When Ford Motor Company engineers developed the assembly line at the Highland Park Plant back in 1913, they were seeking to increase production volume in order to provide more automobiles to the general public at a reasonable cost, and in a reasonable time.

Move ahead nearly 100 years to 2012, where the staff of The Henry Ford and the Benson Ford Research Center are creating a modern assembly line to digitize the images and documents from our collections and make them available online.

By some estimates, The Henry Ford holds roughly 26 million 2D and 3D objects, with the majority of that total – some 25 million items – contained within the archival collections at the Benson Ford Research Center (BFRC). Clearly, there’s a lot to move down our “assembly line”!

As is the case with auto assembly, there are a number of stations along our line, beginning with material selection, then material retrieval, cataloging, imaging, storage, import, export, and finally ending with online display. Improvements made to the speed and efficiency at each of these stations can lead to gains in the production rate of the entire line.

In an effort to bring speed and efficiency improvements to imaging, the BFRC has adopted a process we refer to as Rapid Capture digitization. Used at a number of institutions across the country, including the National Gallery of Art, Yale University Beinecke Library, and the San Diego Air & Space Museum, Rapid Capture (RapCap) is part technology, part process, and part philosophy.

Technically, RapCap is rather simple. The equipment consists of a copy stand, lighting, a digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera, and a computer equipped with photo editing software.

The important feature of the camera is its full-frame sensor, which can create a 400-pixel-per-inch image of an item as large as 9×14 inches, allowing us to provide staff and visitors with high-quality images for the majority of our archival materials, which can be easily viewed, downloaded, and used for presentations or reports.

At the click of the shutter button, the camera can record an entire image – perhaps an 8×10 photographic print – without the cycle time of a more traditional flatbed scanner. If you’ve used a digital camera, or even a camera phone, to take personal photographs recently, then you know how quickly you can take tens or even hundreds of snapshots. The same holds true for RapCap, with the limit on imaging rate being the safe and proper handling of the archival material, not the wait for the scanner to make a pass.

In some cases, we have been able to capture both sides of a photographic print in less than 60 seconds, translating to nearly 500 prints imaged in a single day. Our flatbed scanner can produce 10-12 images per hour, or both sides of just 48 prints per day. Our RapCap workstation has been up and running since February 2011, and in that time we have produced over 9,000 images from some 2,000 objects.

Process, or efficiency in process, is also an important part of RapCap. For example, since material handling is one of the keys to the speed of RapCap, we are working to select and schedule material in groups having similar sizes or formats, and that are located together physically, such as the box of 8×10 photographic prints shown below:

Another example occurs in the post-processing of images, which can also be done in a batch manner, including exposure correction, cropping, and derivative image creation. By using automated scripts much of this work can be done unattended, and in the case of large batches, performed in the overnight hours.

Finally, RapCap is in some ways a philosophy. RapCap puts a premium on user access to large numbers of images, and in doing so forces trade-offs in areas such as perceived image quality and image resolution. An example of this trade-off can be seen in some of our RapCap images, which appear slightly tilted, such as this image from the Detroit Publishing Company collection:

Rather than spend additional time on each image to create a perfect alignment, we’ve chosen to spend that additional time producing more images, with the assumption that you, our users, would want to see more “stuff,” and can accept some imperfection.

A second compromise involves image resolution. While the camera can produce images sufficient for online viewing and use in presentations, the images may not be adequate for advertising or commercial publication. We’ve accepted that a certain number of items may need to be rescanned at some point for publication use, but that the potential rescanning effort is outweighed by the ability to both produce and store more, lower-resolution images.

Our implementation of RapCap has, to this point, proven to be quite successful. We’ve created a large number of images that meet our goals for quality, usefulness, production time, and cost. For 2012 we are planning to increase the number of objects imaged to take further advantage of this relatively new capability.

