We enjoy watching Mo Rocca and Innovation Nation, and this program is what prompted me to want to visit the Henry Ford Museum. Since we were heading to Ohio, Indiana and Michigan this summer, we made a short side trip to Dearborn to visit The Henry Ford. Unfortunately, we only had time to tour one place, even though Greenfield Village and the Ford Factory would have been something to do.
The museum is made up of sections. As we walked in, there were docents who talked with guests and gave them suggestions as to where to go. We headed right to the Presidential Vehicles, then left around the circle, ending up in Agriculture. We did not hit everything, as time was limited.
The first Presidential vehicle was Ronald Reagan's car. It was a sleek limousine, first used by Richard Nixon, and provided refuge for Ronald Reagan in 1981 after he was shot by would-be assassin John Hinkley.
Like all presidential cars after President Kennedy's assassination, it is a completely armored closed car with a permanent roof and bullet-proof glass. But, in an concession to the presidents' desire to be seen, a sunroof panel can be opened for two people to stand up with their upper bodies outside the car.
As we go back in time, the next presidential vehicle was used by President Robert F. Kennedy.
A 1961 Lincoln, it is a modern four-door convertible and seemed well-suited to a young, forward-thinking president. But tragedy struck when President Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, while riding in his car through the streets of Dallas, Texas.
As the world mourned, the Secret Service quickly took steps to have this vehicle rebuilt so it would better protect future presidents. Later modifications during Johnson's and Nixon's presidencies only served to illustrate the continual tension between the presidents' desire to be seen and the Secret Service efforts to protect them.
The next car is Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1950 Lincoln. It was used from 1950 to 1967. It was a stylish convertible to see and be seen in:
It was a new era and the old fleet of presidential cars was looking decidedly out of date. President Truman first rode in this flashy convertible after it was delivered to the White House along with nine closed limousines in 1950. President Eisenhower later had the car fitted out with a removable Plexiglass top that allowed him to see and be seen even in bad weather. This "bubbletop" soon became the name for the whole car.
The next presidential vehicle was a 1939 Lincoln used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
This car was expressly designed and built for a president. White House staff sent five pages of special instructions with the order for this new presidential vehicle. A world war was looming, and added security was crucial. Even more security features were added in 1942, after Pearl Harbor was bombed and the United States entered World War II.
Others features of this custom-made car made it easier to lift President Roosevelt in and out, since his legs had become paralyzed from polio. Despite these hardships, President Roosevelt enjoyed riding in public, and the top of his "Sunshine Special" convertible was often down as he greeted crowds.
The last car in the section was Teddy Roosevelt's Brougham carriage, circa 1902.
It was an elegant carriage for the rich and powerful. President Theodore Roosevelt was not fond of automobiles, and rarely used one. He preferred the old-fashioned style of the horse-drawn carriage for public parades and outings.
In this luxurious brougham (pronounced "broam"), two passengers could sit in privacy inside, while a coachman out front drove the horses. It was designed closer to the ground than most carriages so passengers could easily get in and out.
This coach was not custom-built -- like later presidential vehicles -- but was simply the sort of vehicle favored by people who wanted to show off their wealth or power.
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| 1831 DeWitt Clinton |
Imagine a hot August day in 1831, with hundreds of people from communities around Albany, New York, coming to the tracks of the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad on which only horse-drawn cars had traveled before. Some had come to deride the newfangled, smoke-belching "DeWitt Clinton," insisting it would blow up at any moment. But the quaint stagecoach cars were soon filled with festive well-wishers who braved the sparks and dense smoke for the historic trip from Albany to Schenectady and return. It was the first time a steam-powered railroad train had carried passengers in the state of New York.
The DeWitt Clinton is a reproduction of the third train in America built for actual service on a railroad (built in 1893 of fragments from the original locomotive and to exact original specifications for exhibition at the Chicago World's Fair). It was named for New York's seventh governor who had promoted the Erie Canal project.
