Many people don’t realize that Henry Ford had a special fondness for musical instruments, especially violins.

Henry Ford playing a violin, circa 1920. (From the collections of The Henry Ford)

Although he never learned to play it as well as he would have liked, Ford acquired a number of beautiful instruments over the years, including a 1709 Stradivari (or “Strad,” as it is often affectionately called) and this fantastic Strad, “The Siberian” - so named because it was once owned by a Russian amateur violinist who lived in Ekaterinberg, Siberia during the late 19th century. (You can learn more about Henry Ford’s musical interest and influence here, along with information about another Stradivarius violin from our collection, “The Rougemont,” built in 1703.)

Antonio Stradivari violin, "The Siberian," built in 1709.

Our violin collection

Now, you’ll have the opportunity to learn more about this incredible instrument during two special events – including a very special performance of the 300-year-old violin by a true violin virtuoso.

On Thursday, April 26, our curator of domestic life, Jeanine Head Miller, and our senior conservator Mary Fahey will speak at the Ypsilanti  District Library at 7 p.m. about Henry Ford’s love of the violin – and the fiddling craze he sparked during the 1920s – plus some recent mysteries we uncovered during a scan of the violin late last year.

And on Sunday, April 29 at 3:30 p.m., Sphinx Organization Laureate Gareth Johnson will perform on this magnificent instrument with the Ypsilanti Symphony Orchestra at Eastern Michigan University’s Pease Auditorium; tickets are limited but still available. (You can also read a great article here about Mr. Johnson and this performance.)

We hope you can join us for either, or both, of these exciting events!

Peering into a luxurious first-class cabin. Admiring the grand staircase. Touching a replica iceberg so cold, it’s hard to keep your hand there.

The ice wall

These are among the many moving elements you’ll explore when you tour Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition - the largest touring exhibition of these incredible artifacts - when it opens this Saturday, March 31 at Henry Ford Museum.

This experience will be especially poignant, as this year marks the 100th anniversary of the Titanic tragedy, when the world’s largest ship collided with an iceberg and sank into the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912, claiming more than 1,500 lives.

The bow of the Titanic

Through this 10,000 square-foot, newly-redesigned and expanded exhibition, you’ll be able to see more than 300 artifacts, 250 of which have never been displayed in Michigan.

Perfume vials (credit - Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition)

White Star Line dishes (credit - Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition)

The personal connection to Titanic‘s passengers is everywhere. You can walk through extensive room re-creations, have your photos taken near the full-scale replica of the Grand Staircase – and then turn the corner to see the actual base of the main cherub statue, which adorned that ornate staircase.

You'll be able to climb the Grand Staircase for a photo. (Credit - Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition)

And from the moment you step into the exhibition, you’ll be quickly drawn back in time to 1912. Each person will receive a replica boarding pass of an actual passenger aboard Titanic; from there, you’ll “travel” through the life of the grand ship – from its construction to the lives of its on-board passengers, its ill-fated voyage and the amazing artifact rescue efforts by divers returning to the underwater site in recent years. (Interesting note: Many of the artifacts in the exhibit can also be seen in TITANICA, which also opens March 31 at The Henry Ford IMAX Theatre - and read our blogger’s take on this nonfiction docudrama here.)

Authentically re-created first and third class cabins in Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition give you a chance to see what it was like to stay aboard Titanic, surrounded by real dishes, personal effects and elements of the ship itself, like pieces of the deck benches that allowed travelers to take in the fresh air and see the ocean below.

Third-class cabin (credit - Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition)

At the end of the exhibit, take your boarding pass to the memorial wall – and learn the fate of your traveler.

What was the fate of your passenger? (Credit - Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition)

But the exhibition isn’t the end of the Titanic exploration. During its run, we will also host a variety of programming related to this historic event, including Titanic Tuesdays, a speaker and author series we’re offering on the second Tuesday of each month. Be sure to check our website for details of these special evenings, which feature an array of special speakers –  including Stephen Low, creator of the IMAX film TITANICA - and will allow you to explore Henry Ford Museum after hours.

