Greenfield Village is host to a plethora of gardens, both floral and vegetable. The Living History and Agricultural teams are responsible for the historic growing spaces to produce the vegetables, fruits, dye materials, and herbs that our ancestors would have relied on — spanning from 1760 through 1930. These items are grown in both kitchen gardens and fields. We can learn from these sustainable systems, and from those that came before us, to make educated decisions for our modern home gardens. Firestone Farm is an excellent example, as it has the most comprehensive growing space, and guests can see the process from farm to table.
Firestone Farm kitchen garden / Photo courtesy of Morgan Lewerenz
The kitchen garden has been the heart of the growing space for home use for many centuries. During the 19th century, the vegetables, herbs, and fruit grown in the kitchen garden were the first used in the house for daily meals. When there was abundance — much of which was planned — then produce would be used in preservation recipes. The cycle of the kitchen garden is just as necessary for human consumption as it is for the annual rehabilitation of the growing space. Gardens serve the home during the growing season and in turn, we give back to the gardens when the plot is uncultivated during the winter. During the cold season, animal waste on the tilled land as well as distribution of compost as the ground begins to warm prepare the garden for the next year of production. Likewise, kitchen scraps could equally go back to the compost and the hogs, providing sustenance for the future. Many agricultural manuals of the time also include instructions on how to use objects on the farm and surrounding lands to build structures in the garden. Guests will often see A-frames and trellises in the gardens made by branches that have fallen and been repurposed.
The field at Firestone Farm / Photo courtesy of Morgan Lewerenz
The field is the backbone of the growing spaces for a farm. This space is often planted with row crops for cellar storage, food for animals, and grains that could be sold. The Firestone Agriculture team includes Turkey Red winter wheat in their annual plantings based on research into the Firestone family in the 1880s. This sellable crop would have been planted in late fall and come spring clover could be broadcasted over the wheat to help minimize weeds from developing. After wheat harvest in mid-summer, the clover would be plowed into the ground to help replenish the soil with nitrogen. Another soil replenishing cover crop, like buckwheat, could be planted between harvest and planting. The buckwheat would then be tilled into the soil before replanting the next season's wheat. Crops like corn were often planted with pumpkins, a testament of Indigenous knowledge of sustainability. The "three sisters" method of planting allowed for the best use of space in the field and the best support system for the crops planted. Guests can see how the Firestone team grows pumpkins in the corn field for that same efficiency as both are harvested at the same time.
"Three sisters" planting at Firestone / Photo courtesy of John Forintos
Composting was essential to the success of growing spaces on 19th-century farms. Many period manuals instructed farmers to use their "thoroughly rotted and rich compost" to supplement nutrients in their garden spaces. The current Firestone teams use a combination of animal and produce waste to create their compost and have even been working with the new biodigester at Stand 44 to supplement plant matter to help keep the mixture balanced. Manure also has to go through a stage of composting before it can be useful in the garden. Guests can see the consistent manure heap, often steaming, near the barn ramp. The manure has to be regularly turned and watered — just like a compost pile. Similarly, the farm team uses a technique called "hard packing" for the animal pens during the winter. This practice allows the manure to be covered with straw, creating layers of buildup throughout the winter. Pens stay clean with additional straw and the animals benefit from the warmth of the straw-manure layers starting to ferment. Then in the spring, pens are deep cleaned and the mature manure/bedding is added to the pile adjacent to the barn ramp.
The Living History and Agriculture teams are using historic methods to care for the growing spaces in Greenfield Village, but this is knowledge that has been around for hundreds of years and much of it is still being used today. We hope that today's gardeners can be inspired by our ancestors to try out some new-old sustainable practices at home!
Turkey Red winter wheat at Firestone Farm / Photo courtesy of John Forintos
Emily Sovey is manager of Living History
John Forintos is manager of Historic Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Husbandry and Town Life
Morgan Lewerenz is master farmer of Historic Agriculture
Kelly Salminen is a Firestone Farm program specialist
Author and filmmaker Nelson George leans into a discussion about how obstacles, objects and observation are the makings of a good story
Nelson George has had an amazing career. He’s an author. A screenplay writer. A filmmaker. An award-winning journalist. And he’s not done yet.
Photo by Erik Tanner/Contour by Getty Images
Broadly speaking, much of George’s professional portfolio has been focused on the documentation of the Black experience in America. His publication record includes both novels and celebrated nonfiction works like Where Did Our Love Go?: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound and Blackface: Reflections on African-Americans and the Movies. He also has credits as a writer and producer on Netflix's The Get Down and has co-written screenplays for iconic 1990s films including Strictly Business and CB4 starring Chris Rock.
Over the decades, George has built upon his skills as a prolific storyteller. He has an unwavering understanding of the human condition from myriad angles and readily relies on his keen observation skills to bring stories of people overcoming obstacles and realizing their dreams to the page and screen.
Recently, Kristen Gallerneaux, curator and editor-in-chief, and Jennifer LaForce, The Henry Ford Magazine’s managing editor, had the opportunity to talk with George as he begins to contemplate and activate his approach to documenting the next chapters in the story of the Dr. Sullivan and Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson House, one of the newest acquisitions of The Henry Ford. This Selma, Alabama, home provided a safe haven where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and hundreds of others invested in the Voting Rights Movement worked, collaborated and strategized the Selma to Montgomery marches of 1965 (learn more). George will be creating a documentary about the house’s significance to the Long Civil Rights Movement, the backstory of its move from Selma, Alabama, to Dearborn, Michigan, and its reconstruction in Greenfield Village (learn more).
Kristen Gallerneaux: You’ve worked within many forms of media during your career — as an author, a screenplay writer, filmmaker, documentarian, journalist. What have you learned about people and their relationships with one another?
Nelson George: The way that people relate to each other is through story. Think about the people we meet. We ask where they’re from. They tell you “I came from here. I went there. I got married. I got divorced.” Whatever our stories, they are the unifying way that we communicate with each other.
In any medium I work in — whether it’s a book or a movie or a documentary or some other form of storytelling — it’s all about finding the beginning, finding the middle and finding the end. And I think that people relate to each other best when they feel there’s a story that they can connect to.
It’s kind of funny. I do a class once a year in London at different institutions for young artists. It originally started out as a screenwriting class. What I’ve noticed over time is that there are so many different technologies at work today to tell a story — from TikTok to AI — but ultimately it’s about engaging people. I try to teach that if you start off with a star, and then tell how that star was born and then share that star’s journey, that’s the best way to engage someone. For me, the one thing I take away from all the different work I’ve done in all the myriad of forms is that whether it’s about love, an athlete or politics, people really connect when you’re able to communicate in a story form. Tell a story well, and you can bring almost anybody into your world and into your space, and make them connect with you.
Jennifer LaForce: What are some of the nuances of successful storytelling? Those skills and expertise that you use to make that connection with people?
Nelson George: It’s all about the obstacles, because obstacles create goals. When you engage with anybody’s story, whether it’s Willie Mays coming out of the Jim Crow South trying to become a major league baseball player or Michael Jackson who is making an album and knows that the record industry and formats like MTV are very reluctant to play Black artists. Or if it’s Tupac Shakur. Working as an executive producer on the Dear Mama docuseries (editor’s note: focused on the lives of activist Afeni Shakur and her son, musician Tupac Shakur), there were a big number of challenges to explore. Not only how do you overcome a life of poverty, but also your mother is a political figure — and a radical political figure at that — and how does that jive with your commercial career as a recording artist? What are the contradictions in that?