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| 1829 Stephenson "Rocket" |
The steam railroad locomotive was invented in Britain in 1804. But early locomotives tended to be complicated and unreliable. In 1929 the Liverpool & Manchester Railway held a contest for new locomotive designs, and the "Rocket" built by Robert Stephenson, was the winner. Stephenson's machine was relatively simple, thoroughly reliable, and attained the amazing speed of 29-1/2 miles per hour.
The original "Rocket" is in the Science Museum in London. Since Ford could not have the original machine, Ford had Stephenson build him a replica. The "Rocket" was so successful that it was copied by other builders. Every other steam locomotive on the floor at the Henry Ford Museum shares similar features with the "Rocket."
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| 1858 Rogers |
The train was originally built for the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad for its logging plant. It was renamed "the President" in honor of President Herbert Hoover when it was selected to pull the specially built cars used in 1929 during ceremonies marking the opening of Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village and the 50th anniversary celebration of Thomas Edison's invention of the first practical electric light bulb.
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| 1925 Canadian Pacific Snowplow |
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| 1927 Bluebird School Bus |
This could be America's oldest surviving school bus. If you attended a rural school in the 1920s, you might have ridden in a horse-drawn vehicle or motorized wood-bodied school bus. But if you lived in Fort Valley, Georgia, you might have arrived in this bus. The body had a steel frame -- far more durable than wood. Built by Ford Dealer Albert Luce, the Blue Bird became a major bus manufacturer. Luce's employees found the original bus and restored it, presenting it to him for Christmas in 1947 with a big red bow on the old Model T's radiator.
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| 1900 Wood Electric Truck |
In the late 1800s, a new concept -- the department store -- offered urban shoppers expanded services, including free delivery in horse-drawn wagons. In 1898, New York City's B. Altman & Company began to experiment with electric trucks, including this one that made twice-daily trips from a warehouse to a distribution center. The huge investment in new technology helped B. Altman improve service and perhaps save money over time.
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| 1935 Stagecoach Travel Trailer |
Henry Ford gave this travel trailer to his friend Charles Lindbergh in 1942. Charles and his wife Anne used it as a home on the road and as a spare room and study at home. Anne wrote The Steep Ascent here, and Charles wrote portions of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Spirit of St. Louis.
"It is very nice inside -- quiet, compact and neat." Anne wrote in a published 1942 diary. "A table and windows the right height at which to write."
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| Charles & Anne Lindbergh |
Henry left a secure future on his father's farm to take a job at Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit in 1891. He knew little about electricity but was a quick learner. In 1893, when this photo was taken, Henry, left, became chief engineer -- and by then he knew a lot about electricity.
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| Norman Rockwell --Experimentation |
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| Henry Ford's Kitchen Sink Engine |
On December 24, 1893, Ford carried his first experimental engine, made from bits of scrap metal, into the family kitchen and clamped it to the sink. His wife, Clara, fed gasoline to the intake valve while Henry wired the spark plug to an overhead light and spun the flywheel. The little engine coughed and then roared to life.
When Ford built his first car in 1896, he was just one of many men experimenting with horseless carriages. Artist Norman Rockwell later imagined him working in the shed behind Ford's Bagley Avenue residence -- but left out the friends who helped him.
Ford's first automotive venture, Detroit Automobile Company, lasted less than a year before failing. He left his second business, the Henry Ford Company, in a dispute with his financial backers after just three months. In 1903, at age 39, Henry tried again, calling his new business Ford Motor Company.
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| Model T |
Practical, roomy, and inexpensive, the Ford Model T became a phenomenon in America and around the world. Model T's were everywhere in the 1910s and 1920s. People used them for just about everything -- for work and pleasure, on the farm and in the town.
To sell lots of anything in America, sell to middle-class families. Henry Ford's Model T was the first automobile big enough, good enough, and cheap enough for them. Mass-production methods steadily lowered the price, allowing more families to incorporate cars into their daily lives. When this car was introduced, people called it a pleasure vehicle. By 1927, when Model T production ceased, it was simply a car.
