Detroit, MI - Clocks, Trains & Automobiles

Here we are back in the Ford Museum for our second day. I’ll have to admit that I can get ‘museumed out’ at times but this museum was so fascinating that we were both eager to get back to see the rest. We even took time to see a few things that we had seen yesterday. We went back to the short movie that we had viewed because it was such a good summary of the museum: that the invention of the car was such a game changer not just in America but in the world. Not only did it reshape the landscape: motels, gas stations, tire shops, repair shops, roads, drive-in theaters, traffic signals, interstates, malls - think of all the things that are common today that were not even thought of before the car. Then there were the economic revolution that Ford caused in his factories.

Because training new employees always takes so much time, Ford increased his wages so he could retain his current employees. These increased wages enabled his employees to buy the cars they made. He also introduced profit-sharing. Other companies had to keep up and wages increased all around.

The auto made people freer to travel and to move further from their work. Suburbs.
What about the unintended consequences? The smog, the expenses, the reliance on foreign oil, the ‘the paving of ‘Paradise and putting up a parking lot.’ All those good things too.
Travel. People wanted to travel. The museum had a section on one of the first ‘road trips’ across America from San Francisco to New York City in 1903. Tom Fetch and Marius Krarup, editor of ‘Automobile’ piled into this 1903 Packard Model F Runabout and made the journey in 61 days. (Hmmm, is that mud original?)

Maps? Roads? Gas stations? Restaurants? Hotels? Bridges? Nope, not many of any of these in the middle of America. All they had was the published map of the period: the Railroad Map. So they followed the tracks. They chugged out of San Francisco at their top speed of 20 mph and entered the vast center of America. Imagine asking for directions. Most people had never been more than a day’s ride from their home.

Here are a few pictures of their trip.

As the exhausted Fetch exited the Packard at the giant hotel on Broadway between Vesey and Barclay Streets, he was asked to say something to the assembled crowd. He had but four words, “Thank God, it’s over.’ Later he added this: ‘I do not care to make the trip again.’

There was an entire section devoted to the 4 generations since the Baby Boomer generation. Here I am, listening to some tunes from 8-track cartridge. Remember those: remember the splitting of long songs? Remember the long pauses at the ends of some tracks waiting for the next track to begin? These were only popular between the mid 1960’s to the mid-1970’s when they were replaced by the more listenable cassettes. Interestingly it was developed by the LearJet company but became popular in the automobile industry. Portable music. Cool. I’m sure that some of you (of a particular age) might recognize some of the cartridges below: Saturday Night Fever, Hotel California, Led Zeppelin.

They also had a copy of the very first computer Gary and I had from Apple. He had another computer, the Sinclair ZX-80, prior to this that used to hum in different keys as it operated it. That computer was about the size of tablets now. But, here’s his first Apple.

We also explored the train section of the museum. Here a snow plow car. It actually opened up to be about twice as wide as this is to clear a much wider path. But, this is big enough, I’m thinking.

Then there was this model, huge. Tall and long. It ends back there where the guy in the blue shirt is. He is on the platform they built to get into the engine compartment.

And, it looks like this in side that engine compartment. Gary is in the engineer’s seat and the other guy is in the fireman’s seat.

Speaking of trains - who invented the 4 time zones in America? The railroads, of course. November 18, 1883 is when time zones first began to be used. Prior to that, every town and every village and every city had its own time - based upon its High Noon, when the sun was directly overhead of that spot. Well, imagine trying to run a continental railroad that way? What kind of schedule could you devise?

There was a whole section of Freedom and its growth. The first section dealt with the Revolution and how it spread. They had the folding camp bed that George Washington’s used between 1775 - 1780.

And, the camp chest he also used.

We all remember the name of Jackie Robinson and how he integrated baseball. Well, he was a Brooklyn Dodger in 1947 but other teams did not integrate until 12 years later, in 1959. It took a long time.

Here’s the actual bus that Rosa Parks rode when she was asked to move to the back of the bus to let white folks sit in front.

Here’s a cool map showing how states ratified the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote. That also came slowly. By March of 1920, 1 more state was needed to push the amendment over the 2/3 vote it needed to become law. Finally 23-year-old Representative Harry T. Burn (1895-1977), a Republican from McMinn County, to cast the deciding vote. Although Burn opposed the amendment, his mother convinced him to approve it. (Mrs. Burn reportedly wrote to her son: “Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the ‘rat’ in ratification.”) With Burn’s vote, the 19th Amendment was ratified. Whew. Some states only voted to ratify if only after it was official.

On November 2 of that same year, more than 8 million women across the U.S. voted in elections for the first time. It took over 60 years for the remaining 12 states to ratify the 19th Amendment. Mississippi was the last to do so, on March 22, 1984.

Back to time in America. I liked the story of Eli Terry who developed a mass way to make clocks which enabled the price to decrease so that more people could actually have a clock in their homes.

Here are two that he mass produced.

Speaking of time, I’m thinking it is time for us to head back to the RV. The clock says 5:00, closing time.

Marvelous museum and I’d recommend that you visit it when you are in Detroit. It’s not all serious - there are things like this.