

Near Greenfield Village, you can tour the 1,469-acre Henry Ford Fair Lane Estate, now a campus for the University of Michigan, Dearborn. At the estate you see the elaborate hydro-power system that Ford and Edison built after damming the Rouge River. The power house made Fair Lane electrically self-sufficient for heat, light, appliances, even an ice machine. Ford prided himself on his mechanically state-of- the-art house. The auto magnate’s tastes within the house were expensive, but not gaudy. He liked to birdwatch for pleasure with naturalist John Burroughs. Clara Ford’s Rose Garden around the house consisted of over 10,000 plants, tended by 20 full-time gardeners. It is said that Mrs. Ford slept with seed catalogs under her pillow, so great was her interest in new varieties. Several different tours of the house and property are available on a daily basis.

When someone asks, “What is unique about America?”, elements of the answer can be found at Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum.

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GREENFIELD VILLAGE AND THE FORD MUSEUM: IF YOU GO

For information on Greenfield Village or the Ford Museum, contact The Henry Ford, 20900 Oakwood Blvd., Dearborn, MI 48124; 313/982-6001, 800/835-5237; www.thehenryford.org/village/index.aspx. The village and museum are open daily, except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s.

For information on tours of the Ford Fair Lane Estate, contact the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Henry Ford Estate-Fair Lane, 4901 Evergreen Rd., Dearborn, MI 48128; 313/593-5590; www.henryfordestate.org/.

Indulge in an 1849 lunch in Greenfield Village at the Eagle Tavern.

Lodging within walking distance is available from the Dearborn Inn. For a glimpse at the Detroit of tomorrow, stay at the Westin in the downtown Renaissance Center.