Anytime you have a story with an obstacle, it’s about the “what happens next.” People are like, “Oh, what are you going to do?” Overcoming is a huge part of storytelling. It’s like when you have a love story. It may always end with the wedding, but there’s a whole bunch of obstacles in-between — whether they’re family, racial, financial, distance — before they’ve reached the goal. That’s why love stories are so compelling because we know the outcome we want to see, but what we want to know is “how do they get there?”
Kristen Gallerneaux: Speaking of obstacles, you’ve handled some of those stories rooted in the music scene. Thinking, for example, about your book Where Did Our Love Go?: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound. Why is it important in storytelling to understand what it means to be true to yourself?
Nelson George: I’m not sure that most people know what their authentic self is. I don’t think they know until they do something. It’s only in action that character is really truly defined. Decision reveals character, and so in any narrative, those moments of decision are the crucial ones.
I’m currently working on a book about a neighborhood in Brooklyn in the ‘80s and ‘90s that [film director] Spike Lee came out of, and the many decisions Spike made during this time. One that was the most important for the neighborhood was that while most young filmmakers with a successful first film would have gotten an office in Manhattan to run a production company, he decided on a spot, literally, like five blocks from his house. By having the production company in Brooklyn in 1987, it helped transform the neighborhood. People had to come to meetings in Brooklyn. His crews wanted to be close to where the work was, so they moved to Brooklyn. Actors working with Spike started staying in the neighborhood. All of a sudden, the neighborhood becomes “cool,” because Spike is there.
That one decision against the orthodoxy, which is Manhattan, has a tremendous effect on a neighborhood and a generation of artists. Some make the argument that Spike deciding to stay in Brooklyn is one of the key things that led Brooklyn to becoming this kind of cool cultural center.
It’s about decisions you’re making, not knowing what the ramifications are going to be later down the road, right? There’s a certain fearlessness to it. There are always unintended consequences of your decisions — sometimes good, sometimes bad — but when we make decisions, we’re making them based on the information we have and in light of our own desires. You just never know what that’s going to do, how that’s going to ripple.
Picking up further on that … You know Berry Gordy could have decided he’s just a songwriter, and he’d have been a success. He’d written songs for Jackie Wilson that were hits, and he could have easily moved to New York and tried to get in the Brill Building and become one of those songwriters. Instead, he opened up the spot [Motown’s Hitsville U.S.A.] on West Grand Boulevard. He made a decision to stay home, and that decision transforms his career — and Detroit.
Kristen Gallerneaux: It’s amazing the breadth of publications that you have, shifting between fiction as well as really deep, scholarly nonfiction and these poetic portraits of well-known characters. And let’s extend that out to your screenwriting credits as well — I know that you worked on The Get Down and Strictly Business, which is iconic. Have you ever had difficulties bringing a character or a subject to life? And on the flip side of that, how do you do it, functionally?
Nelson George: I think it goes back to obstacles. On The Get Down, for example, we had these young artists who were not even really artists yet. They were just kids who wanted to perform or wanted to get out of the Bronx. One of the things we did in the first episode was to introduce a record — the rarest record in New York. That “device” then allows you to meet the lead characters in the story.
Baz Luhrmann, who executive produced The Get Down, came into our office one day and he did a whole lecture on devices. Devices, in a film way, is an object of desire, or for the characters, an object that becomes symbolic of a larger search for identity. It’s a really great technique in terms of trying to figure out how to get a story going. Give someone a goal, but not just a general goal — a specific goal that involves an object.
Think about The Maltese Falcon, the famous detective story. Or the guy in Citizen Kane. He’s looking for Rosebud. If you look at classic literature, classic films, often there is a device or a thing that actually becomes the “way” or what people are looking for. In The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, it’s about these rings. They’re tangible. Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing is about the pictures on the wall of Sal’s Famous Pizzeria in Brooklyn.
You have characters, you have goals, but what embodies them is wrapped around tangible pieces.
Kristen Gallerneaux: In The Get Down, it would also be the turntables and equipment that you need to learn to DJ, right?
Nelson George: Right! That’s tangibility. You have a goal and you’ve given your characters an object that becomes a representation of all their dreams.
Kristen Gallerneaux: I love that. It’s really interesting too, because people, even once they acquire that object, they make choices and decisions that can sway their life in any number of directions around that object. The goal tied to objects allows you to create character.
Nelson George: Yes. In general, I like to use reality to create. It’s where I’m more grounded. I’m taking from life, right? That to me is looking at things that have been done and seeing if there’s a way to do them differently. For example, I did a bunch of detective or noir novels. The first was called The Accidental Hunter. Basically, I saw the movie The Bodyguard with Whitney Houston, and asked myself, “What if she was white and the bodyguard was Black?” That very simple thought led to me writing that novel, and that led to me writing five more novels with the same character. Sometimes it’s just a matter of seeing something that was good or interesting, and looking at it from a different angle.
Jennifer LaForce: Not everyone is capable of that type of foresight or observation. Would you say you have strong observation skills?
Nelson George: That’s the beauty of growing up in New York: great people-watching. You can sit on a bench in the summertime or, for that matter, be on the subway and see so many people. “What kind of sneakers is he wearing? I’ve never seen those before.” You see a woman who’s got a shopping bag and you can tell that her nails have not been done in a while, and you go, “Oh, she’s a mother or working-class woman. She hasn’t had time to do her nails because she’s busy.” You start observing people, what’s particular about their attire or their body language and stories can begin to come from that. New York has been big in terms of the observation part of my career.
Jennifer LaForce: Were you always that observant person? That person who wanted to tell a story?
Nelson George: I remember reading Hemingway, The Nick Adams Stories, and thinking, well, he’s writing about a kid living in Michigan, and it’s very detailed. You know that Hemingway style — very descriptive — and you had to read through what he was seeing and feeling. That really stuck with me. When I was about 15, 16, 17, I started writing stories based on a character living in Brooklyn, and it was totally because of reading Hemingway and trying to mimic the masterful style. It definitely put me on a path that understood how external details of a place and of a person can be incredibly revealing. I give Hemingway a lot of credit as one of my influences in terms of harnessing observation.
Kristen Gallerneaux: As a seasoned storyteller, why is it important for us to tell stories of our past, keep our histories at the forefront?
Nelson George: History is a tool to understanding how we got to the places we are. I think that Americans in general have a very superficial sense of history, and they tend to make the same mistakes over and over again.
History can be extremely instructive in understanding why we’re in the positions we’re in, economically, culturally, government wise. At the same time, there are techniques that were employed in the past that are still applicable now. Yes the technology changes, but I don’t think the human condition changes necessarily as deeply, so there are ways in which we can use ideas and philosophies of the past to move forward. I also think history allows us to “see.” Going back to my comments about obstacles, we can see how obstacles that got in the way of individuals were overcome. That’s where the inspiration part comes in and where history can be so useful.
Any museum, particularly ones that are collecting objects from the past, can really inspire people, too. The scale of The Henry Ford is really kind of stunning in terms of that.
