In 1916 a clearly agitated Henry Ford famously proclaimed that “history is more or less bunk.” Thirteen years later, however, he opened the outdoor history museum Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. It was written history’s focus on politicians and military heroes that was bunk, he explained. Greenfield Village would correct this error by celebrating farmers and inventors. The village eventually included a replica of Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory, the Wright brothers’ cycle shop and home from Dayton, Ohio, and Ford’s own Michigan birthplace. But not all of the structures were associated with famous men. Craft and artisan shops, a Cotswold cottage from England, and two brick slave cabins also populated the village landscape. Ford mixed replicas, preserved buildings, and whole-cloth constructions that together celebrated his personal worldview. Greenfield Village was immediately popular. But that only ensured that the history it portrayed would be interpreted not only by Ford but also by throngs of visitors and the guides and publicity materials they encountered. After Ford’s death in 1947, administrators altered the village in response to shifts in the museum profession at large, demographic changes in the Detroit metropolitan area, and the demands of their customers. Jessie Swigger analyzes the dialogue between museum administrators and their audiences by considering the many contexts that have shaped Greenfield Village. The result is a book that simultaneously provides the most complete extant history of the site and an intimate look at how the past is assembled and constructed at history museums.
...More
Book
Casey, Robert;
(2008)
The Model T: A Centennial History
(/isis/citation/CBB000951007/)
Book
Snow, Richard;
(2013)
I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford
(/isis/citation/CBB001213231/)
Article
Wells, Christopher W.;
(2007)
The Road to the Model T: Culture, Road Conditions, and Innovation at the Dawn of the American Motor Age
(/isis/citation/CBB000830426/)
Article
Liffen, John;
(2013)
Some Early Marconi Experimental Apparatus Reappraised
(/isis/citation/CBB001200800/)
Book
Elizabeth Esch;
(2018)
The Color Line and the Assembly Line: Managing Race in the Ford Empire
(/isis/citation/CBB474634709/)
Article
David Perrett;
(2018)
Henry Ford’s 1928 English Holiday Part 1 – In Search of Newcomen Engines
(/isis/citation/CBB122198176/)
Book
Curcio, Vincent;
(2013)
Henry Ford
(/isis/citation/CBB001213247/)
Chapter
Fausto Casi;
(2016)
La comunicazione in trincea: 1914-1918
(/isis/citation/CBB313825758/)
Book
Möbius, Hanno;
(1983)
Vierhundert Jahre technische Sammlung in Berlin, von der Raritätenkammer der Kurfürsten zum Museum für Verkehr und Technik
(/isis/citation/CBB000010214/)
Article
Heefner, Gretchen;
(2007)
Missiles and Memory: Dismantling South Dakota's Cold War
(/isis/citation/CBB001030814/)
Article
Osietzki, Maria;
(1985)
Die Gründungsgeschichte des Deutschen Museums von Meisterwerken der Naturwissenschaften und Technik in München, 1903-1906
(/isis/citation/CBB000017361/)
Chapter
Smith, Michael L.;
(1986)
Back to the future: EPCOT, Camelot, and the history of technology
(/isis/citation/CBB000062309/)
Article
Post, Robert C.;
Molella, Arthur P.;
(1997)
The call of stories at the Smithsonian Institution: History of technology and science in crisis
(/isis/citation/CBB000077896/)
Book
(1994)
Le Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers au coeur de Paris, 1794-1994
(/isis/citation/CBB000035178/)
Book
Mercier, Alain;
(1989)
1749: L'abbé Grégoire et la creátion du Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers
(/isis/citation/CBB000059104/)
Thesis
Sneddon, Matthew T.;
(2009)
Representing Tradition in an Age of Progress: Technology and American Identity in Exhibitions and Museums, 1824--1952
(/isis/citation/CBB001562862/)
Article
Wray, Matt;
(2006)
A Blast from the Past: Preserving and Interpreting the Atomic Age
(/isis/citation/CBB000660090/)
Article
Pantalony, David;
(2011)
Biography of an Artifact: The Theratron Junior and Canada's Atomic Age
(/isis/citation/CBB001211534/)
Article
Bektas, Yakup;
Sherman, Roger;
(2013)
A Bold New Enterprise: The Istanbul Museum of the History of Science and Technology in Islam
(/isis/citation/CBB001213364/)
Article
Habacher, Maria;
(1994)
Das k.k. Fabriksprodukten-Kabinett in Wien (1806-1815): Zur Frühzeit technologisch-gewerblicher Sammlungen
(/isis/citation/CBB000039396/)
Be the first to comment!