Lunchtime. This poster is near the entry to the cafeteria. I am amused.
My friend told me that some people who live near The Henry Ford come every day. The museum is huge -- it would be easy to walk a mile and never retrace your steps. I would totally go there to walk, when the temps are bitter and/or the sidewalks are treacherous, if I lived nearby......
It's interesting to think about one piece of graphic art influencing another.... I'm sure I've seen a war poster with a similar design.
We talked for a long time, over lunch and afterward.
My view included these interesting reflections in the windows of another nearby building. I wonder why most of them have one reflection, and the other one has a different sort of reflection.........
The museum is working on replacing the windows with more energy-efficient ones, as resources allow.
Back into the museum. I was amused by this ad.
Ford had a big advertising campaign, at one point, encouraging people to think outside their local cities.
The couple is looking dreamily at a factory complex, belching smoke.
I know I've read that people were thrilled that cars would replace horses, so the streets would be much cleaner......... I expect the streets themselves are (probably) cleaner, but is our environment, overall, really cleaner, now? No. Tradeoffs.........
And let's not forget unplanned consequences. It's this sort of thing that makes me not entirely sanguine about all the new things we will do with the new knowledge/ideas/techniques I learned about in genetics last month.
Projects that we launch into with the best of intentions can go horribly wrong and leave us with centuries of cleanup........
My friend was influential in getting this painting into this display. The painting is a sketch for a mural that was proposed for the area near the work place of the model builders, many decades ago. The subject of the display is the way design turns into objects, and the painting shows the guys who built life-size models of new designs for cars, working in their shop. Activity, tools, mess, sketchiness..... A good depiction of what it can be like to bring an idea into the world and turn it into a real, useful, object!
One of my better half's grandfathers was a model builder for an auto maker, and probably would have found this scene entirely familiar.
A closeup of the small models of "concept cars" which, like the Dymaxion House, were more about exploration of ideas than about practical use.
And now for something a lot older. Love the painted design on this coach. The colors.....
This is Henry Ford's first automobile.
And these are the very tools he used to build it.
Baby boomers will join me in remembering this..... I remember waiting for those numbers to click over 100 million sold.....
The museum has a real golden arch -- I wish I'd stepped back a few feet to get the whole thing into the pic. Maybe I couldn't, I don't remember.
Heading into an exhibit with earlier artifacts.
I hadn't thought about the way this sort of publication was similar to a stained-glass window -- telling a story in pics, so those who couldn't read could still be connected with the story-teller's view of what happened. (This was made by Paul Revere.)
This tent houses artifacts from the Revolutionary War, including the actual camp bed slept on by George Washington. It unfolds out of a sort of suitcase, and isn't nearly as long as he was. I learned that people at that time did not expect to be stretched all the way out in a bed, as we expect. They expected to be curled up, or to have their heads and/or feet elevated, so they didn't need as long a bed. I always wondered about the short beds from that time.....
I wonder if this tent is authentic. It reminds me very much of the tent my brother and sister-in-law use for Society for Creative Anachronism events............
We reluctantly brought our Henry Ford day to a close -- we didn't want to be in rush hour traffic, and more snow was predicted.
I am eager for another visit! I think she and I could spend a day like that every month, forever, and never be "done." The collection is vast and varied, with something for everyone. I'm looking forward to more exposure to it.
I came home to home-made bread, and the last of the Italian eggplant-with-cheese dish we froze last fall. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.
A totally excellent day.
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