Kristen Gallerneaux: Yes! I think not only the scale but also the breadth of the collections of The Henry Ford are sometimes a shock to people. What role do you see institutions such as The Henry Ford playing in the documentation of everyday Black and African American culture and history?
Nelson George: We talked about Spike’s decision about Brooklyn. We’ve also talked about Berry Gordy in Detroit. These buildings, these sites, are really only significant because of a person’s decision to use them as a headquarters for potentially historic things.
At The Henry Ford, I see a building like the Jackson House representing a similar significant location.
Why was this place selected and why did Dr. King and his advisors think it was the right place to be? How did the Jackson family create an environment supportive of these efforts? How did their daughter, Jawana Jackson, realize the value of what happened in her home and document it and preserve it the best she could for over 50-plus years?
Greenfield Village has so many spaces like this that represent different moments in American history — that represent the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people to create a better America. Hopefully the Jackson House project will pay tribute to the efforts that took place there and the efforts that were made to maintain this structure.
Kristen Gallerneaux: We’re so lucky that Ms. Jawana Jackson and her husband, James Richie, believed in this project and maintained stewardship of the house and its stories over such a long period of time. I’m sure there were points of exhaustion as they dealt with the ambivalence that brought the house from Selma to Detroit in the first place.
Nelson George: In retrospect, they were not getting a lot of support from the state of Alabama. And those specific obstacles, they will definitely be a part of the storytelling of my film. What happened? Why was the house not supported? It’s one of the ways I hope to create empathy for Jawana’s and her husband’s efforts in the face of great indifference.
This post was adapted from an article in the Winter/Spring 2025 issue of The Henry Ford Magazine.
Richard J.S. Gutman in the Kichenette Diner, Cambridge, MA, circa 1974. Photograph by John Baeder. / THF297027
The diner, it seems, is irresistible. The sleek diner in a streetscape, the booth as setting for friends and family getting together, the beckoning counter stool for the lone traveler’s brief stop—all of it has become cherished over generations—the diner as a world within the greater landscape of people’s lives. For over half a century Richard J.S. “Dick” Gutman has been immersed in this world. He has spent his career living and breathing his way through the origins, design, operation, and stories connected to diners. Starting academically with his architecture thesis at Cornell University, his interests and efforts expanded and have continued to the present day through an active roster of publications, research, lectures, and restoration consultations.
Window design drawn by Gutman during the restoration of the Owl Night Lunch Wagon, 1983. / THF715111
Much has already been “dished” about Gutman’s foundational years as an architectural historian specializing in American diners. Most recently, we were treated to a guest feature in The Henry Ford Magazine, penned by Mr. Gutman himself. Likewise, since the 1980s, he has worked as a consultant at The Henry Ford on guest-favorite projects such as the Owl Night Lunch restoration, the relocation of Lamy’s Diner, and collaborating to ensure the historical accuracy of Lamy’s menu.
In 2019, Mr. Gutman generously donated his diner collection to The Henry Ford. This collection includes everything from architectural fragments and interior fixtures to menus, trade magazines, historic photographs, and Gutman’s own photographic documentation. A rich and unmatched resource, co-curators Kristen Gallerneaux and Marc Greuther were honored to look deeply into this collection to create the temporary exhibit, Dick Gutman, DINERMAN (on view 25 May 2024 - 16 March 2025). A selection of the less-explored areas of this collection that are included in this exhibit are gathered here.
Dick Gutman, On the Road
In 1975, when Gutman was 25 years old, he met Charles Gemme from the Worcester Lunch Car Company. Gemme—who was 95 at the time—wrote down a list of diners that Gutman should visit. Gutman hit the road with his camera. Typically he traveled alone but was sometimes accompanied by his wife Kellie or fellow diner-obsessive and painter John Baeder.
New England road map used by Dick Gutman with locations of diners indicated, circa 1975 (left) / THF715142; A diner list used during a 1974 road trip by Gutman & painter John Baeder (right) / THF714577
In an interview, Gutman described his challenges on these early trips: “Some [diner owners] didn't want to talk to me. They were too busy, they didn't understand it. They didn't like that my hair was too long. They thought I was from the health department.” But eventually, he began to break through: “I unearthed the history of diners by visiting and photographing them and talking to the people who owned them and the people who built them.”
The Fenway Flyer diner, as photographed by Dick Gutman in August 1971. This is the first photograph of a diner that Gutman took. / THF714873
Gutman’s collection contains an important “first,” in the form of a photograph. “The first diner I ever took a picture of was the Fenway Flyer. You have the slide, and it has a light leak. It's the first picture on my roll and I hadn't rolled the film in enough. I only took one picture like that, so it's timestamped in that manner. It was demolished around 1975.”
Gutman’s photographs of diners—largely concentrated in the 1970s through the early-2000s—are an invaluable time capsule planted at the intersection of unique architectural history, homegrown entrepreneurship, and community memory. They document the surface-level details of the type of visual flare that diners are known for: decorative tile, flashy steel and Formica-clad surfaces, and colorful, attention-seeking enamel signage.
Lettering on a porcelain enamel diner façade, Peerless Diner, later Four Sons Diner, Lowell, Massachusetts. Photograph by Dick Gutman. / THF714788
Floor tile in Jimmy's Diner, Bloomfield, NJ. Photograph by Dick Gutman. / THF714819
Formica at Deepwater Diner, Deepwater, NJ, 1987. Photograph by Dick Gutman. / THF714808
Notably, Gutman turned his camera to the details of interior spaces as well. He photographed employees moving through the nuanced workflows of confined diner spaces—spaces where everything was always on view. We see evolving uniforms, optimized grills, cluttered cashier’s booths, handmade menus, and shorthand orders scribbled on tickets. While Gutman’s collection contains a Wunderkammer’s-worth of disposable goods—paper coffee cups, toothpicks, serve ware, and paper hats—it is within these images where we are given a glimpse of these items situated within the “diner in action.”
Coffee pots in front backbar clad in sunburst stainless steel panels, Phillips Diner, Woodbury, CT. Photograph by Dick Gutman. / THF714795
Cook Kenny Barrett inside Buddy's Truck Stop, Somerville, MA, circa 1974. Note the handwritten specials on paper plates. / THF715018
Less acknowledged in these images—but of great significance—is Gutman’s use of the camera to hint at those most elusive of sensory memories connected to the diner: a sun-drenched ashtray on a table that you can almost smell, vinyl-covered stools that stick to the back of your legs in the summer, the intense concentration of waitstaff leaning in to hear your order, the sizzle of the flat top grill cutting through the din of conversations, a sleeping baby on a booth table—oblivious to it all (or perhaps dreaming of diners). Enigmatic and unpretentious at once, these fleeting moments of the everyday that fill Gutman’s photography portfolio throughout the 1970s-1990s are deserving of our attention.
Booth in Village Square Diner, Grand Gorge, New York, 1973. Photograph by Dick Gutman. / THF714814
Original 1938 porcelain enamel stools in Silver Top Diner, Providence, RI, 1973. Photograph by Dick Gutman. / THF714811
Server taking orders at Collin's Diner, North Canaan, CT, 1972. Photograph by Dick Gutman. / THF714846
Customers seated in a booth at Collin's Diner, North Canaan, CT, March 1973. Photograph by Dick Gutman. / THF714844
Diner Archeology
As Gutman quickly learned, diners were on the decline. He realized that his first visit to a diner might turn out to be the last. All too often, he would return to a business after a short time to find the windows boarded over with for sale signs. Even worse, there were the times when he would find himself staring at a rubble-filled lot—the building demolished.
