Program was started by a three person committee, but they wanted they wanted to take it possible for American Cities to commission an original work of art for that city. We were the first city to ever receive a grant from the endowment to be used specifically to commission an original work of art for a specific civic site. It was 16 years old. It was in the spring of 1930 and he was working at bills place when he noticed a new car pulled up and stopped in front of this store. This big fellow stepped out any stepped into the entryway of the sedre and cost pau for a long time. Ford asked him if you help him. The man city where Leslie Lynch King junior. He said no, im gerald ford junior. He said you are my son, im your father. I want to take you to lunch. Welcome to grand rapids on American History tv. With the help of our Comcast Cable partners, for the next 90 minutes we will take you to michigans secondlargest city. Once called Furniture City. We begin with a tour of the newly updated gerald ford president ial museum where we will learn about the early life and career of the 38 u. S. President. We are at the Gerald R Ford president ial museum in grand rapids, michigan. We are in the new exhibits. The exhibits opened just a few weeks ago and its a brandnew exhibit on gerald ford, his life and times that took about six months to complete. The spaces are broken down into his what we call his foundation years, his youth. We move into his congressional period. Then has president ial and pose president ial experience. In the first gallery we feature his foundational years. He grew up in grand rapids, michigan, but he was not born in grand rapids. He was born in omaha, nebraska. His mother had married a businessman in omaha by the name of leslie king. She was dorothy king. They had a child in july of 1913. They named him Leslie Lynch King junior. He is the person we know is gerald ford. We have his christening gown and a few other things of interest, but one of the things we featured is the baby book. A lot of mothers keep books on their children, even today. Dorothy was no exception back in 1913. She began keeping a book on the babys experience. We cant present the real thing, but we present a duplicate and flip form. Some of the things you see are the first picture of dorothy with the baby. He was born in a house in omaha, nebraska, his grandfathers house. Some of the other interesting features about it is she records babys first outings. The first entry is this taxicab ride. It occurred to lease after his birth. Two weeks after his birth. That is when dorothy king was fleeing Leslie Lynch King. He proved to be a very abusive husband. Began on thee wedding day, through the honeyman, and extended into the time of her pregnancy. As soon as she recovered her strength after the birth of the him into asecret taxi cab and drove them over to council bluffs, iowa where the sheep she records babys first train ride. She takes him to chicago where her parents lived outside of chicago and harvard, illinois. She has fled her husband. Her husband files suit for abandonment for divorce on grounds of abandonment. Grounds countersues on for abuse. The judge decides in her favor. A house thatnion, still exists in grand rapids. That is the home of his youth. To grandrought junior rapids because her parents were developing real estate in the area, along with another partner of her fathers. Here she met a paint salesman by the name of gerald ford. By february, 1917, they had gotten married. They had themselves and the young child who they continued to call junior. In time he just became gerald ford junior. There never was an adoption, but there was a family. Gerald senior was a loving father. They would go on to have other children. Tom, dick and jim. The kids became active in school and social organizations. Each one of them became a boy scout. Gerald became junior became an eagle scout by the time he was 14 years old. Asior often is described that boy scout, the ideal boy scout. That wasnt always the case. Ford brought with him into his youth some of the characteristics that his birth father exhibited. One was his temper. Temper. Ad an excitable told was a story that is of him as a young child in his front yard where neighbor kids wanted to climb a tree but he claimed that his history in when let them climate. He stepped on their fingers when they grabbed her lens for limbs. His mother determined that temper were not be carried into adulthood. He would not get away with the things his birth father got away with. She did a number of Different Things to help curb that. She made them memorize poetry. Poem if. Bible verses. One became his favorite that he would lean on into adulthood. He was also ridiculed by his mother when he exhibited these tempers. She would show him faces he was making. She would shame him and show him the ridiculousness of his behavior. He recalled all of these things in his adulthood. Helped himhow that to control a temper that never left him. But did not control him either. Junior lived in what we recall a lower middle class family. Dorothy married gerald ford senior it was a paint salesman. Ford was ambitious and wanted to start his own company. He bought part of the company he worked for and turned it into the ford paint and varnish company. It was a company he started two weeks before the stock market crash in october, 1929. He was able to hold on to the company through the depression. It stayed in the family until the 1960s. It was one he struggled to hold onto. But it was that kind of family that ford grew up in. Ford himself was made to work, to earn his money. One of the jobs he had was at a burger joint across the street from south high. A place called bills place. Hired star athletes from the high school to entice other kids to come to his burger joint and spend their lunch money. One of the star athletes was junior forward. Junior ford. People would come to see the friday night stars whatever eating their lunch. It was at bills