The Henry Ford

There was not a lot open in Detroit for the 4th of July, so we decided to make our way to the Henry Ford Museum of Innovation in Dearborn. This turned out to be an excellent idea, as there was so much to see!

We started in the presidential cars exhibit. We quickly discovered that this museum has a lot of surprise items in its collection (and is not that big on replica items):

This is the actual car Kennedy was assassinated in (restored)

This was the car FDR liked to use (the actual car, not a replica of it)

This one is Teddy Roosevelt's favorite Brougham that he preferred over taking an automobile

From here, we moved on the the history of the American road trip, which was a fun exhibit:

Alex made us promise to take a picture here, even if we did not eat in the diner (we did not)

Benji was anxious to get on to the railroad exhibit, which had tons of neat rail cars, including the train that President Hoover rode to the museum opening (he presumably took another way home):

Next an exhibit on other types of vehicles:

This is the first ever American school bus (the actual vehicle, not a replica)

I'd never seen an Edsel before

Followed by one on early flyers and the history of aircraft in America:

Exhibit on Barnstormers

They had instructions for folding different sorts of paper planes and a test area

There were three different examples of early passenger planes where you could sit in the seats and see what it felt like to fly in them. This was a 1950s plane -- the seats were wicker!

One fun exhibit was Mathematica. A sign at the entrance noted that this was an historical exhibit (i.e. not curated or updated to reflect modern times). It was the actual exhibit IBM had at their pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair, designed by Ray and Charles Eames. It was meant to engage people in the exciting new world of math and science:

We strolled through the furniture exhibit next, which was interesting, and kind of just walked past architecture, although Benji went up into the combine:

Our absolute favorite (by far) exhibit was at the very back of the museum. Apparently after WWII, Buckminster Fuller developed a model of a round house that he hoped would solve the housing crisis for returning GIs. He planned to retool the Beech Aircraft factory in Kansas to use leftover materials from the war to mass produce these houses. The ads (some were real, but we think some were made for the exhibit?) were amazing -- all about the benefits of a round house and space saving. The venture flopped, but the museum has the only remaining model Fuller built and you can take a guided tour of it:

The next exhibit we spent time in was also very good - called "My Place in Time" that went through hallmarks for each generation:

The War/Silent Generation

Baby Boomers

Gen X

We finished off in the "And Liberty for All" exhibit which had different branches exploring different types of civil rights struggles:

This is the actual bus that Rosa Parks rode when she refused to give up her seat. Ford bought it and had it brought from Montgomery

Actual chair that Lincoln was sitting in when he was assassinated

As we were getting ready to leave, I spotted one last thing we *had* to check out:

The 1952 prototype Wienermobile

We left the museum at closing time and made out way next door to Greenfield Village, where we had tickets to hear the Detroit Philharmonic play for the 4th. The historical buildings were closed, but there were little concerts in front of many of them, including this steel guitar player in front of a 1930s era freeholder cabin:

The historic carousal was also open and we got the very last ride of the night

By 8, we settled in for the concert (culminating in the 1812 overture) and fireworks, which spanned 4 Sousa marches and were excellent.