Architect Robert O. Derrick designed the museum with a 523,000 square feet (48,600 m2) exhibit hall that extends 400 feet (120 m) behind the main façade. The façade spans 800 feet (240 m) and incorporates facsimiles of three structures from Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia – Old City Hall, Independence Hall and Congress Hall.[1][2]

The Edison Institute was dedicated by President Herbert Hoover to Ford's longtime friend Thomas Edison on October 21, 1929 – the 50th anniversary of the first successful incandescent light bulb. The attendees included Marie Curie, George Eastman, John D. Rockefeller, Will Rogers, Orville Wright, and about 250 others.[3] The dedication was broadcast on radio with listeners encouraged to turn off their electric lights until the switch was flipped at the Museum.[4]

The Edison Institute was, at first, a private site for educational purposes only, but after numerous inquiries about the complex, it was opened as a museum to the general public on June 22, 1933.[5] It was originally composed of the Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village, and the Greenfield Village Schools (an experimental learning facility). Initially, Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum were owned by the Ford Motor Company, which is currently a sponsor of the school and cooperates with the Henry Ford to provide the Ford Rouge Factory Tour. The Henry Ford is sited between the Ford Dearborn Development Center and several Ford engineering buildings with which it shares the same style gates and brick fences.

In 1970, the museum purchased what it believed to be a 17th-century Brewster Chair, created for one of the Pilgrim settlers in the Plymouth Colony, for $9,000. In September 1977, the chair was determined to be a modern forgery created in 1969 by Rhode Island sculptor Armand LaMontagne.[6] The museum retains the piece as an educational tool on forgeries.[7]

In the early 2000s, the museum added an auditorium to the building's south corner. This housed an IMAX theater until January 2016 when museum management decided to change formats for the facility to better fit with its mission. The renovated theater reopened in April of that year.[8]