Review of Ford Museum Website

Henry Ford, for all you non history nerds out there, was waaaay more than just a car guy.  He's one of the more interesting characters in American History.  He tried to build utopia in the South America, obsessively controlled (and spied on) his employees, gouged the US war department and was a noted anti-semite.  None of this is a joke.  SUPER FUN to teach about.  The website though, predictably, really didn't go into this kind of thing as the Ford family is still around and protects the 'brand' quite vocally. The reason I chose to review this site was my background knowledge on the subject and curiosity regarding bias/editing.

The things that were of interest...

• Great links to other historical websites discussing the same era such as the Wright Brothers, Detroit Publishing, and a pretty cool 'Picture of the Month' section.
• A couple of the 'channels' had innovation lessons that could be used, but it's a stretch.  Perhaps for a technology  or business class or for supplemental material? 
• Decent video library, but your lesson would have to be planned around it.

That's about it.
Things that flagged for me...

• Didn't read like a 'education' website.  Felt like education was secondary (or a requirement) to fund the brand. 
• The majority of the links were directly to do with visiting the museum or paying ... Visit, Tickets, Donate, Membership, Shop, Museum (paid), Factory Tour (Paid), Innovations (about the products you can buy), many of the historical resources were fee based, and private events to pay to rent the space).
• Broken links on the Research Center Page for their flagship exhibits (Digital Dress and Herman Miller, both HTTP 404)
• Even the research center felt 'for profit'

Student Focus Group:  9-12
Subject Alignment:  History
SSUSh12:  Analyze the importance of American Industrial Growth
SSUSH13:  Major efforts to Reform American Society and Politics in the Progressive Era
SSUSH16:  Key Developments after WWI (Directly mentions Ford)
SSUSH19:  Domestic Impact of WWII

Not a huge fan of this site.  Would require substantial effort for me to do anything other than use it for myself or provide direct links.  Wouldn't suggest allowing students just to browse this one.  It really would be hard to defend letting students look at this for 90 minutes in a lab  With the exception of writing a paper directly about the most public aspects of Ford's life, there are better resources (like the Smithsonian) that cover this time period in a more academic fashion.