Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation

The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and the Greenfield Village is a large indoor and outdoor history museum complex in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn. The two museums, in combination, are also listed as the Edison Institute.

It is the largest indoor-outdoor museum complex in the United States with a collection that includes Thomas Edison’s laboratory and the Wright Brothers’ bicycle shop, plus and many other historical exhibits.

Its founder was the automobile industrialist Henry Ford, who wanted to preserve items of historical interest and portray the Industrial Revolution. It is one of the largest such collections in the world.

The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation began as Ford’s own collection of historical objects, which he began collecting as far back as 1906.

Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park Laboratory – replica buildings constructed in 1929 in Greenfield Village

The massive museum facility was specially designed to incorporate facsimiles of three structures from Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, the Old City Hall, Independence Hall, and Congress Hall.

The Edison Institute is part of the museum complex and was dedicated in 1929, on the 50th anniversary of the first successful incandescent light bulb.

The Greenfield Village is the outdoor living history museum section of the Henry Ford complex. Nearly one hundred historical buildings were moved to the property from their original locations and arranged in a “village” setting.

The museum’s focus is to show how Americans have lived and worked since the founding of the country. The Village includes buildings from the 17th century to the present, many of which are staffed by costumed interpreters.

An early McDonald’s sign

Highlights of the Henry Ford Museum

Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park Laboratory
The 1961 Lincoln Continental, that President John F. Kennedy was riding in when he was assassinated
The rocking chair from Ford’s Theatre in which President Abraham Lincoln was sitting when he was shot
George Washington’s camp bed
Wilbur and Orville Wright’s house and bicycle shop
The bus on which Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat, leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott
A modern forgery of a 17th-century Brewster Chair – as an educational tool on forgeries
Igor Sikorsky’s prototype helicopter
Fokker Trimotor airplane that flew the first flight over the North Pole
Fairbottom Bobs, the Newcomen engine
A steam engine from Cobb’s Engine House in England
Early Automobiles, Airplanes, Trains, and Agriculture equipment