The former "Uncle Wally's," a 1950 Paramount Roadking model diner in a field, circa 1975. / THF714969
Richard Gutman (left) and Larry Cultrera Dismantling Corriveau's Diner for salvage, Gilmanton, NH, August 1985. / THF715129
These experiences led to Gutman’s impulse to begin salvaging literal fragments of diners: chunks of tile floor lovingly laid by hand generations prior, a craggy section of Formica bearing the iconic pink “Skylark” pattern, and sparkling jewel-toned Flexglass tiles. They formed an essential reference library for Gutman’s restorations, providing physical proof of surprising trends in materials, interior designs, color, and patterns that filled diners.
"Skylark” pattern Formica fragment, from the Americana Diner, 1952-1953. / THF371317
Flexglass and stainless steel cladding on Key City Diner, Phillipsburg, NJ (left) / THF714804; Flexglass tile from the Lincoln Diner, Kensington, CT, circa 1960 (right) / THF371079
Sometimes, Gutman received news of a diner closing and was able to work directly with its owners to recover decorative panels, menu boards, and historic counter stools. During these salvage operations, he was careful to document where even the tiniest shards originated, which—over decades of collecting—might be reunited with additional ephemera from the same diner. While some may find this type of collecting strange, Gutman extracted these fragments of the past from the field as a way of preserving the future.
Gutman noted in a recent interview: “One of the great tile finds was in Rhode Island. I was photographing Snoopy's Diner and I had to go across the road to get the picture. […] I'm carefully backing up to make sure that I don't fall down the hill. And I look, and there's the remains of another diner. Instead of hauling it away, they just bulldozed the thing! A lot of it had rotted, but there were still the indestructible ceramic tile walls and floor—which I picked up some massive pieces of and put in our car. They're now part of [The Henry Ford’s] collection. Not exactly like Pompeii or Herculaneum—but they have a story to tell.”
Wall tile fragment mentioned above, from the site of a Worcester Lunch Car in North Kingstown, RI, 1920-1939 (left) / THF197842; Floor tile fragment from Hodgin's Diner, York Beach, ME, circa 1915 (right) / THF197841
Beyond their importance within the built environment, diners have impacted our culture, communities, and of course foodways at a national scale. During a time when the American diner seemed to be rapidly disappearing, Dick Gutman raced to document this landscape. This undertaking was crucial to preserving and raising awareness of these easily-lost commercial forms of architecture. We at The Henry Ford are grateful to act as the repository for the incredibly prolific tapestry of research, images, and objects that Dick Gutman gathered.
Kristen Gallerneaux is Curator of Communication & Information Technology. This blog excerpts and expands upon exhibit labels written by Kristen Gallerneaux and Marc Greuther, co-curators of Dick Gutman, DINERMAN.
Visitors to the “Lowcountry,” the coastal areas of South Carolina and Georgia — which include the historic cities of Charleston and Savannah — always notice the distinctive stands selling coiled "Gullah" or sweetgrass baskets.
In this image, Gullah sweetgrass basket vendors are visible selling their wares in front of the Old City Market Shed, Charleston, SC, 2010. Photograph by Brian Stansberry.
Throughout Charleston and especially in neighboring Mount Pleasant, vendors line roads selling these homemade crafts, some exquisitely intricate, to locals and visitors alike.
The art of sweetgrass basket weaving is practiced in coastal and barrier island communities from North Carolina to Florida, a region known as the Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. The Gullah-Geechee people are the descendants of enslaved West Africans who worked on coastal plantations. Because of their isolation, they were able to hold onto many traditions during multiple generations of enslavement in the United States.
The Gullah region once extended from southeast North Carolina to northeast Florida.
Slave traders abducted African people from the west coast of Africa to the South Carolina Lowcountry beginning in the early 18th century. As part of their work on the rice plantations, enslaved persons made these utilitarian baskets, generally for the storage of dry goods, although some of the baskets were so tightly woven that they could be used to store liquids too. Flat baskets called "fanners" were used in the winnowing of rice. Britannica notes that once the rice was harvested and pounded in a pestle with a mortar, a fanner was used to toss it upward into the wind, which blew away the husk, or chaff.
An example of a fanner basket described above, dating to before 1863. From the Collections of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture.
According to Britannica, among enslaved persons, “baskets were made by using a sewing technique rather than a plaiting or braiding technique, unlike baskets of European origin. Long ropes of needlegrass rush (Juncus roemerianus; called bulrush, rushel, or needlegrass) were coiled, one on top of the other, and the coils were held together with strips of white oak bark or saw palmetto. Today makers prefer to use sweetgrass with needlegrass rush and longleaf pine needles (Pinus palustris), sewing these with palmetto leaf (Sabal palmetto), and they produce designs without dyes by alternating the natural colors of the dried yellowish green sweetgrass, reddish brown, black needlegrass rush, and green longleaf pine needles. The only tools required for basket production were scissors and 'sewing bones'— filed down teaspoon handles — or 'nail bones' (made from flattened nails or rib bones of a cow or pig). The 'bones' were used to tuck the palmetto around the coils."
In general, men collected the materials that women transformed into baskets. Depending on its size and function, a single basket could take weeks or even months to make according to Britannica. These baskets (which remained the same for more than 300 years) relied on the sharing of traditional knowledge across many generations, as mothers taught their daughters the technique to create them.
A sweetgrass basket from 2011, made by Carol Lee Howard, born in 1958 in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. / THF802432 (left), THF802433 (right)
This basket is a typical representation. It recently came into the Henry Ford collection from a donor who acquired it in South Carolina. When it was offered for the collection, all we had was a price tag, with the maker's name and a receipt from 2011. After a bit of sleuthing, we located and contacted the maker, Carol Lee Howard.
Ms. Howard grew up in a family where sweetgrass baskets were a family tradition, spanning generations. She says that her mother, grandmother, and all her aunts and siblings learned how to make these baskets for "extra income." As a young person, she was reluctant to make them until her sister Lillie Howard (who died in 2011) challenged her to make them in the early 1980s. Carol Lee accepted her sister's challenge and now views the making of these baskets as part of her family's heritage.
She said that she became serious about making baskets in the early to mid-1990s, selling them at fairs in Charleston, and through local venues. Today, she spends her time taking care of her grandchildren and occasionally making baskets. This recent acquisition represents Ms. Howard's expertise as a basket maker — and the enduring traditions of resourcefulness and resilience found in American craft movements.
Charles Sable is Curator of Decorative Arts at The Henry Ford.
View-Master Standard Stereo Viewer, Model G, 1958-1962 / THF371561
Generations of Americans have memories of peering through a View-Master lens and being transported through the images shown in the cardboard reel — to Yosemite National Park, the streets of Bangkok, or even the set of a Batman movie. The wonders of the world became accessible anywhere, in an era before the internet made that experience commonplace. For many, including this author, the View-Master seemed like pure magic.
