November 9 -- The Henry Ford

I spent the entire day today at The Henry Ford. It is a series of museums -- the Henry Ford Museum; Greenfield Village; Ford Rouge Factory Tour; and the Benson Ford Research Centre. It is far more that just a car museum, which is what I expected. There was only time for the Henry Ford Museum and the Rouge Factory Tour. I am anxious to return sometime to see Greenfield Village, though, which contains more than 100 notable historic structures imported from around the U.S.A. They've been assembled into a village, with actors playing epoch appropriate roles, and turned into what must be a fabulous slice of Americana. And a one-day commitment

The Henry Ford Museum was more of a cultural institution than I'd imagined, containing furniture, tools, and other quotidian elements of American life from throughout the 20th Century and before. For example, the museum features the chair Lincoln was sitting in during his unfortunate encounter with John Wilkes Booth. There was a killer exhibit, also, entitled "Best of Friends: Buckminster Fuller (the geodesic dome guy) and Isamu Noguchi (the coffee table guy). A very special treat was the tour of the only remaining dymaxion house -- a super high-tech, round aluminum hut that Fuller designed and hoped aircraft workers could fabricate to be easily assembled for millions of returning servicemen. According to our tour guide, "Bucky" messed everything up through his lack of business sense. Probably true, but the technology behind and in the house were absolutely amazing. (There's a cool link to the right that gives a better sense of the house than these photographs do.) There was also a prototype of a dymaxion car that Bucky and Isamu ("Izzy"?) Noguchi designed together.

The cars were, as expected, great. Unlike the Chrysler museum, which only displayed vehicles from that company and it's brands, the Ford Museum contains cars from all sorts of makers: vehicles donated by GM and Ford; one of the first (or THE first) Honda Accord assembled in the U.S.; a VW Beetle and Westphalia Camper Bus; Toyota's first model in the U.S.; etc. It even has the only original 1962 Weinermobile!



A hightlight is the display of limousines that have carried every president from Roosevelt to Reagan. Curiously, the bullet-proof windows on the Reagan Lincoln have gone entirely white, while all the earlier vehicles' glass has remained clear. No one knows why.

There were some remarkable exhibits in a "Liberty" section of the museum, which covered civil rights issues. These included the bus that Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of (you could get on board and sit in the seat she occupied!), and a lot of good demonstrative exhibits relating to womens rights.

The aircraft collection was a bit cramped, and the planes somehow didn't get me too excited. There was one aircraft -- the first one ever flown over the South Pole -- that was quite remarkable. Fun, also, to see an old Ford Trimotor.

The Rouge Factory Tour was great fun. The plant, the site of terrible Labor unrest in the '30's and a birthplace of the United Auto Workers, now makes about 1100 F-150 pickup trucks a day. We were shown two movies, one about the history of the plant and another about assembling the F-150 specifically. We then went to an observation deck to view the plant from above and so Ford could tout its environmental efforts (grass on the factory roofs, special rainwater collection devices in the parking lot, etc.). We then toured the assembly operations on an overhead walkway. The plant was remarkably quiet, impeccably clean, and smelled pretty nice. The assembly operations were smooth and the workers' movements in putting the trucks together appeared smooth and ergonomically thought-out. Still, I was impressed by how brutally hard the repetition must be for the workers -- installing , say, windshield wipers and plastic windshield trim pieces on 40 identical trucks per hour for 8 - 10 hours in a row, day after day. That's gotta be tough. No pictures were allowed in the assembly hall, so you'll just have to go see the place yourself!

I had an easy drive from Dearborn down to Auburn, Indiana. My first time in the state! On the road, the license plates read "In God We Trust," just like our money. Also, like Michigan, Indiana's highway speed limit is 70 mph for cars, and slower for trucks. A great idea!