Special timed tickets must be purchased ahead of time, so be sure to get these early – we do expect many of the time slots to sell out each day! Ticket prices and purchase information can be found on our website.

What part of the Titanic story fascinates you the most?

A new study by the Girl Scout Research Institute shows that 74% of girls are interested in careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) – however, a majority of the 1,000 teen girls surveyed said they did not know a lot about career options in STEM. Here at The Henry Ford, we’re working to change that!

On Saturday, March 24th, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Girl Scouts are invited to meet professionals working in the STEM field during the Girls in Tech: Careers at The Henry Ford program.

Held at the Ford Rouge Factory Tour, this fun and educational event will also feature hands-on activities, mock job interviews and more for Girl Scouts to discover new careers and the tools and skills they’ll need to be successful. The Girls in Tech program is just one of The Henry Ford’s many badge programs we’re offering this year.

After completing this one-day program, Junior Girl Scouts will be some of the last Girl Scouts to ever receive the Careers badge – but girls of all ages are invited to learn about these fantastic future career opportunities for young women.

STEM jobs are growing, both in number and importance – according to a 2011 study by the U.S. Department of Commerce, STEM jobs grew three times as fast as other jobs over the past decade, and are projected to grow 17% from 2008 to 2018. But despite the importance of STEM careers, women only make up about a quarter of the STEM workforce today.

The Careers at The Henry Ford: Girls in Tech program starts at Henry Ford Museum with a ride on the Ford Rouge Factory Tour buses; participants must take the 9:20 a.m., 9:40 a.m., 10 a.m. or 10:20 a.m. buses in order to have enough time to complete the program. Check the event page for pricing information and other details – but be sure to schedule your Girl Scout’s spot fast; space is limited!

We hope to see you and your Girl Scout there!

Christopher Hemler is the Curator of Education for Youth, Adult and Digital Programs at The Henry Ford. He also heads up the Scouting at The Henry Ford group page on Facebook – stop by the page to ask him your questions, or tell us about your troop’s visit to The Henry Ford!

We’re closing in on the April 14 the spring re-opening of Greenfield Village! And with the re-opening of the village comes the knowledge that spring is here…and boy, are we ready for it!

Many of our fantastic colleagues here at The Henry Ford share their talents with us in different ways; two in particular, presenter Shirley Damps and Model T driver Lee Cagle, are wonderful enough to share their love of Greenfield Village with us on a daily basis through their writing (Shirley) and photography (Lee). Read on as they share their enthusiasm for the approaching spring season at Greenfield Village!

To those who see bare branches, and know they hold the buds of spring…

…to those who see the melting snow and crocus peeking through, the air is warmer and soon to show the fresh green of renewal;

…the sun is rising a little earlier and going down a little later each day; one hears the birds at break of day…

…all reminders that the Greenfield Village season will soon be upon us.

Lee’s photos from the past few seasons are wonderful reminders of the beauty of the land and all that we are privileged to partake. Enjoy and see you soon!

Weather-wise, there’s a common phrase for March: “In like a lion, out like a lamb.”

Well, this month at The Henry Ford, we’re going in the opposite direction…and going out with a Titanic-sized finish.

We hope you’ll join us for all the excitement!

Learning Series – Evolution of Science and Technology, March 2: Catch the morning session (it’s free and open to the public) as Dr. Charles Dershimer explores how objects from everyday life demonstrate how people think about environmental issues, alter technology to suit their needs, and use technology to solve environmental problems. Find all the details here.

Local Roots Spring Evening Dining, March 8: Our award-winning culinary team is “Touring the Mitten” with a delectable dinner filled with Michigan treats! Get the info (and some recipes!) here.

