| The Henry Ford, a National Historic Landmark, (also known as the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, and more formally as the Edison Institute), in the Metro Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, USA, is the nation’s “largest indoor-outdoor history museum” complex. |
Michigan is awfully flat and Dearborn is certainly no exception. Greenfield Village is kind of like Disneyland for nerds. Not that we don’t have them in Connecticut. Mystic is certainly a very real place that I’ve gone frequently. The secret to Mystic Pizza is that the sauce is very peppery, I broke out in hives.
On the other hand it’s a very Sailors on the Moon (as opposed to Sailor Moon) experience and it’s not that crowded. Cut down on the shows that the theater arts re-creators do and you’re actually just as likely to stumble across someone who actually works at restoring historic ships which I think makes it much cooler, although nothing is inexpensive- it is the land of the $5 Lemonade so don’t come hungry.
And it takes about half a day and you can spend the other half gawking at fish and some rather sad looking penguins at the attached aquarium which is nothing like the one in Chattanooga. That was some impressive, you betcha. What I liked most is the exhibit that showed you all the various ecologies of the Tennessee River watershed. If I’d had a few more hours I’d know a lot more about catching fish than I do now.
Back in Connecticut where Stars Hollow is never more than half an hour away in any direction, you round out your day with some twilight window shopping at the storefront boutiques (very attractive with their tasteful white year round light outlines). Then a few brews while you fantisize your date is Julia Roberts before you sneak off to your Bed and Breakfast.
Dragonfly Inn, I’m telling yah.
So I’ve ridden this pony show a few times even at a tender and easily impressed age as I was when I did most of my Michigan sightseeing including the infamous but memorable Auto World, but really they’re littered all over the place like movie sets on a backlot.
Greenfield Village was impressive though.
It takes 2 days if you’re going to do the Ford Museum and I found looking at land mark production number one after land mark production number one, less than facinating. Still, they were all meticulously kept and the sheer volume of them was it’s own kind of message. The other exibits were testaments to the achievements of the industrial age including some big obsolete machine tools (stuff like the die used to make Edsel grilles).
The village itself was a whole other day and the reason is that (along with some other junk) it contains a big chunk of Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park development complex.
When they teach you about Edison in schools they don’t mention people like Westinghouse and Tesla nor do they mention the war of the currents much.
Edison was a lot more like Bill Gates than Linus Torvalds, however charitably you think of him, but it is a tangled turn of the century web indeed.
Westinghouse doesn’t exist anymore except as the CBS media company owned by Viacom (who employ Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, not that Sumner Redstone is a nice guy, because he’s not).
Edison’s company General Electric, a major defense contractor, is still with us today as is the media component of it’s radio manufacturing arm RCA– NBC (employer of Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann).
A little wiki goodness-
| During World War I the U.S. Navy suppressed patents of the major companies involved with radio in the United States to facilitate the war effort. All production of radio equipment was allocated for either the army or the navy. The U.S. Navy sought to maintain a government monopoly of wireless radio; however, the wartime command system over radio was to eventually end by the tabling of the maintenance of government control by the U.S Congress in 1918. The rejection of government monopoly did not prevent the Navy from creating a national radio system. On April 8, 1919, U.S. Navy Captain Stanford C. Hooper and Admiral W. H. G. Bullard met with General Electric Company executives to ask that they not sell their Alexanderson alternators to the Marconi companies. The premise of the Navy’s proposal was that if GE created an American owned radio company, then the Navy would secure a commercial monopoly of long-distance radio communication. This marked the beginning of negotiations by which GE would buy American Marconi, a foreign owned company, and organize what would become the Radio Corporation of America. |
David Sarnoff is another interesting guy.
Among the good things RCA did is they perfected Edison’s analog stylus audio recording technology.
I actually think this concept is kind of amazing because the tools are not at all high tech. You need a turning wheel, like a potter’s wheel or a lathe, a soft recording media, a stylus, a diaphram and an amplifying cone. Pretty stone age.
So much so that it’s far more likely aliens will be able to decode our Voyager Record than anything else.
| Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would’ve hidden from it in terror. |
But back to earth, other than the Edison stuff, what I most remember is that my mom slipped down the steps of one of the buildings and broke her tail bone. She was a real good sport and we finished the tour, not much to be done about that kind of injury anyway.
To the extent that I have a point tonight I guess it’s this, that are whole hidden histories that you don’t get from field trips and text books but you can get if you know where to look.
Henry Ford is not the only fascinating fascist founder of a major American Industrial Empire, just one of the most anti-semitic.
Bill Durant, founder of General Motors is kind of an interesting guy too.
Also.
Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?
Same thing we do every night Pinky- Try to take over the world!
| They’re Pinky and The Brain Yes, Pinky and The Brain One is a genius The other’s insane. They’re laboratory mice Their genes have been spliced They’re dinky They’re Pinky and The Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain Brain. Before each night is done They’re Pinky and The Brain They’ll overthrow the Earth |
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…the Edison mansion, both in West Orange.
Been to Mystic, too. Ate the pizza.
thanks!
you know…… out of all the authors & series here at docudharma, i believe i enjoy stars hollow the absolute most. it’s always something out of the ordinary and simply fascinating!!
didn’t know if i’d actually told YOU that recently
♥~
I think I’ve just been called a nerd. LOL
I’ve spent many a day at the museum and village.
My grandmother worked at Westinghouse Canuckistan division for a long time.
I am glad you reminded me of the aquarium in Chattanooga. I love aquariums and must find a reason to get there, I think it would be a three hundred plus mile drive for me.
it was more downtown local as i recall. anyway, used to get to mystic at least once a year, sometimes twice. liked to drive south to Abbotts Lobster to eat. i miss the east coast.