What, No Naming Rights?

Michigan’s Henry Ford Museum, which specializes in U.S. history, has announced a major partnership with America Online which will give the museum access to AOL’s 30 million subscribers. “[The deal] comes a week after Walt Disney Imagineering of Glendale, Calif., agreed to give the Henry Ford unlimited access to artifacts from its theme parks to design a first-ever museum exhibit that examines the invention and legacy of Disneyland as a U.S. pop-cultural phenomenon.” It may all sound fairly, um, corporate, but the museum is hoping that its willingness to aggressively market itself through synergy will pay off in long-term financial security.