But Toledo, on Lake Erie just across the Ohio-Michigan border, has had its own connection with the industry for nearly all that time. It is home to the big Jeep plant run by Fiat Chrysler, on a site where vehicles have been produced since 1910. General Motors has built transmissions here since 1916, and the city is home to, and surrounded by, scores of smaller parts plants.

However, the museum itself owes its existence to an industry that was around before cars: glass. Its benefactors were Edward Drummond Libbey and Florence Scott Libbey, members of the family that founded what was to become the Libbey Glass Company in 1818.

Portraits of the museum’s founders hang everywhere in the sprawling main museum building, while a separate building devoted to glass is across the street. In all, there are more than 30,000 works of art, a third of them paintings, a third works on paper, and a third glass objects.

“Mr. Libbey had ambitions that were very, very grand,” said the museum director, Brian Kennedy.

The 40-acre museum campus sits on Monroe Street, surrounded by large, gracious homes and apartment buildings — and the constant rush of traffic.