Posts Tagged by ellice engdahl
The first season of The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation continues to air Saturdays on CBS, with staff, buildings, and artifacts from The Henry Ford showcased in every episode. For each and every segment set on our campus, our staff are working hard behind the scenes to provide additional context about the artifacts and stories covered. For example, this week, we’ve just digitized a collection of artifacts related to an upcoming episode that will feature some of the locomotives within Henry Ford Museum. This photo of Henry Ford riding shotgun on a locomotive at the Rouge is a reminder how vital these massive machines were, both to the auto industry and to the American economy in general. Keep watching Innovation Nation to catch this episode—but in the meantime, visit our collections website to browse more artifacts related to locomotives, or dig deeper into topics covered previously on the TV show by visiting our episode pages, each featuring staff-curated links to more information and different perspectives.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
railroads, digital collections, by Ellice Engdahl, The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation
Just Added to Our Digital Collections: Ford's Dearborn Engineering Lab
If you’ve ever pulled into the parking lot of Henry Ford Museum from Oakwood Boulevard and looked to your left, you might have wondered what the large building behind the museum is. It has had several names and purposes over the years, but originally housed a new Experimental Department of Ford Motor Company. Designed by Albert Kahn, this engineering building also contained personal offices for Henry and Edsel Ford and a dance hall for Henry’s old-time dances. We’ve just digitized about 100 images of the construction of the building in 1923–24, as well as some later work; this panoramic image shows the state of affairs early on in the construction process. To see more of the construction images and other artifacts relating to the building, visit our collections website.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
engineering, Ford Motor Company, by Ellice Engdahl, digital collections, Main Storage Building
In 1932 and 1933, Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo lived in Detroit, while Rivera was painting the Detroit Industry frescoes at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). The frescoes, commissioned by the city Arts Commission led by Edsel Ford, celebrate Detroit’s industrial manufacturing power. They lie at the heart of the DIA, and also at the heart of Detroit.
From March 15 to July 12, 2015, the DIA will display nearly 70 works of art in an exhibit called Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit. The Henry Ford is pleased to be collaborating with the DIA and other Detroit-area community organizations to provide additional context for the exhibit. Over upcoming months, we will be digitizing parts of our collection that directly relate to Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, their relationship with Edsel Ford and Ford Motor Company, and the creation of the frescos themselves. Because of the close involvement of Edsel Ford and Ford Motor Company in the project, our archives contain documents, photographs, and correspondence related to these subjects.
We've created a special page on the blog to house the items from our collections that relate to the exhibit, It will grow and expand over the period of the exhibit, providing pointers to these collections, so visitors to the exhibit, as well as those who may not have a chance to attend, can dig deeper.
If you’d like to dig in and start exploring right away, we’d suggest a visit to our collections website, where we’ve started to digitize our collections related to Diego Rivera, including the photograph below of the Detroit Industry frescos in progress.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
archives, making, Michigan, Ford Motor Company, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, by Ellice Engdahl, art
We’re already missing the holidays here at The Henry Ford, and so have turned our thoughts to another upcoming occasion: Valentine’s Day. Curator of Photographs and Prints Cynthia Miller pored over our extensive collection of Valentine’s Day postcards and greeting cards, and selected a number that we’ve just digitized. One particularly interesting example is this card featuring a chubby-cheeked and large-hatted young suffragette. If you’re in the mood for love, visit our collections site to see more Valentines—or if you’re more interested in the political message than the romance, check out other objects from our collections related to women’s rights.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager
digital collections, archives, home life, correspondence, holidays, Valentine's Day, by Ellice Engdahl
This week, people around the globe will ring in the New Year. In the 18th century, some Pennsylvania Germans used to create frakturs, illuminated documents, for their friends and neighbors during this season, wishing them well in the upcoming year. The Henry Ford has a collection of frakturs that includes not only New Year’s wishes, but also family records, birth and baptismal certificates, and house blessings. We’ve just digitized a number of these, including this New Year’s wish, likely made by minister Daniel Schumacher for Jacob Grimm and family in eastern Pennsylvania in 1784. See more frakturs from our collection by visiting our collections website, and watch for more to come in 2015. All of us at The Henry Ford thank you for your interest in and support of our collections digitization efforts during 2014, and look forward to sharing more with you in 2015. Happy New Year!
