Thursday, July 18, 2019

The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1ILukc0eaCZRtpzdyxXdRV9GLol2-CHgR
Today was our first day at the Henry Ford  Museum. Since it was raining the choice was easy to stay inside the museum and out of the rain. We decided to take the Insider's Tour and got a great overview of the museum. The museum is huge as Henry Ford loved to collect items related to American innovation and especially items related to the intersection of agriculture and industry. Some of my favorites included seeing all of the Ford cars including the original 1896 Quadracycle Ford first invented to the concept cars of the future. The museum also had a number of one-of-a-kind items such as the Lincoln chair, (where Lincoln was shot), the Rosa's Park bus (I sat in her seat.), many presidential limousines, including the one President Kennedy was killed in, and the prototype for Buckminster Fuller's Dyamaxion House, which we were able to tour.  It was a delightful surprise to find that the museum was hosting a Star Trek exhibit. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, was a pilot during World War II and he successfully completed over 30 missions and earned the Distinquished Flying Cross. After the war, he created the Star Trek series, which was given the go ahead by Lucille Ball's, of I Love Lucy fame, production company. Star Trek has always been one of my favorites as it challenged stereotypes and expanded people's ideas of what was possible as it boldly went, "where no one has gone before." It's amazing to see how some of the gadgets dreamed up in Star Trek back in the 1960s are coming true today. Examples include the cell phone and body scanners. The exhibit was filled with props and costumes used in the series so it was neat to see them in person! Overall, I admire Ford's collection and the museum's focus on innovation and American inventions. 

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