The View-Master model that made the device omnipresent in American society was the Model G. The View-Master Model G was introduced in 1962 and designed by Chicago-based industrial designer Charles Harrison for Sawyer’s Inc., the company that released the first handheld stereoscope 3D viewer at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Although the View-Master was far from a new device when Harrison was tasked with its redesign, Harrison’s Model G viewer was the first to use injection-molded thermoplastics. Prior versions used Bakelite, a type of synthetic plastic which was costlier, heavier, and brittle. As Harrison later recalled, “My contribution was to design it for a different process, injection molding, that could produce units 10 times faster and would reduce cost considerably. The projected volume was high enough to support the tooling costs, while keeping the amortization costs low for each piece part. This made it possible to get the finished product to the consumer at the target selling price.” Harrison also redesigned the form of the View-Master, modernizing its appearance. The View-Master was a relatively minor project for Harrison (it took him less than two weeks!) but it is the object for which he is most well known today.
"Picture Tour of Scenic Wonders U.S.A." View-Master Reel, 1960-1966 / THF371614
Charles “Chuck” Alfred Harrison Jr. was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1931. His family moved around frequently when Harrison was a child, from Louisiana to Texas to Arizona. He became interested in industrial design while studying at the City College of San Francisco and, after graduation, applied to all the accredited industrial design programs in the United States. He was accepted to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) on a four-year tuition and travel scholarship.
Although he was the only Black student in his classes at SAIC, Harrison felt that “in the arts, racism seemed to be less intense than other places.” He graduated from SAIC in 1954, but then was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he learned to be a mapmaker and was stationed in Germany for nearly two years. Harrison was discharged from the Army in May of 1956, and he returned to the SAIC. After a semester though, he transferred to the Illinois Institute of Technology and completed a master’s degree in art education because it was the only program with night classes and he needed to work during the day.
Harrison began to look for design work, but repeatedly faced racist companies and hiring managers. In the fall of 1956, he applied for an industrial design job at Sears. The company’s manager of design, Carl Bjorncrantz, told Harrison that he would like to hire him but that “Sears has an unwritten policy against hiring Black people.” Instead, Bjorncrantz hired him as a freelance designer, which was allowed. Harrison freelanced for numerous Chicago-based design companies in the following years, completing work for RCA, Grinnell Brothers Piano, Davis Sweeper Company, Williams Electric Company, Victory Manufacturing Company, Montgomery Ward, Allied Radio, and many others. Harrison began to work with injection molded plastics in 1957 — with butter dishes, his first mass-produced product, and later, with measuring cups, sweepers, and plastic pails. It was around the same time that Harrison, then freelancing under Robert Podall Associates, received the assignment to redesign the View-Master.
In 1966, General Aniline & Film (GAF) acquired Sawyer’s and began to produce View-Master. For the 1976 American Bicentennial, they produced a special Bicentennial Gift Pak with a special red, white, and blue version of Harrison’s Model G View-Master / THF371564
In 1961, Carl Bjorncrantz from Sears called Harrison, saying, “Well, Chuck, we can hire you now.” Harrison declined at first. But after a conversation, he took the job and became the first Black executive at Sears headquarters. Harrison rose through the ranks to eventually lead the design group at Sears. He designed hundreds of manufactured products in his career — lawn mowers and power tools, pots and stoves, and the very first plastic trash can. He retired in 1993, when the company closed its in-house design department.
After his retirement, Harrison taught at his alma mater, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as a few other Chicago-area colleges.
He was president of the Chicago chapter of the International Designers Society of America and involved with the Organization of Black Designers. In recognition of his impactful and groundbreaking career, Harrison received a lifetime achievement award from the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in 2008 and an honorary doctorate from SAIC in 2009. Harrison passed away in 2018.
Red Model G View-Master, 1976 / THF371568
Katherine White is Curator of Design at The Henry Ford. She has fond memories of playing with a Charles Harrison-designed bright red Model G View-Master as a child. All quotes were excerpted from the book Charles Harrison published in 2005, A Life’s Design: The Life and Work of Industrial Designer Charles Harrison.
More Lessons to Share: The Preservation of the Dr. Sullivan and Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson Home
Voting is the most important right of American citizens. It is a foundational tenet of American-style democracy. Dating back to the basics of the country's Revolution, our ability as Americans to decide how our country will be governed and represent our interests, across the human spectrum, has always been a practice and challenge to the status quo. Across our history, access to our civil rights reflects the deepest of American beliefs. As we reflect on 60 years of the Voting Rights Act in 2025, The Henry Ford also approaches the opportunity to re-present the story behind the Act. A story of collaboration, rooted in community, family, and justice.
The Jackson Home at its location at 1416 Lapsley Street, Selma. / Image from the THF collections.
The Dr. Sullivan and Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson Home is pivotal as one of several key locations to the Selma Voting Rights Movement, a cornerstone of the long struggle for civil and human rights in the United States. You might be familiar with some aspects of the voting movement in Selma, a city in the heart of Alabama’s Black Belt. It is here that several organizations including the Dallas County Voters League, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference all worked together between 1963 and 1965 to demand the rights promised to African Americans under the 14th and 15th Amendments: full citizenship under law to cast our vote without fear of repercussions or violence.
Campaign card, James E. Gildersleeve for City Council In the Democratic Primary, Selma, Alabama, March 17, 1964. The Dallas County Voters League, of which James Gildersleeve was a leading member, led local organizing in Selma./ THF721746
Button, "One Man One Vote SNCC," 1960-1967. / THF166834
People like Congressman John Lewis, Diane Nash, Bernard Lafayette, Amelia Boynton, Marie Foster, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Andrew Young, Hosea Williams, and the Reverend Ralph Abernathy among dozens of others, supported by foot soldiers and community members on the local, state, and national levels moved to do what seemed impossible. People from across the country, with support from all over the world — all backgrounds, beliefs, and abilities — demanded that the white supremacist, legal practices of voter suppression end throughout the United States.
"Life" Magazine, March 19, 1965 – Cover. The “Bloody Sunday” march was captured on film, leading to hundreds coming to Selma to support protesters. / THF715919
Between January and June 1965, the Jacksons’ home became a haven for Dr. King and the headquarters for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Selma — with Dr. King's presence bringing the media and international attention that would be game-changing for the Selma movement. As the world looked at the violent acts that welcomed protesters on March 7, 1965 — Bloody Sunday — in shock and disgust, the calls for accountability and change reached the White House. On March 15 President Lyndon B. Johnson, in an address to the nation, declared that “we shall overcome” — his pivotal acknowledgment of the work that had been done and his willingness to move towards what would become the Voting Rights Act, signed in August 1965.
"Life" Magazine, March 26, 1965 – pg 30-31. / THF715929
"Life" Magazine, March 26, 1965 – pg 33. Dr. King watched President Johnson deliver his speech from the living room of the Jacksons' home. / THF715931
As the first building preserved and moved to Greenfield Village in over four decades, the Jackson home presents several unique opportunities and challenges that bring together historic preservation, interpretation, and Black American history in the 21st century. Surprisingly, the easiest part in the process has been placing the Jacksons within the historical record of the Selma Voting Rights Movement — a well-documented collection being the linchpin. Sullivan and Richie Jean, knowing too well how important the event they took part in was, held on to many of the items that made their home a refuge in 1965. From the chair that Dr. King sat in to watch President Johnson address the nation, to the many cooking utensils and tools used to craft meals for movement makers and dreamers, to sentimental things like photos of family and friends in their Lapsley Street home, to the baby clothes for their one and only child. Now, these materials are helping us to bring life to the home, now on Maple Lane, as we restore the building to its 1960s appearance. The materials are also helping us shed light on a family whose connections run deep in the foundations of the Black professional and middle class in Selma and beyond.