And if you’re intrigued about RapCap and its use in libraries and archives, OCLC Research has produced a great report and companion webinar, “Rapid Capture in Special Collections and Archives.”

So how do we decide what we’re going to digitize next? That’s where you come in!

Take a look at (and start using!) our digital materials, either by visiting our Collections website or the kiosks located in our new Driving America exhibit. Then let us know: What types of images are you enjoying? Are the quality, amount and type of images you find working well for your needs? How useful is the information displayed with the images?

Your feedback can help us to improve our work, and most importantly, your experience here at The Henry Ford. Tell us in the comments below, or by reaching out directly to us at the BFRC – we want to hear from you!

Brian Wilson is the Digital Processing Archivist at The Henry Ford’s Benson Ford Research Center.

The coming of a New Year is a great time to set resolutions, and for 2012, The Henry Ford has picked at least one doozy that we are very excited to share!

Over the course of the year, we will be digitizing our most “significant” icons in each of the core categories in our collections — and making those available on our collections website to anyone who is interested.

So what does that mean, and why are we so delighted about it?

Digitization is the process of making photos and information about the collections of The Henry Ford available online. In a way, this is a process that dates back to the founding of the institution, as artifacts have been catalogued and photographed over the years for internal purposes.

However, the information and images we’ve gathered and the ways in which we’ve stored those for our own usage don’t necessarily equate to the robust web presentation that we want to share with the world— so we have been spending a lot of time updating and standardizing catalog records, taking great new photographs of the collection, and writing brief narratives on the purpose and meaning of each object.

This is all part of a big project we’ve been calling CAN-DO: Collections Access Network for Digital Objects.

We really got going in earnest with this effort in 2011, with the bulk of the objects digitized either in or related to the new Driving America exhibit, which opens at the end of January. The Henry Ford obviously has very strong transportation collections, and this means that right now our digitized collections contain everything from the very rare and beautiful Bugatti…

1931 Bugatti Type 41 Royale Convertible, from the collections of The Henry Ford. Only six Royales were ever made.

…to an iconic Charles Sheeler photograph of the Ford Rouge plant in the late 1920s…

Open Hearth Building at Ford Rouge Plant, photographed by Charles Sheeler, 1927, from the collections of The Henry Ford.

…and everything in between.

"How to CB" Phonograph Record, 1976, from the collections of The Henry Ford. “Slanguage” — get it?

As 2011 began winding down, we started to think about what we would digitize in 2012. The Henry Ford has an embarrassment of riches in its collections, including hundreds of thousands of 3D objects and about 25 million 2D artifacts housed in the Benson Ford Research Center. Digitizing it all will be a multi-year, if not multi-decade, effort. What, we asked ourselves, should be our focus in 2012?

The answer was obvious: We need to make sure the public has digital access to the most “significant” artifacts at The Henry Ford. I put the term “significant” in quotation marks purposely, as significance has multiple meanings. Few could argue that an artifact like the city bus on which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat is not a significant historical object. It is also institutionally unique. Many museums have civil rights artifacts, but there is only one Rosa Parks bus, and the only place to find it is at The Henry Ford.

The Rosa Parks Bus, an American icon from the collections of The Henry Ford. Photograph by Michelle Andonian.

The other dimension of “significance” is personal resonance. Certainly the Rosa Parks bus has personal significance for many people. But there’s also a pretty hefty degree to which personal significance diverges. For example, I wouldn’t necessarily expect this Buck Rogers poster to have personal significance for a large percentage of the public.

Buck Rogers Comic Strip Characters and Space Vehicles, Cocomalt Premium, circa 1934, from the collections of The Henry Ford. Featuring a space pterodactyl!

For me, though, this happens to be one of my very favorite collections objects that we’ve digitized thus far. It features a space pterodactyl, a disintegrator ray, rocketships, and many spacemen in dapper outfits, all illustrated with bright colors and fantastic graphic detail. These all happen to be things that I enjoy (space pterodactyls being a new but noteworthy addition to the list), so to me, this is particularly interesting.

