Detroit: Vacation Spot for History Lovers (Part 2)

 

    For our first real post-pandemic trip, we chose to visit two cities that we'd never visited before: Detroit and Milwaukee. Those two midwestern cities may not be front of mind for history lovers who are considering travel destinations, but, as we discovered, there are lots of things to do in each.

    Detroit was on our list largely because of The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, a few minutes from downtown Detroit. The complex made it to my consciousness years ago, and I'd recently read Fordlandia, about Henry Ford and his efforts to corner the international rubber market, which was a great read. As those who know me are aware, I detest and despise the man and practically everything about him, but I have to grudgingly admit that he created an incredible collection of historical objects. During his middle years, Ford became a supercollector of historical artifacts, especially those artifacts that related to men like him, in his mind: innovators, inventors, moralists, nationalists, patriots - AMURICANS!!! He and his agents scoured the country purchasing buildings and their contents, dismantling them, and shipping them to Dearborn, where they were reassembled to form Greenfield Village. He started with the property of his friends, Thomas Edison Wright Brothers,  and Harvey Firestone for example, and then included American nationalists and assimilationists like William McGuffey and Noah Webster. Over the years, more buildings have been moved in to represent more of America. Just a few weeks ago, it was announced that a Selma Alabama home used in the planning and coordination of the Selma marches had been purchased for the Village.

    Not only can visitors walk among and through the buildings, but they can also meet knowledgeable  and enthusiastic docents who are eager to tell you the stories of the buildings. Visitors can also ride around the village in model Ts and model As, or they can take a train ride pulled by an old steam engine or by Thomas the Tank Engine. It's really a great experience all around.

George Washington Carver birthplace

Wright Brothers bicycle shop 

An Illinois county courtroom in which a young Abraham Lincoln argued cases

Display in the H.J. Heinz house

H.J. Heinz home where many of the Heinz products were first produced

Inside Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory

Noah Webster home

Henry Ford birthplace

William McGuffey birthplace

inside Ford's birthplace

inside Ford's birthplace

Edison's Menlo Park Lab buildings

slave cabins from Georgia coast

Edison's Menlo Park Lab

The last Model T to come off the assembly line

    One could take a whole day to see Greenfield Village; seeing the entire Ford complex takes at least two days. On our second day, we did the tour of the River Rouge Ford Plant. Henry Ford originally built the factory as a showcase of  modern American industrial technology. Today, Ford F-150 Crew Cabs are manufactured there. It was really interesting to see the assembly lines at work.

    The Museum of American Innovation, as you would expect, has lots and lots of cars in it, but you could spend a whole day there. 

The Kennedy presidential assassination limo in which he was assassinated. (After the assassination, it was reconfigured.)

The Montgomery City bus on which Rosa Parks was arrested

Detroit: Vacation Spot for History Lovers (Part 1)

     We recently took our first big post-pandemic vacation, and we decided to visit two cities that we had never visited before: Detroit and Milwaukee.  Detroit and Milwaukee?!? Well, we had never been to Detroit before, and it has long been on our list because of the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, and a fellow Histocrat had visited Milwaukee just prior to the pandemic and raved about it.

    We flew into Detroit and immediately went to the Detroit Institute of Arts ( https://dia.org/ ), which was quite a pleasant surprise. Honestly, we weren't expecting much, but it turned out to be a wonderful institution, and we could have spent more time there if we had it.  The Museum has a very eclectic and far-ranging collection including works and artifacts from every inhabited continent and going back thousands of years.  There's ancient Greek and Roman, Native American, African, Asian, Renaissance, Modern, Medieval --- something for everybody.  

    There were a few things I found particularly interesting. One area of interest for me was "the weird." Interspersed throughout the museum were works that were just plain unique and wonderfully weird, things that I had never seen before, weird and grotesque faces, let's say "unusual" looking children, etc. 

"Africa and Europe", porcelain, !700s

"The Nightmare", 1781 Henry Fuseli

        There is also an amazing collection of European sterling silverware and porcelain ware that once graced the most elaborate and opulent dinner tables of the 1700s and 1800s. In one of the galleries, there is an interesting and unique display showcasing this collection. A small table for four is set up as if for a dinner party and the table serves as a screen showing a video of the table being "dressed" or set for a multiple course dinner.

Turkey Soup Tureen

        One of the most popular exhibits at the Detroit Institute of Arts is the Diego Rivera murals. "The Detroit Industry Murals (1932–1933) are a series of frescoes by the Mexican artist Diego Rivera, consisting of twenty-seven panels depicting industry at the Ford Motor Company and in Detroit. Together they surround the interior Rivera Court in the Detroit Institute of Arts. Painted between 1932 and 1933, they were considered by Rivera to be his most successful work. On April 23, 2014, the Detroit Industry Murals were designated by the Department of Interior as a National Historic Landmark.

The two main panels on the North and South walls depict laborers working at Ford Motor Company's River Rouge Plant. Other panels depict advances made in various scientific fields, such as medicine and new technology. The series of murals, taken as a whole, expresses the idea that all actions and ideas are one." (Wikipedia)  The murals are really fantastic.

    

    The Detroit Institute of Arts has over 65,000 objects in its collection, and we just scratched its surface.  There is so much more to see. If you find yourself in Detroit, I highly recommend a visit.

(Part 2 will be about our visits to The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village.)