Setting the World in Motion

The Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum (part of the Cleveland History Center) is the centerpiece of this major exhibition. Setting the World in Motion explores the impact of Northeast Ohio on the auto and aviation industries during the first half of the 20th Century. The newly renovated Crawford Auto Aviation Wing provides the perfect home for this exhibition, which connects the output of transportation technology to the individuals and entrepreneurs who were at the heart of the movement at the turn of the 20th century.

You may know Detroit as “The Motor City”, but Cleveland was the center of global change in the transportation industry. Fueled by John D. Rockefeller’s founding of Standard Oil in Cleveland, the industry (particularly urban transportation) experienced radical change at the turn of the century. By the 1930s over 100 auto manufacturers called Northeast Ohio “home”.

Explore Setting the World in Motion and you’ll dive into the lives and times of these manufacturers, their products, and how they changed the face of the transportation industry in America. You’ll also experience the cultural change that transportation fostered through the National Air Races and the Great Lakes Exposition, both held on Cleveland’s lakefront in the later 1920s and 1930s.

Here’s a glimpse at what you might see:

Over 50 vehicles are on display in Setting the World in Motion, all of which were manufactured in Cleveland.

Advertisements from Cleveland's transportation hey-day hang from the ceiling above the vehicles on display. — Advertisements from Cleveland’s transportation hey-day hang from the ceiling above the vehicles on display.

The display on the National Air Races and the Great Lakes Exposition is nostalgic and harkens back to the early days of transportation-related entertainment.

Roscoe Turner's 1933 Wedell Williams is on display as though it were still in flight. — Roscoe Turner’s 1933 Wedell Williams is on display as though it were still in flight.