place where one of the important events, formative events in juniors life took place. He was 16 years old. It was in the spring of 1930. He was working at bills place when he noticed a new car pulled up and stopped in front of the store. That was unusual for this part of grand rapids because nobody owns a new car. This was a brandnew lincoln automobile. This big fellow stepped out of it and stepped into the entryway sed for aore and pau long time and stared at junior. Ford asked him if he could help him. The man looked at him and said, you are Leslie Lynch King junior. He said no, im gerald ford junior. He said you were my son. Im your father and i want to take you to lunch. That shocked junior. Andent back to see bill said this guy says hes my father anyone to take me to lunch. Bill said i guess you better go with him. They went to a place called the cherry inn and had lunch together. Junior, his birth father and his birth fathers wife margaret. Life ind him about his wyoming. He lived outside riverton, wyoming between riverton and shoshone. He wanted junior to come out and live with him. Course young ford had no interest in doing that. He lived in a very happy home and why would he be at all eager to make a change . D demeuredath and said im happy here. Asked howter difficult it was written to hold his temper at that moment . Tosaid there are times you bite your tongue and be polite and this was one of those moments. Otherwise he was angry. He didnt understand what was going on. This fellow claimed to be his father. If he was his father, why wasnt he involved in his life . This fellow was a stranger to him. He knew also he was going to have to go home and tell his parents about it, about the experience. He wasnt looking forward to that. It was a hard dinner that night. Afterwards he took his parents to the living room and explained what had happened, the experience he had. He said there were tears shed in the living room as his mother told him the story about his birth father, her leaving him and coming to grand rapids. Parents were in their own way ambitious. Ambitious to make something of themselves, to be something in grand rapids. Junior ford also was very ambitious. One of the things he wanted to schoola leader in his and on the playing field. In school what he wanted to be was president of the Student Council, president of the senior class. At the beginning of the senior year students competed for these different offices as they do today. Ford ran on the progressive ticket. He did that because some but he got in front of him and waned republican ticket. One that was left to him in this roosevelt era, teddy andy bu and the bull moose era and he put together a team. Every member of his team was elected to their offices but he lost miserably to a fellow by the name of leo van tassle. He was elected president by an overwhelming margin. As Everybody Knows these offices are popularity contests. Why ines the question, the world of the most popular student at south high lose so terribly to somebody who wasnt that popular . Coach, acause his fellow named coach gettings called the other athletes into a room and said i want you to torpedo that election. Ford is the captain of the team for the football team. He needs to be on the practice field. He doesnt need to be wasting his time at Student Council meetings. The other athletes took that to heart and went out and make sure ford lost. Ford was wellknown as an athlete. He made his name as an athlete. He was on the swim team at the ymca. He was on the track and field team at south high. He played basketball at south high, but he was best known on the football field. He was a star center for the state championship south high football team. And he was captain of the team. But he wasnt just an athlete. He was also a scholar. In the classroom he was solid. In fact self i gave an award to the outstanding male scholar and female scholar. Dorothy gray was the female scholar and gerald ford was scholar for both his gpa and for his civic activity. He wanted to go to the university of michigan. The university of michigan was recruiting him as an athlete. He found it difficult however because his parents didnt have a lot of money and he didnt have enough money to pay the tuition is first year. It became a Community Affair to get gerald ford to the university of michigan. They stepped in and said we will help you financially to get there. He starts a book sale, a Library Book Sale that establishes a scholarship to provide money to needy students. The first scholarship recipient is gerald ford. They give him 100, which pays his first years tuition at the university of michigan. 50 person after. He is 18 years old when he is seeing our city thats when he gets to the university michigan. He wants to have fun as well as apply himself to his studies. He earns solid grades at the university of michigan and he excels on the football field once he is given the opportunity to perform as a starter his senior year. Fraternity,o a delta cap epsilon. A epsilon has reputation as the party house. You wonder why this otherwise serious student would want to ek. Dge to d its as much a case that they want him as he wants dek. It is constantly being threatened with expulsion. Ther gpa is traditionally lowest among the greek fraternities on the university of michigan. Thee was hope among some of brothers if they could get ford, he can help their gpa. And he could help right their s hip. They give him responsibility by his senior year of turning the budget around. One of the other things in the depression era was that the house is financially strapped. They were in the red. They turned the treasurers responsibility to afford. By the time he graduates he may not have helped their gpa that much, he does help keep them on campus, and he puts them in the black. He puts them on a paying basis. By the time he leaves he was to enter law school. He would like to enter law school at the university of michigans law school. The problem