Wayside Inn Collection

SummaryThe Wayside Inn Collection consists of eight reels of 16 mm. film shot in the 1930s. Many of the reels contain intertitles referencing events that took place in 1932. The bulk of the collection contains footage of activities at the Henry Ford Wayside Inn Boys School as well as various activities on the grounds of Longfellow’s Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Footage depicts winter scenes (shoveling snow, using oxen to plow the pathways on the grounds, and hockey games), scenes of the farm animals in spring, the water wheel at the Grist Mill, and some peach picking. School activities depicted include various pageants, balls, ceremonies (graduations, tree-plantings), school plays, and field trips including one trip to Lake George in the Adirondacks. The collection also contains a film using “Mary’s Lamb” from "McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader.” The camera shows the text of the poem and pairs each verse with footage of a young girl, her lamb, her teacher and other school children acting out the text.

Biographical/Historical NotesThe Wayside Inn Under Henry Ford’s Historic Preservation (1923-1960) With the purchase of Longfellow’s Wayside Inn (est. 1716) in 1923, Henry Ford envisioned transforming the Colonial era inn into a living museum of American history, an interest that predates the development of both Greenfield Village and Colonial Williamsburg. Under Ford’s private ownership, the Inn continued to operate as a hotel and restaurant. His stature brought the Inn to a level of recognized international significance, and with that, came prominent visitors such as Calvin Coolidge and Charles Lindbergh. As important as the living museum concept was to Ford, the Wayside Inn also afforded him a rustic venue with which to conduct his annual “Vagabond” retreats with friends Harvey Firestone, Thomas Edison, and John Burroughs. The Inn provided a convenient break for the Ford family as they traveled by train from Michigan to family property in Maine every summer. The Hostess Diaries that were kept at Ford’s insistence chronicle the comings and goings of these visitors and record the delight with which the staff received the Ford children, Henry Ford II, William Clay Ford, Sr., and Josephine Ford. Additions to the Inn’s landscape made by Henry Ford include the Martha-Mary Chapel (1941), a popular wedding venue, and the Grist Mill (1929), a full-time Pepperidge Farm production facility from 1952–1967, and the last fully operational mill in the Northeast. http://www.wayside.org/tour/wayside-inn-grist-mill (cited 05/25/2010). Further reading on the history of Longfellow’s Wayside Inn can be found at http://www.wayside.org/history/ford (cited 5/25/2010)

RepositoryNortheast Historic Film

AvailabilityThe Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Reproduction and UseAuthorization to reuse and/or reproduce must be obtained from Northeast Historic Film. See http://www.oldfilm.org/research for more information.