The Henry Ford opened a reconstructed open-air vegetable shed in its open-air museum, Greenfield Village, in April 2022. At its origins, the Detroit Common Council invested in this structure to facilitate direct sales between growers and customers. It operated as part of Detroit’s City Hall Market (also called Central Market) for thirty years, between April… Continue reading When Cities Expelled Farmers

The COMPA – Conservatory of Agriculture – was born following a national collection campaign of agricultural machinery begun in 1977. Choice of the future site of the museum was the Eure-et-Loir, an agricultural département [ed. note: administrative area similar to a county], the “granary of France”, located 100 km southwest of Paris. When it was… Continue reading The COMPA between town and country

In southwestern Berlin in the middle of a residential neighborhood, there is a spot on the map: the site of the Dahlem Domain, an open-air museum for agriculture and food that includes 10 hectares of Bioland operations, with its motto: From Field to Plate The site of the Dahlem domain – formerly a municipal property,… Continue reading The farm IN the city – The Dahlem Domain in Berlin

The Museumsdorf Volksdorf (Museum-Village Volksdorf) now lies within Germany’s second-largest city, Hamburg, but it was once a village of typical vernacular architecture and the forest occupations that went with the site. The museum is a few minutes on foot from a direct train-line station and provides the look and feel of a country place with… Continue reading Museum Village Volksdorf between “Bauer” and “Bürger” (between Farmers and Townsfolk)

Some positive things have arisen out of Covid 19 such as, in the absence of Conference meetings, the excuse to put this photographic piece together on ‘brick-making’ for the AIMA Newsletter. Bricks have been part of my life. My Great-grandfather Dick Powell (1859-1940) was a Mason, Foreman Bricklayer and “Builder” in Hereford. His son Ernie,… Continue reading A ‘Box Brownie’ insight into hand-made brick-making… possibly Norfolk ca. 1930

Sydney is geographically landlocked by mountain ranges and gorges. The Sydney Basin, as it is known, has limited arable land and much of it is not easily accessible from the main population centre. As the city grew and the demand for milk increased in the late nineteenth century, it was clear that the Sydney Basin… Continue reading Hay for Sydney from the Hunter Valley

French “pailleux [adjective]: made of straw”. Unfortunately, no dictionary gives this word a professional definition. However, for two and a half centuries, it designated the carters who supplied the stables of the French capital with “straw” (pailles) from the large cereal-growing estates on its outskirts, In the following lines, we will discuss the history of… Continue reading Pailleux – The Strawmen of Paris