We’ve been having a lot of interesting conversations about all the aspects of “significance” and how they relate to the collections of The Henry Ford, and have started throwing out ideas and making lists. Over the course of 2012, you will see these objects begin to show up on our collections website, but you’ll also hear about them in other ways — via blog posts from staff members, in the curators’ Pics of the Month and any other ways we can think of to share the stories that these objects tell.

We could not be more excited to start this project, and hope you are excited about it as well. Check our collections website frequently to visit your old favorites from the collections and discover new ones!

Ellice Engdahl is The Henry Ford’s new Digital Collections Initiative Manager, which she thinks is quite possibly the coolest job ever — even if it’s a hazard of the job that her favorite collections object changes about ten times a day.

Well, not really.

While there is no absolute proof that Henry Ford actually donned the iconic red suit and white beard, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that he did. Edward L. Bryant, a nephew of Ford’s wife Clara, remembered times when Uncle Henry played the role:

Each year from 1895 through 1938 Henry Ford played Santa Claus to children, including his son, his nieces and nephews, and his grandchildren. He was Santa Claus to his neighbors and to the children who attended his Greenfield Village schools. He was Santa at 56 Bagley Avenue, and at the Bryant Homestead on Monnier Road. He and Aunt Clara had a Christmas party at their little flat on Hendrie Street in 1907. The best parties I remember were at 66 Edison Avenue in Detroit. These were between 1908 and 1912.

With the success of the Model T in the 1910s, Henry and Clara Ford began construction on a new home, Fair Lane, in Dearborn. On this estate, Ford had a small cottage built not far from the main house that he called “Santa’s Workshop.” It was at this whimsical cabin that many local children who attended Ford’s Greenfield Village Schools recalled seeing Santa, his sleigh filled with presents, and reindeer at the ready to carry toys across the land. Here, they were allowed to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas—and actually take home a toy of their choice. Henry and Clara used the little Santa’s Workshop to share the simple joy of Christmas that they had experienced growing up.

The visit to Henry Ford’s North Pole began with a bus ride to the back gate of the Ford estate on Ford Road which helped to disguise the actual destination. The children were loaded aboard horse-drawn bobsleds (weather permitting) or onto a large wagon which traveled down a lantern-lit lane that wound deep into the woods. There, in the midst of the wilderness, stood a child-sized log cabin with a toy-filled sleigh and its reindeer awaiting their Christmas journey. Other reindeer grazed in an adjoining shed. The darkness and excitement of seeing Santa Claus probably disguised the fact that the deer in front of the sleigh were stuffed and the deer in the shed looked a lot like cows with antlers attached.

But this was a night about Santa and presents. The children were welcomed into the cabin and allowed to choose any toy they wished. After receiving their gift, they were escorted into a second room where they could partake in a bowl of Clara’s homemade Snow Flake Soup (really oyster stew). Then everyone was bundled into the waiting bobsled or wagon for the ride back through the wilderness that surrounded the “North Pole.”

Different men wore the Santa suit, but Henry generally preferred dwarfs, possibly because they seemed a more approachable size for younger children as well as a better fit for the small workshop.

Even after Henry’s death in 1947, Clara carried on the tradition of “Santa’s Workshop” until she passed away three years later. The Greenfield Village Schools continued the annual event for the students, but moved it from Fair Lane to the Pottery Shop, the Cooper’s Shop and other locations in Greenfield Village. The original Santa’s Workshop at Fair Lane was dismantled in the late 1950s.

Terry Hoover is an archivist at The Henry Ford’s Benson Ford Research Center.

In recognition of our upcoming Independence Day, Marilyn Zoidis – our director of historical resources – compiled a selection of patriotic music from our collections to share with you; you might be surprised to learn how far back this sentiment runs!

