Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Ford Drama of Transportation at 1934 World's Fair

These three postcards are part of a series from the Ford exhibit at the 1934 Century of Progress (Chicago World's Fair). The text below these images is from the backs of the postcards.


FORD EXPOSITION BUILDING

A drawing by Hugh Ferriss, noted New York artist, of the Ford Exposition Building at the 1934 A Century of Progress at Chicago as it appears at night in its blaze of flood lights. The building is 900 feet long and equivalent to 10 stories in height in its central section. It occupies a tract of eleven acres fronting on Lake Michigan with beautiful Ford Gardens in its foreground.



THE FORD DRAMA OF TRANSPORTATION — CARRIAGES

The evolution of horse-drawn transportation from the primitive chariot to the luxurious vehicles of the latter part of the 19th century is illustrated at the Ford Exposition by 24 types. This is only a part of Henry Ford's collection at Dearborn, Michigan, where he has over 500 carriages, wagons, sleighs and almost every type of vehicle in which the horse was the motive power.



THE FORD DRAMA OF TRANSPORTATION — CARS

Forty-one automobiles, ranging from the charcoal burning Austin steamer of the early sixties to the 1934 Ford V-8 are shown at the Ford Exposition. It is interesting to note that Henry Ford was among the first to get away from the "Horseless carriage" idea and design a car in which previous forms of transportation carried no influence. There was nothing reminiscent of the buggy or carriage in the first Ford, except the wheels.

I have a website on A Century of Progress Exposition that has much more information and more postcards from this world's fair that was held in Chicago in 1933 and 1934.

This post was written for
A Canadian Family
A Festival of Postcards Blog Carnival

Premiere Issue: Wheels


2 comments:

  1. Wow, those are just wonderful. I love the history behind it all. Thanks for sharing them!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lynn, this is quite a collection! Perfect for this 1st edition of Wheels!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...