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| A family enjoys an outing to the beach in a Model T, circa 1910 |
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| Norman Rockwell captured the pride of ownership average Americans had in their Model T |
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| Jones horse-drawn streetcar, circa 1875 |
People living in growing cities needed affordable public transportation to carry them to places they couldn't reach easily by foot. By the mid-1800s, horse-drawn streetcars -- called horsecars -- traveled over rails on set schedules. By 1890, about 18,000 horsecars operated on more than 400 street railways in the United States. This one was used in Brooklyn, New York.
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| A Concord coach outside a Post Office in the 1880s |
For the vast majority of Americans in the 1800s, having a coach, boat or train car to themselves was out of the question. Instead, strangers shared a ride on streetcars, stagecoaches, and passenger trains -- all owned and operated by private companies. By 1900, Americans increasingly saw transportation as a public good that governments should subsidize.
Horse-drawn streetcars had busy schedules, requiring fresh horses several times a day. Detroit, MI, circa 1880.
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| Abbott Downing Concord coach, 1891 |
The stagecoach connected Americans ~~ For much of the 1800s, traveling long distances usually meant riding public coaches "in stages." An elaborate network of routes connected cities and towns. After railroads became common in the mid-1800s, stagecoaches still carried people on the next leg of their journey -- often from the railroad depot to another town or nearby hotel. This coach was used into the early 1900s.
Larger hotels, such as the Perkins Inn in Hopkinton, NH, used coaches to transport guests to and from the railroad station or take them on excursions during their stay.
Traveling by stagecoach meant being jostled on rough country roads and stopping every few hours to change horses. Travelers squeezed into coaches and roadside inns with strangers.
Expanded public transportation, like this 1908 New York City horsecar, required many horses. Horses continued to serve multiple needs quite well, coexisting with rail, waterways, and the emerging automobile for years.
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| Pedestrians and horse-drawn vehicles shared the New York City streets, about 1900 |
Horses, ships, and rail moved the nation ~~ Before automobiles became practical, Americans used a variety of sophisticated, established transportation networks to get around. Man-made canals, as well as new modes of transportation like steamboats and steam railroads, expanded transportation choices throughout the 1800s. And horse-drawn vehicles tied them all together, linking water, rail and pedestrian systems with homes, factories, and businesses.
The Industrial Revolution in America (lasting from about 1820 to 1920) radically altered how things were made and how workers did their jobs. The multitude of innovations that evolved during that time laid the foundation for how we live and work today.
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| Currier Shoe Shop, circa 1890 |
This small, mechanized shoe shop may look like a craftsman's workshop, but it was actually part of a factory system. Will Currier of Newton, New Hampshire, ran the shop between about 1880 and 1920. Currier received boxes of cut leather pieces from a factory in nearby Haverhill, Mass. He and two workers sewed the shoes together and sent them back.
Working in the shop ~~ Will Currier and his two workmen could make about 65 pairs of women's slippers or children's shoes a day. They were paid 2-1/2 cents a pair for doing a very tedious part of shoemaking: the sewing. Even with machinery and a steam engine, their workday was more casual and irregular than the regimen for men and women in large factories.
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| Rifling Machine, circa 1860 |
Spiral grooves inside the barrel of a gun increases the gun's accuracy. Making the grooves required a number of time-consuming hand operations before rifling machines were developed in the 1810s. Steam- or water-powered rifling machines were widely used in armories. This hand-cranked model probably was used by an independent gunsmith.
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| Elijah McCoy (1843-1929) |
Elijah McCoy was one of the most prominent Black inventors of his day, obtaining more than 50 patents between 1872 and 1929. He used his skills as an engineer and locomotive fireman to invent devices that automatically oiled moving parts on steam engines, especially locomotives.
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| Elijah McCoy |
Samuel Colt's revolvers became world famous at the 1851 Crystal Palace Exposition in London. This fine cased set of Colt .44 caliber six-shot, or New Model, revolvers was made about 1865.