Patriotic music has an early history for the United States – even before we were a nation, as we were still fighting for our independence from Great Britain.

As we move through time, one of the things you’ll notice is that there tends to be a resurgence of patriotism during wars, so oftentimes the songs reflect the conflicts of the period. One of the most famous war songs is “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which was written by Francis Scott Key during the war of 1812 and became our national anthem.

Through the years, the music is really a way for Americans to understand their identity as Americans. The songs convey both themes of American citizenship and ideals of the nation.

There is a real proliferation of music during the Civil War, when it was a time to celebrate the cause and express devotion to the nation and heartfelt feelings about the troops. The troops themselves would sing songs around the campfire and march to patriotic music, and people at home would sing them as a way to comfort themselves and remember the ideals for which the troops were fighting. (To learn even more about this era, be sure to see the Discovering the Civil War exhibition inside Henry Ford Museum, on display now through September 5.)

Some of the sheet music from that period is particularly stunning; the document may be fragile, but the sentiment of this piece is crystal clear.

The American flag was one of the preeminent symbols of the American Civil War; it was really the time when the flag took on a prominence that it had not previously had. As you look through our collection, you can really see the presence of the American flag and other symbols of the nation.

Oftentimes, music would also symbolize specific battles or events – sometimes detailed in vivid color, elaborate illustrations and plenty of iconography, like this example.

Speaking of iconography, there are references to Uncle Sam very early on as well. Uncle Sam is a figure that changes quite a bit over time; he starts off as a pretty scrawny-looking version and becomes much more masculine and forceful as America’s military role and importance changes, as does the representation of the American eagle.

Some songs are more explicitly military-focused, while others are more subtle; patriotic music covered a range of emotions of the population of the time – music really is a good example of the range of sentiments at any time in a country’s history.

The mixing of religion and patriotism really began during the Civil War as well, with songs like “God Save the Flag of Our Native Land” serving as prime examples of this.

“Dixie for the Union” is an interesting example of patriotic music; Dixie of course was one of the more popular songs of the South, so even as you look at the words of this song, it expresses love of one’s country but also feelings of animosity toward the enemy. Some of the language of these documents really explained the tensions felt in our society and the country at the time, as well as some of the sad points in our nation’s history.

After the Civil War, this feeling of patriotism really flourishes, and there is a sense of coming together in many ways and expressing this through patriotic symbolism – it’s when the “Pledge of Allegiance” begins and other manifestations of love of country.

Something else that flourishes at this time is band music – and of course, John Philip Sousa is the king of marches, especially this piece: “The Stars and Stripes Forever!”

People would gather for community concerts, often held at the village green or other center of town; grandstands or bandstands would be set up for local community bands to perform, which was another outgrowth of the Civil War – coronet bands were especially popular during this time. This way of Americans coming together was something that continued during the Fourth of July and other national celebrations – and it’s something that we even continue today at The Henry Ford, through events like Salute to America in Greenfield Village!

This piece is from World War I and is a strong example of the two sides of productivity in the United States during times of conflict: production of arms for war and industrial America.

Of course, World War I was a conflict that America didn’t enter right away, but there was the sentiment that we should be prepared for it – so the title of this, “You’d Better Raise Your Boy to be a Soldier,” showed that even if war wasn’t imminent, it’s something that is always with us and that you could be called upon at any time to help defend our country. The color choice of this piece is also interesting – it’s very much of the period, and not the traditional red-white-and-blue color scheme of most patriotic pieces.

Heading into World War II, themes like this harkens back to the fife-and-drum of the Revolutionary War and the modern tanks of the era, showing a real juxtaposition of the iconography and messages from an earlier time still resonate and carry through various wars.

Musical pieces such as “Soldier Boy” combine the military theme with a more personal element to the war, showing the military men in their various uniforms. Another interesting element to this piece is the personal inscription near the bottom, from the composer to Henry Ford (“Mr. Ford”)!