is that dont have a job for him. Ford needs a job in order to go to school. He still has to pay his tuition some like it is coming out of the university of michigan somewhere around 1000 in debt. The football coach at the university of michigan, coach him to theoduces coach at yale. He has a job for him to coach Junior Varsity football, line coaching for the varsity team, and coaching boxing at yale. That parents for the paycheck. It does not get him into Yale Law School. He approaches yield law school Yale Law School and processes him. They said he would be a fine student not if he has a job. Law, takego to yale on the load of study that is amended by them and hold a job. So the reasoning goes. Ford also talks with his coaches well,that, who tell him, you cant really go to law school and fulfill your coaching responsibilities. He has the dynamics working against his ambition to become a lawyer. He just he takes some provisional classes elsewhere to demonstrate he can do the work. Using that he gets himself admitted into yield law school. He does not tell them he has this other job. He does not tell the other his other coaches he is going to go to law school. This means he is able to do both. Higgins of graduating and the while of his law school fulfilling his coaching responsibilities. Yale ever since more than just him. Attaining the means to fill a profession. It means him opening up. He spent six years at yale. He meets a time woman by the name of phyllis brown. Betty ford will be the great love of gerald fords life. Betty is not his first love however. Phyllis brown is a professional model. Younger than he, she is about 21 years old but she is one of the top models in new york city. Her,oaches have a term for and name for her. They call her perfect body brown. Ford is competing for her attention. He says in order to compete for her attention he has to take on her interests. Her interests largely revolved around his strength, which is sports. She plays tennis, golf, and she skis. All these things are rather new to gerald ford. He takes them up and becomes more than proficient at each one of them. That he is able to capture catch her eye and by 1938 is presumed they are going to be married. He brings her back to michigan for a couple of summers. He visits her up in maine. Eventstend any number of and broadway plays in new york. She goes out on modeling shoots. He follows her on those shoots. At times he ends up in the magazines alongside her. These are photographs from one of those shoots where she is on a ski slope in vermont. There he is alongside with her in one of the national magazines. Phyllis brown represents to gerald ford and opening up, a broadening of his experiences, of his vision. He sees the west coast. She introduces him to a large part of that. He sees new york city. She is there at his side to guide him through those experiences. Purveying urbane, and witty. He is midwestern. If not plodding, stalin and his attitude. Stalid in his attitude. When it comes down to the decision of returning to grand rapids to start his life as an attorney, or staying in new york where she has her modeling career, that is where a parting of the ways comes in. She remains in new york city. He returns to grand rapids to begin his career as an attorney. Later this hour we continue our tour of the gerald ford residential museum, as they look at his world war ii service, his courtship of betty ford, any 24 year congressional career which launched him into the white house. Cspan is visiting the city of grand rapids to learn more about its history. Of the next we visited the grand Rapids Public Museum where curator alex forrest will explain how grand rapids became known as Furniture City. Alex forrest for over 100 years now grand rapids has really sort of set the tone for what furniture will look like and feel like and how it will act. Although it doesnt do it for Home Furnishings anymore, theres a good chance most people over the course of any given day will see or interact with a piece of furniture made in grand rapids. We are at the grand Rapids Public Museum in the museums Furniture City exhibit. This is the oldest piece of grand rapids furniture in the museums collection. It is a windsor chair made by a , ouramed William Haldane best guess is around 1840. The first settlers dont start coming to grand rapids until about 1830. William haldane is in that first early group went to grand rapids is just a tiny village on the banks of the grand river. He is the first guy that steps up a woodworking, or making cabinetmaking shop as they called it. This first year is a treated to him. It is pretty primitive, made by hand. The spokes on the back were made with a spoke shave, instead of being turned on a laive. It was probably just a oneoff that somebody paid him a buck or two to make a chair. People who arrived in town needed furniture for their house. It might not look like any thing special but it is the beginning , of the Furniture Industry in grand rapids. Grand rapids became the Furniture City in the 19th century and there were several different factors that combine to help grand rapids earn that title. Having the Raw Materials needed to make furniture. The great hardwood forests of michigan. The transportation to ship those Raw Materials and ship the finished goods to market came in the form of the grand river. It runs right in the middle of grand rapids. And finally the labor force. Grand rapids had many immigrants from European Countries that had the skills to carve wood, operate machinery, and build furniture. All those three things combined in the years following the civil war to make a perfect storm for grand rapids to become the Furniture City. There was a whole class of wealthy town leaders who decided wanted to invest in the Furniture Industry. These were those who wanted to control the banks, they control the capital. They had access to funds to set up a furniture factory. By working together, this first round of Furniture Companies was