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Yearly Archives: 2012
Yearly Archives: 2012
One of the best known agencies from the Great Depression was the WPA, or Works Progress Administration (”Work Projects Administration” after 1939). The reach of the WPA projects is legendary–from bridges to stream improvements to roads to arts, crafts and writing projects. The WPA even thought about holiday planning.
In August of 1943, the U.S. Army visited several Michigan cities with a traveling cavalcade of military vehicles, weapons and equipment billed as a Salute to Michigan Agriculture, Labor and Industry.
The fight for the Wexford County seat is a story of bribery, corruption, intimidation, inebriated county officials and the organization of illegal townships to boost votes.
Few Michigan readers have heard of her, but once upon a time – 1941, to be exact – Maritta Wolff was a literary sensation with a best-selling debut novel and praise from Sinclair Lewis for her unflinching realism.
Harry Houdini died in Detroit on October 31, 1926. 
Oscar Warbach used cartoons to educate people about the habits of wildlife. 
John D. Voelker, an Ishpeming, Michigan attorney and avid trout fisherman, is best known as the author of Anatomy of a Murder. (He wrote it under the pen name “Robert Traver.”) The book spawned a classic 1959 film adaptation.
Ernest Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories stem from his boyhood experiences on Walloon Lake, near Petoskey, Michigan.
During World War II, America looked to the Michigan auto industry to provide for its manufacturing needs. Auto makers responded, transitioning their factories in order to create complicated machinery and weapons. Chrysler and Ford turned to productions of tanks and bombers, respectively.