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford
Not long ago, Chief Archivist Terry Hoover popped his head into my office. This isn’t unusual, as Terry and I sit next to each other, but in this case, he had something special to share. He’d discovered a couple of late 19th century children’s books relating to Christmas in our rare books collection, and wondered if we could digitize them. This week, just in time for Christmas, we have. A Visit from Santa Claus retells the famous Clement Moore poem beginning “’Twas the night before Christmas,” with each page of text accompanied by a lovely full-color illustration by Virginia Gerson. Or, check out Santa Claus's New Castle, written by Maude Florence Bellar and illustrated by Dixie Selden. View all pages of both books on our collections website, or check out all of our digital collections related to Christmas.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
childhood, holidays, digital collections, Christmas, by Ellice Engdahl, books
There are only 64 known Apple 1 computers in the world, and only about a quarter of these are operational. One of the latter is now in the collections, both digital and physical, of The Henry Ford. It is not only significant in the early history of one of the most well-known technology companies in the modern world, but also speaks to human-computer interaction, design, and miniaturization of technology. As Curator of Communication & Information Technology Kristen Gallerneaux notes in an upcoming post on our blog: “The acquisition of an Apple 1 represents The Henry Ford’s commitment to documenting the material nature of technology. It is an observable artifact with visual appeal. It has a clear sense of purpose and an honesty expressed through its exposure of internal workings. It could even be considered as a piece of ‘electronic folk art.’” We are very excited to have this incredibly significant artifact in our collections. Visit our collections website to view multiple images of the Apple 1, along with photos documenting its arrival and unpacking at The Henry Ford, or to browse all of our digitized collections relating to computers, and check back soon for Kristen’s blog post to learn more about the history and significance of this artifact.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
20th century, 1970s, technology, digital collections, computers, by Ellice Engdahl
The classical violins in the collections of The Henry Ford get around. In 2011 and 2013, we had them CT scanned at Henry Ford Health System; in February 2013, Sphinx Laureate Gareth Johnson played one at the National Day of Courage; and in October 2014, they were featured on Episode 5 of The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation. Now, thanks to a generous grant from the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs, they are moving out of collections storage and into the Henry Ford Museum, in a display that is planned to go live by February 1, 2015. The violins themselves will be accompanied by a digital kiosk, where visitors will be able to explore additional related artifacts from our online collections. One example of these related artifacts that we’ve just added to our digital collections is the “Badger Gavotte” sheet music for Henry Ford’s Early American Dance Orchestra. Visit our collections website to view other objects related to the Orchestra, dance, and the violins themselves, and plan to visit us next year to see the new exhibit.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
musical instruments, violins, technology, philanthropy, music, Henry Ford Museum, digital collections, by Ellice Engdahl
In October, we announced that The Henry Ford has acquired a functioning Apple-1, a major milestone in the history of computing. However, in September, we acquired another significant computer, and we’ve just added it to our collections website. When Pixar began as a department within Lucasfilm in 1979, it started developing its own computer system to support graphics and visualization. The Pixar Imaging Computer became commercially available in 1986, and was adopted by other organizations with intensive graphic arts and animation needs, such as the Walt Disney Company and the United States Departments of Defense and Forestry. Curator of Communication & Information Technology Kristen Gallerneaux notes about the P-II: “One of our goals at The Henry Ford is to document computing as applied to creative and expressive activities. The Pixar Image Computer II (P-II) is of particular interest not only as a graphics rendering tool … but also as a hugely significant element in the thread that connects the Apple-1 computer to the finely designed and engineered computing devices we all carry with us every day.” See the P-II, as well as the rest of our digital collections related to computers, on our collections website.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
California, 20th century, 1980s, technology, movies, Disney, digital collections, computers, by Ellice Engdahl
Just Added to Our Digital Collections: Ford Rouge Factory Tour Vehicles
You might have heard that there are big changes afoot at the Ford Rouge Center: production has recently started on the all-new 2015 F-150, featuring an aluminum-alloy body and bed. As part of this change, we’ve been enhancing the Ford Rouge Factory Tour experience, and we’ve also taken advantage of the production line’s downtime to digitize the vehicles you’ll see in the Legacy Gallery. You can now check out glamour shots of the 1929 Ford Model A Roadster, the 1932 Ford V-8 Victoria, the 1949 Ford V-8 Club Coupe, the 1965 Ford Mustang Convertible, and, last but not least, the 1956 Ford Thunderbird Convertible shown here—all part of the legacy of the Rouge. Visit our collections website to see these vehicles, as well as much more material related to the history of the Rouge.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
Mustangs, cars, Ford Rouge Factory Complex, Ford Motor Company, digital collections, by Ellice Engdahl