Many Hollywood stars and very famous composers, including Richard Rodgers and Irving Berlin (who wrote many patriotic songs), also did their part to help lend a bit of star power to the war effort through music, canteens and USO shows – it was a way for them to express their patriotism, if not through direct military efforts but to show their support through their talent and support from the homefront.

These songs really capture a range of patriotic ideas, from the need to support the troops and the ideas for which America stands to even isolationism – this broad range provides a wide lens into what Americans were thinking and feeling at various times in our history. We see this even in recent times, from forms of protest songs during the Vietnam War to a resurgence of patriotic songs after September 11, 2011.

Patriotic music has been a part of our celebrations, our tragedies and who we are as Americans even before we were considered a nation; I hope you’ll take the time to explore these collections at the Benson Ford Research Center and learn even more for yourself!

What is your favorite patriotic song?

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In this celebration at Greenfield Village, approximately 250 children participate in versions of traditional May Day festivities. Some children carry arches of flowers, some are in costume, some are part of the queen’s court. We witness the crowning of the Queen of the May. Various old-fashioned dances are performed for the queen and her court, as taught by dance instructor and head of Greenfield Village Schools, Benjamin Lovett. (My favorite is the Jockey Dance!) Dances are also performed around a Maypole, and all participants take part in dancing the quadrille. The film closes with older children dancing in the Lovett Hall ballroom and an aerial view of Greenfield Village.

Noting that the festival was May 24, this archivist was somewhat surprised at finding it not uncommon for May Festivals to be held later in May, rather than on May Day, May 1 (having nothing more to go on than vague memories of elementary school Maypole dances–not to mention different connotations of the day, such as observances for the Labor movement and disaster preparedness for libraries, archives, and museums). Presumably this timeframe was built around when the weather got nicer in northern climes? Or perhaps it was the influence of the Dutch and later African American observances of Pinkster celebrated in late May or early June, some of which included Maypoles, and which, though tied linguistically to the church year–Pinkster deriving from the Dutch for “Pentecost”–were quite obviously also linked to the seasons and growing conditions. On the other hand, May Day and May Festival observances in Europe seem not to have been rigidly fixed to May 1. Did they party the whole month long? Sometimes they did, it would seem (with a translation into modern English courtesy of Wikipedia), or perhaps mixed and merged practices with other similar festivals.

Although the upcoming Memorial Day is a time of reverent, even somber, remembrance for many, let us also look to the joys of spring and warmer weather.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (as so many old newsreels began), the eyes of the world were turned towards the future. The 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair opened April 30, 1939, and ran for two seasons. Its theme was the “World of Tomorrow.” On the heels of the Great Depression and the eve of world war, the fair’s exhibits looked with optimism to the future: What would be in store in technology, commerce, politics, culture—indeed, in all spheres of life and society? And how could technology and design be applied to build a better future? The many exhibits, grouped by themed zones (Transportation, Communication, Food, etc.), showcased existing streamlined and futurist styles and ideas and in turn influenced their continuation and development. Along with the dreaming and high concepts, though, there was a lot of good old-fashioned fun—located in the popular Amusements Area.

The Ford Motor Company pavilion was designed by two powerhouses of industrial design and architecture, Walter Dorwin Teague and Albert Kahn. Ford’s contribution to the fair included as its centerpieces the Road of Tomorrow and the Ford Cycle of Production, both seen here.