Macy’s 2nd Mondays, March 12: We’re going green for St. Patrick’s Day during this fantastic outing designed just for preschoolers; from 10 a.m.-noon, kids can enjoy scavenger hunts, make-and-take activities, storytelling and more! (It’s free with your membership or admission to Henry Ford Museum.)

And then – the big one…

Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, opening March 31: One hundred years ago, the Titanic sank in the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean. During this significant anniversary, you’ll be able to tour this premier exhibition chronicling the life of the ship and its passengers through more than 300 artifacts, extensive re-creations of the ship’s rooms and even a full-size replica of the Grand Staircase. If you only visit The Henry Ford once this year, make THIS the time to visit – this exhibition is truly not to be missed!

And while you’re here, make sure to see…

TITANICA at The Henry Ford IMAX Theatre, opening March 31: This traditional IMAX documentary film takes you down to the ocean floor to see the Titanic itself in astonishingly vivid and life-size detail on Michigan’s largest screen.

Featured photo: Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. rode Ford’s Magic Skyway at the New York World’s Fair on a trip with his family in 1964. His wife and two other children followed in the next electronically controlled car.

Free museum admission (courtesy of Target), a symposium about the not-so-open road for African-American travelers before the Civil Rights Act, dramatic presentations, music performances, and make-and-take activities.

Now, that’s a great way to spend Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Many folks have been sharing with us their car stories in anticipation of the January 29th opening of our new Driving America exhibition. Some stories reflect people’s affection for their autos as much as the freedom that came with having accessible transportation.

In Jim Crow America – in the North and South – African-American customers were routinely denied access to restaurants and hotels; racial segregation was frequent at beaches and amusement parks. Police officers regularly pulled over people for “driving while black.”

Above: The Negro Motorist Green Book, begun in 1936, became a guide for the African-American traveler. This 1949 edition listed travel information that would keep the traveler “from running into difficulties [and] embarrassments,” and would “make his trips more enjoyable.”

Monday’s free symposium  – Driving While Black: The Struggle for Civil Rights on the Road – is presented by award-winning civil rights historian Thomas Sugrue. He tells the stories of the courageous civil rights activists who fought for the freedom to travel and for respect on the road. The symposium is in Anderson Theater in Henry Ford Museum from 10-11:30 a.m. and includes a question-and-answer session. From 11:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m., selected students from Henry Ford Academy will participate in a panel discussion facilitated by Professor Sugrue.

Civil Rights Historian Thomas Sugrue

Sugrue is author of Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden of Race (Princeton University Press, 2010) and Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (Random House, 2008), a Main Selection of the History Book Club and a finalist for the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His first book, The Origins of the Urban Crisis(Princeton University Press, 1996), won the Bancroft Prize in American History, the Philip Taft Prize in Labor History, the President’s Book Award of the Social Science History Association and the Urban History Association Award for Best Book in North American Urban History. It was also selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Book, an American Prospect On-Line Top Shelf Book on Race and Inequality and a Lingua Franca Breakthrough Book on Race. (It has even been translated into Japanese.) In 2005, Princeton University Press selected The Origins of the Urban Crisis as one of its 100 most influential books of the past one hundred years and published a new edition of The Origins of the Urban Crisis as a Princeton Classic.

Sugrue is a specialist in 20th-century American politics, urban history, civil rights and race. He was educated at Columbia; King’s College, Cambridge; and Harvard, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1992. You can read more  about him at the Univeristy of Pennsylvania website, where he’s David Boies Professor of History and Sociology.

Two of his books will be available for purchase and signing: The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit and SweetLand of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North.

All events on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (Monday, January 16) are free of charge and open to the public.

If a trip to Holiday Nights in Greenfield Village is in your future, you’re probably already mentally calculating how many layers of winter clothing you’ll want to wear…but worry not – we have plenty of ways to help you stay nice and toasty during this fantastically fun outdoor winter event!

In no particular order, here are some of the best ways to stay warm during Holiday Nights:

Cuddle up with a loved one at one of the more than 50 (!) warming fires stationed around Greenfield Village….

…or on a wagon ride, where you can keep your mind off the cold with a sing-along.

Stop in the Beer Guild Hall for some hot cocoa, Hobo Bread, hot or mulled cider – or even an “adult” warm-up (translation: hot cocoa with peppermint Schnapps).

New to this year’s Holiday Nights program is the Burbank Store, which is a fantastic place to get cookies and cocoa and other goodies just before (or just after) stopping to see Santa Claus.

Our heated Pavilion is wonderful for sitting down with a cup of our own butternut squash soup (which is our most-requested recipe), hot dogs, bratwurst and lighter snacks such as popcorn. Or, for an even more traditional meal, the Taste of History restaurant offers both adult- and kid-sized turkey dinners and other items in our largest menu available for guests.

Of course, you don’t have to step away from any of the action to grab some tasty morsels – on Main Street, you can find carved roast beef sandwiches and chestnuts (yes, roasted over an open fire!); and on State Street, we have a huge cauldron of pork and apple stew simmering over the fire.

Once you’ve filled up your own gas tank, don’t forget to catch a ride on a Model T – blankets are available in the vehicles to keep you warm (remember, these early cars didn’t have heaters, or even glass windows to keep out the cold!).

Of course, stopping into the historic homes of Greenfield Village is a great way to escape the chill for a few moments. We’re cooking period-appropriate holiday dinners in many of the homes, with other special presentations in particular buildings.

But if you’re a Holiday Nights veteran, you probably know the best ways to fight off the cold – what are your suggestions? Tell us below or on our Facebook wall!

Each year in the Pottery Shop, we create a new limited-edition tile ornament for the holiday season. This year’s theme is a cheerful gingerbread man – we’ve had many guests tell us that collecting and displaying the ornaments on their Christmas trees has become a family tradition, so we try to create something unique and fun to help keep those traditions alive!

The process began quite a while ago – early on in 2011, in fact – with developing the design for the ornaments, then one of our potters, Melinda, carving them into a mold.

It’s quite a painstaking process, with about an entire day devoted to carving the lines so that they’re just deep enough to hold the decorative glaze we’ll apply later, but not too deep, either.

Melinda uses clay to check the depth and quality of the lines she’s carving, and once the carving is complete, we create a rubber mold for the final product and then duplicate this process three more times.

Take a look at this video as Melinda takes you through the process – then look for these 2011 gingerbread man ornaments in our stores; they just might make it into your family’s traditions as well!

What other types of cherished holiday traditions do you follow?

Ryan Forrey is lead potter in Greenfield Village’s Pottery Shop, where throwing pottery is a fun and rewarding job – but nothing like the movie Ghost.

It was a perfect night for Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village. Crisp, but not too cold. Cloudy but not too dreary. The hundreds of jack-o-lanterns lining the streets of the village lit the dark night with the help of the bright almost-full moon.

My husband, Richard, and I took the kids to the 8:30 Friday entrance. We always prefer the later times because we like it to be completely dark when we start out. I second guessed that decision this time when we arrived with a crabby two-year-old Clifford. His little cat nap in the car was just a smidgeon too long, so waking him and trying to wiggle him into his big red dog costume (what else?) was a bit of a task. Actually, he was screaming.

I would have said forget the costume, but since it was doubling as his coat, that wasn’t really an option. A not-so-quick strap in the stroller and we were off. As soon as Cliff saw all the other costumed children, he quickly (and thankfully) got into the spirit of the night. And since the first treat station was a yummy Michigan-grown apple, he was good to go.

I can’t really count how many times we’ve been to this event. I can tell you—since our oldest child is 19—it’s been many.

The event has really grown over the years. It’s so well done. The costumes of the folks at the treat stations and those performing at the slightly spooky stops along the trail are fun and just down-right fantastic.

