Popular Research Topic
Herman Miller and
The Henry Ford
collections The Henry Ford holds.
The Henry Ford and the Herman Miller Furniture Company have a long history together. Artifacts made by the renowned company hold a prominent role in our collection and on the museum floor. Numerous acquisitions and donations by the company have made The Henry Ford is one of the primary holders of objects and archival materials related to Herman Miller products and projects.
In 1988, the Herman Miller Furniture Company established the Herman Miller Consortium to share the historical product collection that had been accumulating as part of Herman Miller’s corporate archives in Zeeland, Michigan. Herman Miller approached The Henry Ford due to its focus on innovation in America, an interest in design processes and prototyping, and the societal implications of manufactured products. The collection contained approximately 800 pieces of furniture as well as a large quantity of product literature. Instead of all this material going to just one institution, twelve additional art and history museums were chosen due to their proximity to Herman Miller manufacturing facilities. These 13 institutions now make up the Herman Miller Consortium. A database was created in 2004 that provides searchable records of all furniture collectively held by these 13 consortium members.
The Henry Ford welcomed the Herman Miller Collection (89.177) in 1989, which includes several hundred pieces of furniture and components, as well as hundreds of archival documents, such as advertisements, postcards, trade catalogues, product manuals brochures, and hangtags. Additional donations from the company followed, including a large acquisition of material related to designer Alexander Girard in 1992, called the Girard Fabrics Collection (92.48), and in 2005, the Aeron Chair Presentation Collection (2005.92.19). Building upon these donations from Herman Miller, curatorial staff at The Henry Ford have since acquired artifacts and collections related to the company’s designers, including archival collections like the Bill Stumpf Papers (2009.141), the Robert Propst Papers (2010.83), individual artifacts like the Prototype Eames Fiberglass Chair and the Kiosk From IBM Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair—and even an entire exhibit, Mathematica: A World of Numbers and Beyond…
Included in the donation of the Bill Stumpf Papers (2009.141) are the personal and studio libraries of Stumpf. These collections include more than 1,300 titles that were used by Bill Stumpf in his design work, as well as titles that were related more to his personal interests. The libraries together give a holistic look into Stumpf’s research practices and inspiration.
While some of this material has been digitized and is searchable in our Digital Collections, much is not. Researchers interested in specific topics related to the company’s history should reach out to research.center@thehenryford.org for additional assistance.
THF Archival Finding Aids:
- Herman Miller Collection (89.177)
- Girard Fabrics Collection (92.48)
- Bill Stumpf Papers (2009.141)
- Robert Propst Papers (2010.83)
- Herman Miller Aeron Chair Presentation Collection (2005.92.19)
- Don Chadwick Papers (2019.148)
Key Designers of Herman Miller
Gilbert Rohde
Industrial designer Gilbert Rohde helped spur the American furniture industry's transition from historical revivals toward a modern aesthetic. In 1930, industrial designer Gilbert Rohde told the president of Herman Miller, D.J. De Pree, “I know how people live and I know how they are going to live.” He designed furniture for Herman Miller until his untimely death in 1944. Rohde helped to transform the company from a struggling revivalist manufacturer into a thriving company on the leading edge of American Modernism.
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George Nelson
George Nelson was a trained architect, a critic, an educator, and an industrial designer. After Gilbert Rohde’s untimely death, Nelson was hired to replace him as the Director of Design at the Herman Miller Furniture Company. If Rohde planted the seed of modernism at Herman Miller, Nelson cultivated and grew it. His furniture and graphic design moved the company forward. Perhaps more significantly, Nelson is responsible for the hiring of key designers like Charles and Ray Eames, Alexander Girard, and Isamu Noguchi. Alongside D.J. De Pree, Nelson created a design culture and depth of design expertise at Herman Miller that would impact the company for many years to come.
