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:



