AMERICANA AT HENRY FORD MUSEUM

The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village (formally the Edison Institute) is a large indoor/outdoor museum complex and a National Historic Landmark.

It is more than a museum.  Like.......Disney World is more than an amusement park!  It is located across from the Ford Motor Company headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.  A day in the museum immerses you in American history and folklore. 

The property has an array of famous homes, machinery exhibits and Americana exhibits to preserve items of historical significance and portraits of the industrial revolution.   

ROSA PARKS' BUS

When Presidents campaigned from train stops!  (Those were the days!)

Remember when they were .15!

Included in the collection is the John F Kennedy presidential limousine, Abraham Lincoln’s chair from the Ford Theater, Thomas Edison’s laboratory, the Wright Brothers bicycle shop and the Rosa Parks bus.

This would still be a fun way to camp!  1959 VW Westfalla!

Henry Ford said of his museum: 

I am collecting the history of our people as written into things their hands made and used.... When we are through, we shall have reproduced American life as lived, and that, I think, is the best way of preserving at least a part of our history and tradition..

EDISON INSTITUTE

Thomas Edison and Henry Ford along with Firestone were good friends.  The Edison Institute was dedicated by President Herbert Hoover on Oct 21, 1929, the 50^th anniversary of the first successful incandescent light bulb. Among the people in attendance to the dedication were Marie Curie, George Eastman, John D. Rockefeller, Wille Rogers and Orville Wright.  The dedication was broadcast on the radio with listeners encouraged to turn off their electric lights until the switch was flipped at the Museum.

GREENFIELD VILLAGE

Nearly 100 historical buildings were moved to this property from their original locations and arranged in a “village” setting.  It shows how Americans lived and worked since the founding of the country.  Buildings range from the 17^th century to the present with many staffed by costumed interpreters. 

We were getting tired to walking so took a ride on the 1913 Herschell Spillman Carousel.  

The craft buildings include pottery, glass blowing, tin shops.  The Village has 240 acres of land with only 90 acres used for the attraction and the rest are forest, river and pastures for sheep and horses.

Definitely the Village can be done on the second day.  There is so much to see.

This is the boarding house that was located across from Thomas Edison's laboratory.  Many of Edison's technicians lived in this house while they worked at the institute.

Robert Frost home located in Ann Arbor while he was Poet Laureate at University of Michigan

To say it was an exhausting day is an understatement.  This complex is easily be done in two days! In fact it should be done in two days!

Our time in Dearborn is up and now we are off to Indiana .... why?? .... because I've never been there!

Life is good in the slow lane!