Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Detroit, the legacy of Henry Ford

                                             The indelible impressions made by the Ford Rouge Factory Tour, the Henry Ford Museum, The Greenfield Village and the echoing of my Social Studies teacher's words," Girls, Detroit is known as the automobile city" made me give Detroit, this title, though I don't know if I'm right.Anyhow, the name that comes to one's memory, with Detroit, is Henry Ford


                                           The Ford Rouge Factory Tour was really exciting and interesting.The factory is in Dearborn and the tickets have to be bought in the premises of the Ford Museum.We were taken in the Ford bus to the factory, a few miles away.Inside the final assembling unit of the Ford trucks,it was very thrilling to see from elevated walkways up, the vehicles sliding one after the other in the moving assembly lines and stopping at the required points for the doors,moon roofs,steering wheels,wind shield screens etc. to be fitted up.The robots moving their arms and fitting the windshield screen was the greatest attraction with no thoughts of moving away from that point.Panel screens and the staff explaining the process make the tour more valuable.

                                         From the the observation deck on the top floor,we can enjoy the largest green,living roof of the world,an environmental innovation and protection.Documentaries illustrating the history of the world famous industrialist and how he realised his dream were screened in the legacy theatre.Another wonderful feature of the tour was the colourful array of the Ford vehicles from the earliest to the latest.

                                       Henry Ford Museum is,yet, an innovative vision of the great auto maker's interest in taking the inspiring past, the stories of the men and women who have changed the world ,to guide the posterity.All the sections like Agriculture,Heroes of the Sky, Automobiles in America, With Liberty and Justice for All etc. have some significant  exhibits and events that revolutionised the lives of men.

                                      To cite a few notable exhibits are the Bus,in which Rosa Parks declined to give up her seat to a white,sparking a great civil rights  movement,the camp bed used by the first President George Washington, the earlier air crafts,tractors,locomotives, the chair in which Lincoln was shot dead and the cars used by the various Presidents including the limousine in which John F.Kennedy was assassinated. As a scholar of English Literature, I was thrilled to see the desk used by Mark Twain, the famous American writer of the evergreen children's classic, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the furniture used by the great essayist Edgar Allan Poe.A whole day or at the least half a day must be reserved to cherish the memories of the past under a single roof of 12 acres.

                             The Greenfield village is another great contribution of Ford,to depict how the Americans lived and worked, with independent buildings to demonstrate the crafts like pottery,printing,glass making etc.There are also the relocated homes of some eminent personalities like Thomas Alva Edison, a contemporary and a close aide of Ford ,the Wright brothers,Noah Webster,the great American who compiled the  dictionary and many other homes from the times, the country was founded to the present day, in a vast area of 200 acres.Greenfield Village is a great attraction to enjoy with the family in Detroit.


                           My sister in law from Chennai and myself had a very good time with my brother,his wife and the kids.Both my brother and sister in law kept off from their work in turn, to take us around their city.We enjoyed the Tamil,spoken with an American accent of English by the kids,a piano recital by my nephew and the Carnatic tunes of my niece.There was also a delicious dinner hosted by one of our relatives,settled there.

                              The supreme delight of my visit to Detroit was, it turned out to be a great reunion of three friends,one a US citizen, another a Canadian Citizen and the third an Indian citizen but all the proud products of the great St.Ignatius Convent HSS,Palayamkottai.




                                         
      
                                    

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