Posts Tagged digital collections
John Margolies spent decades traveling the United States and photographing roadside attractions, restaurants, shops, and motels, with a particular focus on interesting or quirky shapes and signage. Many of the places he photographed are in varying states of abandonment and decline, but harken back to the excitement of the golden era of road trips and the unique commercial designs they spawned. Last year, The Henry Ford acquired about 1500 slides by John Margolies, and a little later this year, we will be putting on an exhibit of selected material, transformed from 35mm slide format into art prints. If you’d like to get a jump on the exhibit, you can currently view over 120 recently digitized Margolies slides on our collections website (including, in most cases, the slide mounts with John Margolies’s hand-written notes). Some of these images—perhaps this dinosaur offering up live music and a really good deal on a large t-bone—will be featured within the exhibit.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
digital collections, photographs, photography, popular culture, John Margolies, roads and road trips, Roadside America, by Ellice Engdahl
Just Added to Our Digital Collections: Henry Carter Johnson Glass Figures
Henry Carter Johnson (1908–96) created tiny glass animals and other figures in western Michigan, on and off from the 1950s through the 1990s. His business was officially called “Fine Miniatures in Glass,” but many of his young fans, who could watch him shape the glass into his creations, knew it better as “The Glass Menagerie.” If you’ve looked in the cases that line the Promenade of the Henry Ford Museum, you’ve seen some of this collection, but we’ve just digitized close to 140 of these unique and charming figurines, such as the crane shown here. If you’d like to browse the whole menagerie, including (among many others!) fish, walruses, bears, mice, and rabbits, visit our digital collections.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
Michigan, making, glass, digital collections, by Ellice Engdahl
Just Added to Our Digital Collections: Logan County Courthouse Artifacts
If you watched Episode 10 of The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation, you may have learned a bit about the Logan County Courthouse, where a young Abraham Lincoln practiced law. Though the building now resides in Greenfield Village, we’ve just digitized about 70 images of the interior and exterior of the Courthouse on its original site, as well as related people, including this group posed outside the building. Visit our collections website to see all our digitized collections related to the Logan County Courthouse.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
digital collections, Logan County Courthouse, Abraham Lincoln, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, by Ellice Engdahl, The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation
Henry Ford is sometimes referred to as a “folk hero”: he was such a prominent figure in public life during his day, and had such a significant impact on the entire world, that many people felt compelled to send him gifts to show their appreciation. Some of these are machine-made items, but many were laboriously hand-created. We’ve just digitized some staff favorite tributes to Henry from our collection, including this 1935 diorama created in a gallon jug and featuring Henry Ford, Ford V-8 automobiles, young women, flags, flowers, and cotton chicks. Check our blog later this week for a post from Collections Specialist Patrice Fisher highlighting more of these honorifics, or if you can’t wait, you can check out sets on our collections website related to love of Ford automobiles, likenesses of Henry Ford, and awards and trophies—or view all 70+ items.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
20th century, Henry Ford, digital collections, by Ellice Engdahl
Just Added to Our Digital Collections: E-M-F, Flanders, Studebaker Photographs
We’ve just digitized 238 items comprising the complete “E-M-F, Flanders, and Studebaker photographs, ca. 1910-1914” collection at The Henry Ford. As the description on ArchiveGrid notes, “E-M-F, launched in 1908 with an intent to build a mass produced automobile in a medium price range, was named for its three founders: Barney Everitt, successful Detroit automobile body-builder; William Metzger, premier Cadillac Motor Co. salesman; and Walter Flanders, resigned from the Ford Motor Co. as Henry Ford's first production manager.” Before long, the company partnered with Studebaker (producing at one point a Model T competitor named the Flanders 20), and by 1913, all E-M-F and Flanders vehicles became Studebakers. This image shows one of the cars navigating some tricky terrain as a pathfinder for an AAA Glidden Tour, a grueling event designed to showcase the value of the automobile and point out the need for good roads. See all the digitized E-M-F, Flanders, and Studebaker images by visiting our collections website.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
20th century, 1910s, Michigan, Detroit, photographs, digital collections, cars, by Ellice Engdahl, archives
The collections of The Henry Ford contain over a thousand examples of footwear of all types: boots, sandals, pumps, slippers, and more. We’ve just digitized another six dozen or so pairs from our collections, in a variety of styles dating from the early 19th century through 2008. One set designed for a very specific purpose is these size 5 1/2 “Nymph” bathing shoes, likely dating from the 1920s. View close to 300 more pairs of shoes and related artifacts by visiting our digital collections!
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
One of the biggest misconceptions people have about The Henry Ford is that we are “a car museum.” Certainly, automobiles and related material form one of our core strengths, but our collections also cover the entire breadth of American history. Our ongoing project to digitize our collection and make it available online really demonstrates both sides of this coin: our vast and deep collections covering autos and auto racing, and then the wide breadth of other material documenting the American experience.
In that vein, instead of doing a typical “year in review” post for our digitization efforts in 2014, I played around with our collections database and came up with some interesting facts and figures about the portions of our collection that we digitized over the last year. I hope you’ll agree that the details below reveal the deep strengths of our collections, as well as their breadth—and that they encourage you to spend some time browsing our digital collections as well! Continue Reading
#Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford, by Ellice Engdahl, digital collections, digitization
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
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