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But this film offers a wider view of the fair, not just a peek at Ford’s offerings. It opens with footage of Manhattan, the George Washington Bridge, and aerial views of New York City and the New York World’s Fair grounds at Flushing Meadows, Queens. Then it moves on to views of the U.S. Government Building and various state buildings and pavilions representing industry and trade including AT&T, U.S. Steel, Westinghouse, Goodrich, Chrysler, and General Motors (which, with its Futurama exhibit designed by Norman Bel Geddes, is generally considered to have outshone Ford’s exposition that season). Next we see the Ford Exposition Building, including the large mobile mural by Henry Billings, the “Ford Cycle of Production,” the theater, gardens, fountains, and exhibits and demonstrations including the processing of soybeans and the casting of molten iron. People get into Ford automobiles for the “Road of Tomorrow” ride on spiral ramps in and around the building. Views of the amusement section of the fair include dancing, ice-skating, a parachute jump, souvenir stand, and food venues. The film closes showing the fair at night, the effects of lighting (the first practical fluorescent light debuted at this fair), and fireworks.

For more about the 1939 New York World’s Fair, you could start with an article and photo gallery at Wired, and then, for even more information on all the World’s Fairs, head over to the “World’s Fair Community” forum (which will take you to the 1939 NY pages) and “Welcome to Tomorrow” maintained by the University of Virginia’s American Studies department.

In just a little over two weeks, Greenfield Village opens for the season. In celebratory anticipation, let’s look at a film featuring the Village.
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In this film from 1937, we see Henry Ford visiting with people in various historic buildings in Greenfield Village. He is shown passing by Cotswold Cottage–my personal favorite among the Village buildings ever since my childhood visits–which was then called Rose Cottage, and visiting Cotswold Forge to watch blacksmiths at work.

Next we see Ford discussing a circle of stones on the grounds with Edward Cutler, chief architect of the village, and examining a rare book (careful with that binding, please, Henry!) with two young women, probably Edison Institute students.

Also shown are Henry Ford and Robert Boyer in the Dearborn Engineering Laboratory, located in the Engine and Electrical Engineering Building (or “EEE Building”), adjacent to The Henry Ford, with a wooden pattern of a machine. The machine, unidentified, was probably related to soybean research. Boyer spent many years working on soybean-related products for Henry Ford.

When you arrive at Greenfield Village (since this clip has surely gotten you ready to visit as soon as it opens on April 15!), you’ll see, to the left of the fountain in the Josephine Ford Plaza, the Benson Ford Research Center (BFRC). Housed at the BFRC is the Greenfield Village Building records collection. Commonly known as the “Building Box” collection, it contains archival information, including text and photographs, about Cotswold Cottage and the other Greenfield Village buildings. In addition, the BFRC holds Ford Motor Company’s historic records, including other archival collections having to do with Henry Ford’s interest in and experimentation with uses for soybeans.

Every month our curators spotlight a different item from The Henry Ford’s collections for our Pic of the Month.  This month, Cynthia Read Miller, Curator of Prints and Photographs, discusses the history of photobooth photography and the photobooth collection we posted on Flickr this fall.  Watch for a new collection of historic images on our Flickr page later this month.

Read January’s Pic of the Month

Pic of the Month archive

On the shortest day of the year, we’ll keep things short and sweet, and celebrate the first day of winter by showing Henry and Clara Ford having some cold-weather fun.

Here’s to a happy winter for everyone!

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Henry Ford ice skating (THF_HFS_V.200.FC.X.27)

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Clara Ford throws a snowball (THF_HFS_V.200.FC.X.22)

We’re excited to announce our newest collection on Flickr:  photobooth portraits, which joins our other historic photos on Flickr in giving new access to our deep photographic collections.   These photobooth shots  give insight into the use of photography in everyday life in the twentieth century, from the 1930s to the 1970s.  The collection includes shots of Harvey Firestone, Jr. and Elizabeth Parke Firestone.*

We’re excited about these photos:  look for a post on the cultural history of the photobooth portrait, coming soon from Cynthia R. Miller, our Curator of Prints and Photographs–and the next time you’re at Henry Ford Museum, take a picture of your own in our photobooth near the IMAX entrance.

*The Henry Ford holds a great deal of Mrs. Firestone’s couture clothing, as well as the Columbiana, Ohio, farm where Harvey Firestone, Sr. was born, among other Firestone artifacts.