Making rifles or pistols became a leading edge industry in the 1850s. America's armories, pressured by the government's need for reliable and repairable guns, pioneered new machinery and production techniques. The goal was to make gun parts that could be easily duplicated and assembled as quickly as possible.
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| Power Loom, circa 1900 |
Looms are used for weaving -- an interlacing process that has ancient origins in basket making. Mechanically driven looms could quickly produce consistent tightly woven fabrics for clothing, upholstery, and many other applications. The company that built this loom (Mason Machine Works) used its technological expertise to manufacture printing presses, firearms, and innovative railroad locomotives.
Textile manufacturers were the first American entrepreneurs to bring together under one roof all the processes for making a consumer good. Textile mills began appearing in the 1820s and by the 1870s, thousands of men, women, and children worked in huge New England textile factories.
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| Haircloth, circa 1875 |
Haircloth, like that woven on this loom, used horse tail hairs, most of which were imported from Siberia.
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| Throstle Machine, circa 1835 |
Spinning -- the twisting together of fibers to a specific size and strength, is the final stage in yarn production. The development of machines for spinning large quantities of yarn was driven by the increasing scale of industrial weaving operations. This machine could simultaneously spin 64 strands of yarn, winding them onto bobbins, ready for use. it is one of the very earliest surviving American industrial production machines.
Textile factories began replacing home spinning and weaving in the 1820s. Some workers welcomed the chance to earn regular wages at new jobs away from home. Still, many laborers resisted the close regulation and the precise schedules of machine-timed factory work. Then, as now, a new kind of technology often meant a new kind of life.
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| Clark's Spool Cotton Factory |
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| Domestic Spinning Jenny, circa 1825 |
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| Slide-lever Glass Press, circa 1870 |
This kind of glass press was used as early as the 1820s. Molten glass pressed into intricately engraved molds was an inexpensive and fast way to make decorative glassware. Pressed glass allowed people of moderate incomes to enjoy glassware that looked like expensive cut or etched glass. (I don't know why they put decorative linen behind the glasses as it makes it harder to see them.)
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| Pressed-glass Goblets, 1840-1880 |
Pressed glass was one of America's great contributions to industrial production and domestic luxury. Pressing molten glass into decorated molds was faster and cheaper than the painstakingly slow and extremely skilled methods of cutting or etching designs in glass.
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| Recording Time Clock, circa 1915 |
This time clock was made by the IBM company and installed in 1917 at the Shelby, Ohio plant of Ohio Pipe Company, a maker of steel pipes. Every day each worker "punched in" by moving the bar to his or her number and striking it, recording the time on the paper tape. In 1991, the company shifted to a less formal and less authoritarian method of time keeping.
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| Punch Card Time Clock, circa 1915 |
Another IBM time clock, regulating time with a time clock is an important source of standardizing work and synchronizing workers, as well as establishing wages and monitoring pay rates.
For mass-production factories to work profitably, owners and managers needed to maintain strict coordination and control. In exchange for factory jobs and the affordable goods they produced, workers gave up the control they once enjoyed over their own work. Only if they obeyed company rules would the company continue to give them work.
"These clocks have been a major part of our lives for so long that we have all have a love/hate relationship with them. We loved the fact that hitting them every day delivered a good paycheck, but hated to think about our daily destiny with them, especially early in the morning." ~~ Bob Bland, Copperweld-Shelby worker, 1992
Why all the rules? Corporations wanted workers that the company had trained in job skills, company regulations, and safe work practices. Each company made its own rules and defined its own standards. Unless there was a union, company rules became virtually the only rules. Workers who felt powerless to object could only leave for another job at another company.
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| The Ford Method |
Henry Ford said, "In mass production, there are no fitters." He meant that parts were so precisely made that anyone with a little training could put them together rapidly. The moving assembly line relied on these machine-made interchangeable parts reaching the assemblers as fast as they could use them.
The Heyday of Steam Power from 1870 to 1910. Huge, complex, powerful, fascinating, dangerous: steam engines became so important to America's growing commerce and industry that engineers, insurance companies, and governments were forced to constantly improve engine design, operation and safety.
