A leisurely Look at Michigan’s stories and traditions from yesterday to yesteryear.
Toy soldiers, sleds, model cars and games of all kinds are the focus of the new “Batteries Not Included” toy exhibit at the Michigan Historical Museum. In this article, Museum staff member Steve Ostrander spotlights some of the toys displayed.
This photo above originates with a 1937 strike. Specifically, it is a strike against the Newton Steel Company of Monroe, Michigan. In the photo, people flee as gas is unleashed against the strikers!
Abraham Lincoln only once set foot on Michigan soil. His connections to the state, however, go beyond this one visit. Let’s take a look!
The above image represents a “lost” piece of history – now discovered and housed within the Archives of Michigan. This blueprint – by famed Lansing architect Darius B. Moon – is to the residence of Ransom E. Olds, father of the Oldsmobile.
Entering the 2010 season, the Muskegon High School Big Reds rank No. 1 in the state of Michigan in all-time football victories, and in the top ten in the United States with a 746-261-43 record.
Did the Detroit Chamber of Commerce go hiking on Isle Royale in June of 1937? A series of photographs from the Edwin T. Brown Collection appear to document such a trip.
Come see the field.
Peter H. Wolfe decided to “take a good, long walk.” In 1974, he began hiking the North Country Trail.
Ernest Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories stem from his boyhood experiences on Walloon Lake, near Petoskey, Michigan.
This week at the Archives of Michigan we are piloting a new and exciting education program. With generous and valuable assistance from the staff at the White House Decision Center, Truman Presidential Library, the Archives has developed a program titled “The Governor’s Decision Room.”
One could argue that the beautiful northern Michigan woods makes it own kind of music. Imagine human beings adding more beautiful music to such a scene. In 1928, three men imagined exactly that.
This is more of the test.
This content of this image is pretty universal to those who live in the Great Lakes State. It exhorts all lake lovers to, “gather the family, hitch up the boat and take to the road, it’s summer.”
The origins of airplane nose art go back at least as far as World War I. It is World War II, however, that is the true “Golden Age” of the form.
I like this
On June 15, 2010, Apple began taking orders for its new iPhone 4. Fifty years ago, the men in this photo might well have felt the same flush of excitement that an iPhone 4 purchaser feels today!
Visitors heading north this summer have a new reason to stop and see the marker celebrating the decades-long work of conservationists to save the Kirtland’s warbler.
This stereograph of a Mackinac harbor view dates c. 1870. The Flint Photographer J.A. Jenny captures the old Agency House in the foreground, with the Indian Dormitory to its right. Each of these buildings has an interesting history.
“Awful Two Year Drouth Hits Ingham County!”
…so read the headline of the April 5, 1910 State Republican. The Republican reported that fifty-two Ingham County saloons would be out of business for at least two years.
The Emancipation Proclamation was criticized at the time for freeing only the slaves over which the Union had no power.
Grant stayed in the St. Charles Hotel, near the Ohio River. Here are photos of Cairo during the Civil War years.
Read about the railroad that was built but never used.
Michigan’s first constitutional convention began on May 11, 1835.
Today, Michigan and Ohio are often rivals in the “world of sports.” It seems silly, though, to imagine Wolverines and Buckeyes engaged in an actual war. Yet, this – or something like it – actually occurred in 1835.
I grew up in Detroit during the 1960s. Even though I now live in Lansing, Detroit is my home, my main street. There are over five hundred Detroit images at seekingmichigan.org
The tradition of the trout opener continues this Saturday, as sportsmen and sportswomen head North to don waders and cast fly rods into Northern Michigan’s pristine rivers.
It is August 1864. Union prisoners-of-war languish in Camp Sumter, Georgia (also known as Andersonville). The prisoners endure appalling conditions that are steadily getting worse.
“For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth…”
Yamasaki remains an important part of our international architectural heritage. This is part two of a two part blog on Yamasaki and his life as written by guest blogger Dale Allen Gyure, Ph.D.
Marion “Babe” Weyant of Lansing, Michigan loved airplanes. Pilots called her “Babe,” certainly a name that evoked her youth and petite stature, but failed to capture her determination.
Dr. Pearl Kendrick (1890-1980) and Dr. Grace Eldering (1900-1988) developed the first successful whooping cough vaccine in 1938. It virtually eliminated all fatalities from the disease.
One of Michigan’s most celebrated historical figures is Sara Emma Edmonds Seelye. Sara’s courageous story begins with her desire to help the Union cause in the Civil War.
These women are in the midst of a sit-down strike against their employer – the Farm Crest Bakery of Detroit. It is February 1937, and sit-down strikes have become “all the rage!”
Businesses were difficult to start and maintain in nineteenth century Michigan, especially if you were black. No matter the barriers, Willaim and Wallace Goodridge thrived under the pressure and created the state’s first minority owned photography business.
Perhaps you’ve never heard of Detroit’s Hank Ballard, but you’ve almost certainly heard of his dance. Ballard wrote and recorded “The Twist” in 1958. Two years later, Chubby Checker had a hit with a cover of Ballard’s song.
