Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village
Way back in the summer of 2022 #7 and #13 took a road trip around the country, visiting several podcast-related sites along the way. We shared some of their photos from the trip… but not all of them, because we didn’t want to spoil future episodes. Well, today we can finally show their photos from the Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI.
Behold, the Dymaxion House!
It’s very impressive, and it’s easy to understand why people who saw it in person came away wanting one. At the time they visited it was not possible to go inside, but you could walk around the outside and peer into the windows for a look at the mast, which is still futuristic-looking even today…
There are also some informative placards, and a few interactive stations asking children to share their predictions for the future. Of course, #13 had to share his own dour predictions…
And then, as promised, you can go around the corner to see an original Oscar Mayer Weinermobile.
The rest of the building is mostly filled with machinery, trains, and cars so if you’re really into those it’s practically overwhelming. Alas, #13 is not terribly into cars, but even he was impressed that they got an entire DC-3 inside the building…
For him the real attraction was the neighboring Greenfield Village, where Henry Ford indulged his strange hobby of buying famous inventors’ homes and workshops and rebuilding them brick by brick in his backyard. It’s utterly megalomaniacal and absolutely delightful. It’s the only place where you can walk through the Wright Brothers’ cycle shop, then jog across the street to see where Henry Heinz made his first horseradish…
… then work your way around the corner to Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park workshop …
… and then over to see residences once used by George Washington Carver and Luther Burbank.
And when we say you can walk right in, we mean it. Most of the houses are completely open to the public and packed full of informational exhibits about their former inhabitants.
You’ve gotta love Henry Ford. Well, maybe not the part of him that was an anti-Semitic Nazi sympathizer and union buster. But certainly the part that was a deranged fanboy for American inventors.