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| Stationary Steam Engine, circa 1855 |
Why does this stream engine have decorative cast iron arches? No one knows for sure. It may have been the factory owner's desire to have the most impressive engine in Philadelphia -- or one "in style" with "Gothic" buildings and furniture that were popular then. Some say the "Gothic" arches and crosses represent the almost god-like power steam engines possessed.
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| Marine Steam Engine, circa 1875 |
Steam power was just as important on water as it was on land. In 1807, Robert Fulton demonstrated the real potential for steam-powered boats. The most important uses of steam power outside of factories came in steamboats and railroads. This huge engine was used in two different Great Lakes cargo ships during its 50 years of operation.
Building steam engines is complicated. It requires equipment to cast, forge, and cut metal, and workman with the skills to design, make, and assemble the parts. The same shops that built steam engines also built looms, spinning machines, rice mills, sugar mills, and water pumps -- in short, every type of machine needed by a rapidly industrialized country.
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| Stationery Stem Engine, 1879 |
Engineering students at the University of Michigan used this engine in their laboratory classes. It allowed them to compare the work of a real engine with theories about heat, power, energy, friction, and mechanical motion.
The Era of Steam Engines ~~ One hundred years ago, steam engines were everywhere, turning the wheels of American industry. Keeping the wheels working efficiently and safely was the job of engineers. As their engines became more complex and their jobs more demanding, engineers searched for better ways to learn about and run steam engines.
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| Water Turbine Electric Generator, 1903 |
This huge water turbine, and the generator it drove, came from Spokane, Washington. The Washington Water Company installed it in 1903, and it ran until 1990. It supplied power to silver mines 100 miles away in Idaho. Over the years such power lines have been tied together until one giant network now serves the entire country.
The Electrical Era, 1880 to 1990. The world we take for granted runs on electricity. Our cars, our video games, our frozen food, and our clothes are all impossible without electricity in the home and in the factory.
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| Watt Canal Pumping Engine, 1796 |
Boulton and Watt built this engine for the Warwick and Birmingham Canal Navigation Company is 1796. It was used at the Bowyer Street pumping station in Birmingham, England, to pump water on the Bordesley Canal until 1854, when it was superseded by a more modern engine. The engine remained in the pumping station until coming to The Henry Ford Museum in 1929.
James Watt's improved engine used just half the fuel of its predecessor, the Newcomen engine. This fuel saving was made possible by the use of Watt's patented invention, the separate condenser. But there was a hitch: Watt demanded costly royalties for the use of his engines. Many engine owners chose to keep their more wasteful machines until Watt's patents expired.
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| Windmill, 1910 |
There was a replica of a weird house they called the "Dymaxion House." The Dymaxion House was developed by inventor and architect Buckminster Fuller to address several perceived shortcomings with existing homebuilding techniques. Fuller designed several versions of the house at different times—all of them factory manufactured kits, assembled on site, intended to be suitable for any site or environment and to use resources efficiently. A key design consideration was ease of shipment and assembly. As he did when naming many of his inventions, Fuller combined the words dynamic, maximum, and tension to arrive at the term Dymaxion.
Take a tour of the Dymaxion house through this video I found on the museum's website.
The last section we visited was the Agriculture section. There was quite a few tractors and other farm equipment, but this is the only one I took a picture of.
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| Avery Steam Traction Engine, circa 1918 |
This self-propelled "traction" engine moved from farm to farm under its own steam. The 23-ton engine was powerful enough to pull a gang plow with as many as eight bottoms (shares with moldboards) across large farm fields. At harvest, the engine ran a threshing machine that separated kernels from grain grown on those large fields. A steam engineer safely operated the machine.
And last, but not least, the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile:
It was pretty cool seeing the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. "Little Oscar" and his special vehicle, the Wienermobile, launched in 1936, demonstrate how a corporation can successfully create a popular public image for itself. The Oscar Mayer Company subsequently developed a line of premiums and giveaways, including toys and trinkets, based on these popular creations.
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