The Jackson Home was bisected and driven in two parts to its final location in Greenfield Village. / Image from the THF collections.
What's most exciting for me is to be able to share with each of you the story of not just the Selma movement, and not just Dr. King's role — but the dozens to hundreds of everyday local people who opened their doors to ensure that those who were organizing on our behalf had places to stay, food to eat, and time to rest and to recharge for the next day's battle. Dr. Sullivan and Richie Jean Jackson, through their decision to open their door for their dear friend Dr. King, opened the door to new possibilities for our collective future. It's written all throughout Mrs. Richie Jean's book The House by the Side of the Road. In its pages you will see just how dedicated this community was to not only making things better for themselves, long before the 1960s, but also transforming the world for all of us, and the many generations to come.
It is my extreme pleasure to re-introduce the world to the story of the Jacksons — which comes to us in a moment when voting matters more than ever. Reminding us that there is so much more that this old home from Lapsley Street in Selma has left to teach us. Over the next year, the story of the Jacksons and the Selma movement will be shared by the Henry Ford team in multiple ways from preservation and collections to outreach and education and of course historic preservation — all in preparation for our opening in late spring 2026. There's much work to do but I hope all of you will open your ears, hearts, and minds to the lessons still left to be taught by the House by the Side of the Road.
Amber N. Mitchell is Curator of Black History at The Henry Ford.
Over the Hills and Far Away: The American Committee for Devastated France Good Will Delegation Tour
Ford delegates Georgia Boyer, Edythe Bice, and Marie Wurtz. Ford News, October 8, 1922 / Image by Kathy Makas
In 1922, three Ford Motor Company employees were sent to France as part of the American Committee for Devastated France Good Will Delegation Tour to raise awareness of the challenges and needs of the people there. The committee itself was formed during WWI by philanthropist Anne Morgan and physician Anne Murray Dike. Before the war had ended, the committee was soliciting funds and donations and in response, Ford Motor Company sent cars, tractors, and crates of car repair parts to the organization to help relieve war torn France. After the war, while Americans were moving on from the Great War, the committee wanted to remind them that France was still reeling from the years of fighting it had seen. To this end, the Good Will Tour was formed consisting of young female delegates contributing $10,000 each from major American companies. To raise the money, candidates were chosen from within their company by popular vote, with each vote costing $0.10; the only requirements were that they were women engaged in paid work and over 18 years of age.
Ford Motor Company jumped into the fundraising role, placing voting boxes with signs that read "Have you voted today?" in every department and placed publicity in newspapers and special announcements. The company raised enough money to send three delegates, two chosen by popular vote, Edythe Bice and Marie Wurtz, and one as the longest female employee at Ford, Georgia Boyer.
Boyer received word she was chosen while away from work. Acc. 395 / Image by Kathy Makas
On July 26, 1922, the delegation left New York City on the steamer La France for Havre with $500,000 total for committee efforts in France. The tour started in Paris and made its way through the devastated region, traveling through Soissons, Vic-sur-Aisne, Reims, Verdun, and other towns. Boyer noted, "All through this devastated section we saw miles and miles of shell holes, barbed wire, stumps of trees, several dugouts and a few tanks and machine guns which were left by the Germans. Hundreds of buildings, homes and churches were destroyed all through this section, also some beautiful chateaux." But through the work of the committee and other organizations, new buildings and reconstruction were going on all around. The delegation saw the laying of the cornerstone of the Baby Welfare Station and a parade with hundreds of babies marched down the streets in decorated baby carriages. Still, the toll of the war was shocking to the American group. Bice recalled, "As we journeyed towards Verdun it was hard to realize that the war had been over four years. All along the way were shell-torn fields, trenches, dugouts, barbed wire still standing as they were placed, and wire still strung between the trees from which the camouflage screens were hung."
While they were visiting France, Bice and Boyer both wrote to Edsel Ford. Acc. 6 box 5 / Image by Kathy Makas
The delegates made their way back to New York on September 8 bringing with them stories of the destruction, but also of the work that the committee was performing. A series of articles about their time on the tour was published in the Ford News, and Bice presented a talk on Ford's WWI radio station. Bice shared in a Ford News article, the American Committee "is reconstructing not only destroyed material things, but the broken lives and spirits of a great and friendly people. More than that it is making a constructive contribution to the perpetuation of the civilization which 80,000 of our own Americans died to preserve." The committee engaged in work in France for a few more years, before discontinuing in 1924.
Learn more about this and other material in the Benson Ford Research Center.
Kathy Makas is a reference archivist at The Henry Ford.
The play Mule Bone was the brainchild of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, two literary giants of the Harlem Renaissance. They sought to bring authentic Black stories to the American theatre through this collaborative piece. Instead, the project turned their friendship into a bitter feud.
Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life, 1991. / THF278631
Langston Hughes (1901 or 1902-1967), one of the most well-known writers in American history, was a celebrated poet, novelist, essayist, and social activist. Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) is mostly remembered as a fiction writer today, but she was a multi-genre writer, anthropologist, and pioneer of ethnography — an anthropological practice that focuses on the studied culture's perspective. Hughes and Hurston met in 1926 at the Opportunity Magazine literary awards, where they both received prizes for their first published works. As two budding creators with new-found success, Hughes and Hurston formed a close bond immediately. They traveled together, holding lectures and readings throughout the American South. They co-founded Fire!! literary magazine with a cohort of other emerging Black writers and artists. Hughes introduced Hurston to their mutual benefactress, Charlotte Osgood Mason. Hurston addressed Hughes as "pal" and "bambino" in her letters and even confided in him about her failing marriage. This friendship sparked creative camaraderie, too. As early as 1927, Hurston envisioned writing together. She discussed ideas with Hughes based on her anthropological research and even proposed a collaborative opera to Charlotte Osgood Mason for monetary sponsorship.
Hughes (center) and Hurston (right) pose with an unidentified friend in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1927 / Via Langston Hughes paper at the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. You can find more of the Langston Hughes papers here.
Hurston and Hughes began writing their play, Mule Bone, in the spring of 1930. To facilitate the work, they hired Louise Thompson as the typist for the project. Thompson's presence eventually divided the two writers. Hughes advocated for Thompson to receive a percentage of future royalties, which Hurston objected to. Hughes later claimed Hurston was jealous of his friendship with Thompson. After working on Mule Bone, Thompson went on to become a prominent civil rights activist from the 1930s until her death in 1999.
"Free Angela Davis" Poster, 1970. Thompson (later known as Louise Thompson Patterson) led the New York Committee to Free Angela Davis. You can learn more about the Free Angela Movement here / THF721969
Additionally, Hughes and Charlotte Osgood Mason had recently cut ties on bad terms. The fallout likely amplified tensions. Hurston remained loyal to Mason whose patronage was her sole source of income, and Hughes regarded Hurston as Mason's lackey according to letters to friends.