Five-year-old Lillian was dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. She was thrilled to show the hilarious Genie along the path that her shoes were just as sparkly as his. I think I owe some sort of a “thank you” to The Henry Ford for saving me from having to make another costume. I made the Dorothy costume years ago, and it had eagerly been worn by our older daughters when they were Lillian’s age. For some reason, Lillian wouldn’t give that costume an ounce of consideration until we went to the Wizard of Oz interactive exhibit at Henry Ford Museum. It wasn’t until after I procured sparkly shoes, planned a well-timed Oz movie night and dug up photos of the big sisters in the costume, that lo-and-behold Miss Lillian all on her own (wink, wink) chose to be Dorothy.

The little kids thought the pirates at the Suwanee Lagoon were especially fun, and eagerly looked forward to each of the treat stations. I appreciated how much fun the costumed staff had with all the children. We all had some good silly laughs. Nine-year-old Henry—who was dressed as a newspaper boy from the 1940s—was appreciative every time someone from the village commented on his getup or called for a paper. He told me his costume idea months ago after hearing stories of my dad’s childhood paper route. He came up with the pieces of the costume all on his own, and it was just perfect.

The older children enjoyed the spookier elements like the mad scientist in the window of Menlo Park Machine Shop, the mysterious person lurking in the smoky candle-lit Martha Mary Chapel, the cemetery in the Village Green, and the walk through Sleepy Hollow Forest.

Our long-time family favorites are the haunted Carousel and the ghostly woman at the Robert Frost house.

“Moderately creepy,” was the phrase our 14-year-old daughter Mary Claire used to describe the slightly spooky moments along the path. Hallowe’en at Greenfield Village is certainly not intended to scare. With fun and in the spirit of the holiday, it’s subtly a little eerie but never in-your-face frightening.

Sure, there were moments when Cliff and Lillian were a little uneasy. The Headless Horseman was not Lil’s favorite, and Cliff was less than thrilled with the dancing skeletons and the scarecrow that comes to life. (To put that in perspective, maybe I should also mention that Lillian is afraid of flushing toilets, and Cliff shudders at the suggestion of wearing socks. Really.)

When we explained to Lil that it’s all in good fun and that no one was really missing a head, she relaxed and wanted a closer look. I’m still surprised that Cliff didn’t like the skeletons. I find them cute and lighthearted, but it goes to show you how differently children see things. In the end, a good time was had by all, and it was the perfect way to kick off Halloween in the Hass house.

Limited tickets are still available for some of the late entry times Oct. 21-23 and Oct 28-30. Parents should know that it’s very easy to shield younger children from the few things they may consider a little spooky. Also, there is food service available during the event at Mrs. Fisher’s Southern Cooking, Taste of History and The Workshop & Guild Beer Hall.

Kristine Hass is a writer and long-time member of The Henry Ford. She frequently blogs about her family’s visits to America’s Greatest History Attraction.

Get your costumes ready – it’s time for Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village!

This spooky-but-not-scary event has become one of our most popular signature programs, and we can’t wait to open the Greenfield Village gates for you to collect treats along the festively-decorated path, which is lit by hundreds of hand-carved jack-o-lanterns!

If you’ve been following the Hallowe’en prep on Facebook or Twitter, you know that we have several new characters to meet during your visit; our on-site Studio – which designs and produces all of our period clothing and costumes for events like Hallowe’en and Holiday Nights – is excited to introduce them to you! You can find out more about how they’re made here, then keep an eye out at Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village and see if you can spot which ones are the newest additions to our spooktacular cast of characters!

Make sure to stop for some spooky storytelling as well – including Edgar Allan Poe’s creepy classic, The Tell-Tale Heart! (Side note: Did you know that we have one of Poe’s writing desks in our collections? You can see it in the Fully Furnished exhibit in Henry Ford Museum.)

And of course, make sure you stop by all of our treat stations for a little snack to enjoy as you wind through the path!

What is your favorite part about Halloween? Tell us in the comments box below!