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Charles and Ray Eames
Charles and Ray Eames—perhaps more than any other designers—came to symbolize the ideals of modernism to the American public. A husband-and-wife design team, they founded the Eames Office in 1943. Their early venture to create a complex-curved plywood chair in a single shell led to the development of numerous groundbreaking furniture forms. But they weren’t only furniture designers—together they designed everything from buildings to toys and films to museum exhibits.
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Alexander Girard
Known for his mastery of color and texture, designer Alexander Girard was a trained architect, a visionary textile designer, and an avid collector of folk art. He was the almost unbelievably prolific Director of Design for Herman Miller Furniture Company’s textile division from 1952–1973 while simultaneously completing independent projects, such as comprehensive airline redesigns and restaurant interiors. Girard’s approach to design moved American modernism from its minimalist roots to a more joyful, humanistic design that was more “synonymous with living.”
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Isamu Noguchi
Isamu Noguchi was a Japanese-American designer working in product and furniture design, lighting, sculpture, and landscape architecture. Over the course of his six-decade career, Noguchi was driven to synthesize the traditions and materials of Japanese culture with the clean-lined abstractions of modernism. His belief that “everything is sculpture” and that objects should exist as part of a “total environment” led to an impressive roster of commissions for fountains, public art, parks, playgrounds, gardens, and stage sets. In 1937, he styled the Zenith “Radio Nurse” receiver—the first baby monitor. His collaboration with Herman Miller began in 1947 with the creation of the iconic glass-topped “Noguchi table,” which remains in production today.
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Robert Propst
In 1960, Robert Propst became the director of the newly formed Herman Miller Research Division located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The founder of Herman Miller, D.J. DePree, saw potential in Propst’s ambitious thinking and his ability to broaden the company’s product range beyond furniture designs. Propst’s archive reveals an interest in the power of systems and optimizing existing processes and products—from timber harvesting to office landscapes and children’s toys to medical products. Two of his most impactful projects were holistic environments designed for high-impact workplaces: the improved Action Office II system (1968), and the moveable “coherent structures” of the Co/Struc system designed for hospitals (1971).
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Bill Stumpf
Bill Stumpf specialized in ergonomic chair and seating design. From 1970 to 1973, Stumpf served as Vice President of the Herman Miller Research Corporation in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He later shifted into a role as an independent contractor with the company. In 1976, Stumpf’s created the first ergonomic office chair, the Ergon. Some of his best-known work for Herman Miller was co-designed with Don Chadwick, including the Equa (1984) and Aeron (1994) chairs. In collaboration with Chadwick, Stumpf also contributed to the Metaform project, which used Universal Design principles to create home and hospital furniture that would allow people to age in their own homes. With Jeff Weber, he designed the Embody chair and served as principal designer of the Ethospace office system with Jack Kelley.
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Don Chadwick
Don Chadwick is one of the noted Herman Miller industrial designers, responsible for projects like the Ergon and Aeron chairs in collaboration with Bill Stumpf, as well as the Chadwick Modular Seating system and the Ethospace system. The grandson of a cabinet maker, Chadwick credits his grandfather with his own interest in working with his hands rather than being “a numbers guy.” His interest in furniture was sparked in college after attending a lecture by Charles and Ray Eames. After graduation, Chadwick worked for architect Victor Gruen, where he continued to develop his signature style of structured, innovative designs that value form just as much as function. While many of his designs were produced in partnership with Herman Miller, Inc., today, Chadwick maintains his own design studio—Chadwick Studio—in Los Angeles, where he continues to produce new work.
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Further Reading:
- Auscherman, Amy, Sam Grawe, and Leon Ransmeier. Herman Miller: A Way of Living. 2019. Print.
- Berry, John R, and John R. Berry. Herman Miller: Classic Furniture and System Designs for the Working Environment. London: Thames & Hudson, 2005. Print.
- De, Pree H. Business as Unusual: The People and Principles at Herman Miller. Zeeland, Mich: Herman Miller, 1992. Print