Jonah's Gourd Vine, 1990 edition. Jonah's Gourd Vine, Zora Neale Hurston's first novel, was conceived during a 1929 anthropological trip that Charlotte Osgood Mason sponsored. Mason's patronage provided Hurston with financial stability in her early writing and research career. / THF278620
Regardless, Hughes and Hurston finished the first draft of Mule Bone in the fall of 1930. Hurston returned to her anthropology fieldwork at this time and put the project on hiatus. Promising to return and finish Mule Bone, Hurston took a copy of the script and their drafting notes with her. Hughes did not hear from her for months.
In November of 1930, Hurston sent a new version of Mule Bone to Carl Van Vechten--a photographer, writer, and tastemaker in the arts and literary world during the Harlem Renaissance. She claimed that the play was loosely based on ideas she and Hughes had workshopped, but that the script was her own. She hoped Van Vechten would use his connections to get the play produced. Van Vechten, unaware of a possible authorship dispute, sent Mule Bone to his theatre contacts. Rowena Jelliffe, the director of the oldest Black American theater troupe in the country — the Gilpin Players — received the script in mid-January of 1931. She loved the work and planned to produce Mule Bone at the Theater of Nations in Cleveland, Ohio. Coincidentally, Langston Hughes contracted tonsillitis in mid-January of 1931 and was recovering at his mother's home in Cleveland. Hughes was well connected in the literary arts scene in Cleveland, so when Rowena Jelliffe showed him the new script she was producing, he was shocked. This "new work" was his and Hurston's original play, Mule Bone, with a new ending.
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, 1995. Hughes lived in Cleveland as a teenager, when he wrote his earliest poems. He also attended art classes at the settlement house Rowena Jelliffe founded. / THF278643
Hughes reached out to Hurston about the impending production. She did not return his calls, telegrams, and letters for nearly a week. When Hurston finally contacted Hughes, she said that she was the sole author of Mule Bone and accused him of manipulating her. Hughes said that the new draft undermined their work, calling it "all tangled up." Once this initial fight ended, however, Hurston agreed to name Hughes the co-author of Mule Bone. Hurston traveled to Cleveland, and the two completed a second collaborative draft of the script. Tensions rose again as they worked.
According to Hughes, the project and friendship ended at a dramatic luncheon on February 3, 1931. Allegedly, Hurston came to Hughes's mother's home for a meeting with Rowena Jelliffe and Hughes. Hurston accused Hughes of using Mule Bone to court Louise Thompson, reiterated that she alone wrote Mule Bone, and insulted the Gilpin Players, Jelliffe, and Hughes's mother. After Hurston left Cleveland that day, the two never spoke in person again. Hughes left a handwritten note on his copy of Mule Bone: "This play was never done because the authors fell out." In his autobiography, The Big Sea, Langston Hughes correlates this fight with the end of the Harlem Renaissance itself. Both Hughes and Hurston went on to great success in their respective careers after this, but Mule Bone remained unfulfilled work and was not produced until 1991, well after both authors' deaths.
Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1990 edition. Most of Hurston’s famous works, including all four of her novels, were written and published after the Mule Bone controversy. / THF278625
The heart of this conflict is a question of authorship. The exact truth of who wrote what parts of Mule Bone is muddied. In Hughes's version of events, he created the main plot of the play about two friends fighting over the same woman. He claimed Hurston provided the play's Southern dialect. In Hurston's version, she wrote all of Mule Bone, and Hughes came up with a couple of ideas that she later cut from the script. To Hurston's credit, Mule Bone has many hallmarks of her work, demonstrating her sizeable contribution to the play. For example, Hurston often utilized Black American traditions such as children's games and signifying--mocking someone close to you — in her work, and these elements are present throughout Mule Bone. The subplot about a man on trial for beating someone with a mule's bone is based on one of Hurston's then-unpublished short stories. To Hughes's credit, he had mimeographs, handwritten notes, and a witness in Louise Thompson proving his involvement with the work. The reality is that Mule Bone was the work of two writers, and how much each one contributed remains debatable. We are left with a work of art whose creation fundamentally changed its authors' relationship.
Kayla Chenault is an associate curator at The Henry Ford.
The Henry Ford identified “Cultivating Environmental Responsibility” as one of its strategic goals in anticipation of its 100th anniversary in 2029. A few staff began assessing factors relevant to this goal in August 2019. The Henry Ford’s Green Team (previously the Environmental Focus Group) emerged out of this work and formally organized in May 2021 with responsibilities to benchmark and manage THF’s energy and water use and to reduce waste by recycling and composting. This work aligns with a call to action put forth in Sarah S. Brophy and Elizabeth Wylie’s The Green Museum: A Primer on Environmental Practice, namely, that going green “is becoming mainstream because of its importance, not its fashion” (pg 2).
You could argue that The Henry Ford has pursued green museum work since its beginning in 1929. Certainly, historical precedence lays a solid foundation for current initiatives. Three examples indicate how preservation, reuse, and local sourcing factored prominently in The Henry Ford’s history.
First, historic preservation is a green action. Committing to preservation and adaptive reuse rather than demolition reduces financial costs and energy expenditures.
Rebuilding the Clinton Inn in Greenfield Village, April 1929 / THF149382
Second, reusing landscape features supports actions that reduce environmental degradation. Namely a pond created by laborers excavating clay for use in Anthony Wagner’s brickyard starting in the 1860s became a rainwater holding tank for the museum. Design masked the multi-part infrastructure that re-purposed runoff from museum roofs for use in landscape irrigation.
Pond adjacent to Henry Ford & Son’s tractor plant, October 22, 1918, and north of The Henry Ford’s staff parking area today, remains central to The Henry Ford’s rainwater management system / THF116967
Museum plans drafted in 1928 incorporated pumphouses in two courtyards that pushed rain runoff through a drainage system and into the pond. Facilities managers take this history of environmental change into account when undertaking pond and pumping infrastructure maintenance.
Drawing of the Virginia Court with pumphouse replicating a garden feature from Mount Vernon, 1928 / THF294374
Third, Henry Ford confirmed the importance of locally sourced materials when he constructed the chemical laboratory at the entrance to Greenfield Village. More than a dozen chemists worked in this structure, seeking domestic products for industrial use. By December 1931, soybeans became the focus of their research, and a new agricultural commodity took hold in southwestern Michigan. Ford joined others in Illinois, North Carolina, and beyond, exploring the potential of soybeans to meet local industrial demand for alternative oils for paint and alternative proteins for foods. Today we know that locally sourced products reduce carbon emissions by reducing transportation from the point of production to processing and consumption locations.
Chemical laboratory in Greenfield Village with Lovett Hall, The Edison Institute, visible in the background, 1930. This image predates Henry Ford instructing the chemists to focus on soybeans / THF236433
These historic approaches (among others) laid a firm foundation for Green Team actions over the past five years (2019 to 2024). Staff prioritized benchmarking, recycling, and composting as important steps toward cultivating environmental responsibility. Efforts aligned with national initiatives such as the Culture Over Carbon project, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. More than 130 cultural institutions across the United States, including The Henry Ford, shared energy-use data that identified trends for the field. This supported a larger goal, to establish a cultural institution benchmark for Energy Star ratings.
