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Technology and Culture 45.2 (2004) 368-372



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Heroes of the Sky: Adventures in Early Flight

At the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan


The planners of the Henry Ford Museum's new exhibit Heroes of the Sky: Adventures in Early Flight faced an interesting quandary. Aircraft exhibits and museums tend to gravitate toward collections of military aircraft. It is a curious and, for museums, convenient thing that artifacts so instrumental at one moment in the defense of nations, peoples, ideals, should at the next be cast aside as surplus. Military aircraft take on historical significance because of their symbolic roles and their often state-of-the-art technology, and of course they can become lightning rods. But of the fifteen planes that make up the core of the Henry Ford Museum's collection, none are military aircraft. (Although some, such as the Curtiss JN-4 or the Douglas DC-3 had military roles, none were collected as military artifacts). How, then, to display them in an informative and thought-provoking way while leaving out one of the primary historical uses of aircraft?

Heroes of the Sky resolves this problem by focusing on the opportunities and adventures offered by flight. The centerpiece of the exhibit is a replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer, situated in a 360-degree vignette of the dunes of Kitty Hawk and poised at the moment the aircraft lifted itself from the rail. (This replica is soon to be the replaced by an another replica-artifact, the recent showpiece "flown" at Kitty Hawk for the hundredth anniversary of flight.) The Flyer encapsulates the dilemma of flight: the Wrights had demonstrated that humans were capable of controlled flight but not, precisely, what they were supposed to do with this capability.

Heroes of the Sky asks the question, "How could they [the Wrights] have known what it would mean to fly and what flying could do?" By 1939 (the terminal date for the exhibit) an answer had been found, and it is represented [End Page 368] by the artifact hanging over the exhibit's main entrance. Visitors approach the Wright Flyer by passing under a DC-3, an aircraft that transported passengers all over the globe quickly and in comfort—and at some profit to its operators. This resolution may have been latent in the 1903 Flyer, is the message conveyed by this exhibit, but it required a period of experimentation between 1919 and 1939 to explore and demonstrate the multiple uses and meanings of flight.


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Figure 1
A Ford Trimotor and a Boeing 40 being loaded with mail are featured in the section on aviation entrepreneurs. (Photo courtesy of The Henry Ford.)

This permanent exhibit does not attempt to tell a linear historical narrative. It is, rather, arranged thematically, explaining the various uses to which aircraft were put and the meanings that designers, builders, entrepreneurs, flyers, and nonflyers gave this evolving technology. Exhibit bays focused on five themes—invention, barnstorming, record breaking, exploration, and entrepreneurship—radiate out from the Wright Flyer. The physical layout, with many side entrances/exits, allows visitors to experience the exhibit as they please, and the thematic design means that visitors don't feel as if they are coming in somewhere in the middle of the story.

Heroes of the Sky is aimed at a diverse audience—diverse in terms of age, interests, and tolerance for reading. Labels amply explain technical and other aspects of the aircraft and displays; in the "entrepreneurs" section (fig. 1), for instance, displays focus on airmail, pilots, early navigation, Henry Ford's contributions to aircraft, and stewardesses. Text is laid out using a variety of type sizes and styles (much like a newspaper), allowing visitors to scan as much or as little information as they please. The exhibit hall includes a balcony, so that visitors can get a bird's-eye view of some of [End Page 369] the aircraft. The balcony is also the only place where a third type of label will be...

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