Green Team members also engaged with Detroit’s 2030 District chapter through which they met with other museum and culture partners within and beyond the area. The national network of 2030 Districts, made up of businesses, cultural institutions, and municipal governments, all in efforts to pursue new models for urban sustainability and economic vitality. Ongoing conversations help put institutional work into context, including a signature accomplishment at The Henry Ford in 2024, namely, the installation and operation of the second biodigester in the Detroit area.
The Henry Ford staff, Amber Stankoff, producer (left) with Brian Egen, executive producer and head of studio productions (center), filming Alec Jerome, senior director of facilities management and security, discussing the biodigester installed at Stand 44, the new restaurant in Greenfield Village, June 26, 2024. Photograph by Debra A. Reid.
These actions are steps on the longer path toward cultivating environmental responsibility. Extending information more broadly to THF staff and guests makes clear how each of us will contribute to realizing this ambitious goal. Doing so will ensure a more stable environment for staff and guests in perpetuity.
Debra A. Reid is curator of agriculture and the environment at The Henry Ford and has been a member of the Green Team since its formation. She serves on the Climate & Sustainability Community of the American Association for State and Local History and is the secretary of the International Council of Museums' international committee, SUSTAIN (Museums and Sustainable Development).
In 1963, the artist, activist, and educator Corita Kent worked in partnership with the American seasoning brand Spice Islands Company to create this publication, “International Dining with Spice Islands.” Originally sold as a mail-in incentive, it contains culinary histories, recipes, and suggested menus that are aimed at demystifying global cuisine for American home chefs. The folded paper presentation sleeve contains ten booklets focused on the cuisine of “nine of the world’s most savory kitchens”: France, India, Japan, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Israel, and Sweden. Unfolding the unassuming gold and cream-colored outer sleeve, a kaleidoscope of movement and color emerges. Each of the ten booklets inside is wrapped in a colorful reproduction of a Corita Kent serigraph—overlaid with a handwritten proverb relating to the cuisine featured inside.
Presentation sleeve for the “International Dining with Spice Islands” recipe portfolio / THF720260
Spanish recipe booklet with art by Corita Kent from “International Dining with Spice Islands” with the proverb “Reading and eating should both be done slowly.” / THF720271
At age 18, Corita joined the Order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Los Angeles. From 1947-1968 she taught art at Immaculate Heart College, where she eventually became chair of the art department. This liberal arts school had a reputation for its progressive curriculum, which coincided with the shifts and reforms of Vatican II Catholicism in the 1960s. Corita was a vibrant individual whose belief in the importance of community, intentional presence in the world, and social protest through art are reflected in her teaching philosophy and own creative output. She was extremely active as an artist while teaching at IHC, exhibiting widely and receiving international attention for her bold pop art styled serigraphs (or screen prints).
Corita often referenced the visual language of food logos in her prints—famously, pairing Wonder Bread and Sunkist logo designs with fragments of scripture, song lyrics, poems, and quotes from public figures. Regarding her work for the “International Dining” publication, the Corita Art Center states, “These succinct and charming proverbs echo Corita’s use of food advertising language to playfully connote spiritual messages within her artwork.” The publication was popular enough that they were reprinted in 1967, which is the version recently acquired by The Henry Ford.
Introductory booklet with art by Corita Kent from “International Dining with Spice Islands” with a quote by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin / THF720261
The cover of the introductory booklet references a quote from Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, an 18th-century French lawyer and author: “The joys of the table belong equally to all ages, conditions, countries and times; they mix with all other pleasures, and remain the last to console us for their loss.” As the author of “The Physiology of Taste: Or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy,” Brillat-Savarin is considered one of the first essayists of the gastronomy genre. He also famously wrote “tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are”—the origin point for the common adage, “you are what you eat.”
The first booklet also contains a brief history of fine dining and provides instructions and etiquette for how to form an “international dining club” with adventurous diners. These clubs “…need not be a stuffy aggregation of posturing food snobs” but should be “…a congenial group of acquaintances who need hold nothing more in common that a singular interest in food.”
French recipe booklet with art by Corita Kent from “International Dining with Spice Islands” with the proverb “To invite anyone to dine implies that we charge ourselves with his happiness all the time he is under our roof.” / THF720264
Today, Spice Islands branded herbs are commonly sold in American grocery stores. The company was founded in 1941 and currently operates production facilities in Ankeny, Iowa—home to the largest American spice brands in the US. Geographically speaking, the “Spice Islands” themselves refer to the Malaku or the Moluccas—a group of Eastern Indonesian islands that became a powerhouse of spice trade with the arrival of European and Portuguese ships in the 16th century. The main spices exported from the Spice Islands were “warming spices”: nutmeg, cloves, mace, and peppercorns.
Beyond Corita’s contributions to the “International Dining” project, James R. Stitt is credited as the main art director and designer. Following his service in the US Navy and Marines, Stitt worked as a technical illustrator for Boeing before moving into the corporate advertising field in San Francisco. In the early 1960s, while working at the firm Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, he was assigned the Spice Islands account. Stitt recalled meeting Corita Kent at the ArtCenter School in Los Angeles while he was a student, and as a fan of her work, contacted her to commission illustrations for covers of the “International Dining” recipe booklets. Despite working as an illustrator in the years when digital design was on the rise, Stitt was staunchly anti-computer throughout his career. His iconic labels for the Anchor Brewing Company were entirely drawn by hand; they included 44 years of Christmas Ale labels starting in 1975 until his retirement in 2019.
Greek recipe booklet with art by Corita Kent from “International Dining with Spice Islands” with the proverb “He who is too lazy to knead the bread must sift the flour for five days.” / THF720266
Country by country, the booklets contained within the “International Dining with Spice Islands” portfolio explain indigenous regional cuisines, shifting foodways, hospitality expectations, seasonal menus, the impacts of religious belief on food preparation and consumption, and cuisine balanced with local agricultural abundance (or scarcity). Also included are sources for seasonings not readily available in typical US retail grocery stores in the 1960s. (Michigan locations include J.L. Hudson Company in Detroit.) Chefs are urged to take seasoning seriously and to broaden their palates: “If you are not familiar with a particular herb, spice, or seasoning called for in a recipe, do not omit it. […] Broadening one’s seasoning scope is an exciting adventure in itself.”
Spanish recipe booklet with art by Corita Kent from “International Dining with Spice Islands” with the proverb “Food must feast the eyes as well as the stomach.” / THF720270
Italian recipe booklet with art by Corita Kent from “International Dining with Spice Islands” with the proverb “Thou shouldst eat to live not live to eat.” / THF720269
Indian recipe booklet with art by Corita Kent from “International Dining with Spice Islands” with the proverb “If you would be a king you must eat like a king.” / THF720267
German recipe booklet with art by Corita Kent from “International Dining with Spice Islands” with the proverb “He who doesn’t love wine women and song remains a fool his whole life long.” / THF720265
Israeli recipe booklet with art by Corita Kent from “International Dining with Spice Islands” with the proverb “When you spread the table contentions will cease.” / THF720268
Swedish recipe booklet with art by Corita Kent from “International Dining with Spice Islands” with the proverb “You take what you have.” / THF720272
Kristen Gallerneaux is curator of communications & information technology, editor-in-chief of digital curation. .