Fugitive slaves Adam and Sarah Crosswhite seemed to have found sanctuary in Marshall, Michigan. Then, in January 1847, four slave catchers arrived from Kentucky.
No we haven’t released an e-reader for Seeking Michigan, but considering this is a week of big news: iPad, State of the Union. We’re throwing our hat into the ring.
View original item at http://seekingmichigan.cdmhost.com/seeking_michigan/discover_item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/p4006coll8&CISOPTR=1602
The date is February 22, 1906. The large crowd is watching a dog sled race through Ishpeming, Michigan. The race is well attended, but it’s not the week’s only attraction.
Michiganians find inventive ways to enjoy winter. This photo provides an example.
Did you ever wonder about life in an old-time lumber camp? “I worked like the dickens,” recalled one old lumberjack, “but I didn’t think anything of it.”
Stevens T. Mason made an indelible mark on Michigan. Yet, he lived his final days in New York and was buried there. In 1905 – over sixty years after his death – Michigan’s “boy governor” finally came home!
In Michigan, snow brings much beauty and allows us to enjoy winter seasonal activities. Of course, along with this comes some occasional extra work.
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.
This 1918 Christmas card is interesting for its simple graphic, deftly evoking the bittersweet reality that while the war is over, Sgt. Ray Alger Pennington is not yet home.
The women in this photo would presumably have appreciated the “miracle” of the telephone. They were early telephone operators in Lansing, Michigan.
Michigan Public Act 254 of 1905 called for a state tuberculosis sanatorium to be built at a “suitable location.” The town of Howell, Michigan offered pure air, pure natural spring water and rolling hills about 1100 feet above sea level.
Detroit has played in every Thanksgiving game since 1934. Like turkey, it’s a tradition. But why Detroit?
Russell Leavenworth founded Leavenworth Photography in 1895. To ensure that his valuable negatives will not degrade, the Archives of Michigan has begun to preserve them.
The striking image above comes from the Leavenworth Photograph Collection. Leavenworth Photography of Lansing, Michigan created one of the largest collections of Oldsmobile photographs.
The Bureau of Military Relief was established by the Michigan War Preparedness Board to extend aid, comfort and relief to all Michigan servicemen during World War I. This effort was centered in the Michigan Soldiers and Sailors Headquarters on West 40th Street in New York City.
The women in this vintage photo seem to be having fun in the “old stage coach.” One suspects that, even then, the stagecoach could evoke the “romance” of the old frontier.
Art Smith and Aimee Cour couldn’t marry in Indiana. They could marry in Michigan, but they had to get there. Fortunately for them, Art was a pilot!
During the boom years of Michigan’s lumbering era, many mill towns were founded practically overnight. Pere Cheney, platted in 1874, was one such town. Today, the ghost town of Pere Cheney exists only on old maps, and only a few gravestones remain to mark what was once the seat of Crawford County.
Fraser, Michigan was once home to a small airport—the Thomas B. Joy Airport. This small airfield was one of dozens found across Michigan in the years following World War II.
In 1894, the Lansing City Council authorized bonds to build a new City Hall on the corner of Ottawa and Capitol Avenues. Accepting the plans of prominent architect Edwyn A. Bowd, the Council spent $150,000 on this new structure.
Here, we see some fine silent film melodrama. The hero, played by Romaine Fielding, lies unconscious on the railroad tracks. Fortunately, this time, the Michigan State Police can ride to the rescue!
Traverse Colantha Walker was a world record holding Holstein-Friesian dairy cow. She was born on the grounds of the Traverse City State Hospital on April 29, 1916.
Michigan’s fruit industry started to boom about the time of the Civil War. Today, the state continues to be a leader in fruit production.
From 1909 to 1949, Western Michigan University students traveled to and from campus on the “Western State Normal Railroad” or “Toonerville Trolley.” Registered and classified as a railroad, the trolley is the only incline railroad ever operated in Michigan and possibly the only railroad owned and operated by a college or university.
“Oh, I do wish this crewel war was over.”
Mack Ewing penned this sentiment after his brother-in-law, Alvin Hank, was taken prisoner by the Confederate army. This is just one of the many events recounted in the Civil War Letters of Mack and Nan Ewing Collection.
Michigan’s first newspaper appeared two hundred years ago this week. The first – and possibly only – issue of the Michigan Essay; or, the Impartial Observer was printed on Aug. 31, 1809.
Each summer, Mother Nature brings us hot, humid days and nights that barely cool off. Thankfully, Michigan-born businesses offer some relief in the form of sweet, refreshing treats.
The Cash for Clunkers program has no doubt rounded up an abundance of—well—clunkers. In this, it is much like the 1938 campaign dubbed “National Used Car Exchange Week.”
Today, Beaver Island is renowned for its natural beauty and strong Irish roots. In the mid-nineteenth century, it was better known as a home to royalty, albeit self-proclaimed royalty.
With the wave of a wand, Miss Michigan displays the “magic” of her state! Who is this young lady and why was this photo taken?
Roadside attractions, derided by some as “tourist traps,” have quite a history. Michiganians began thinking about attracting auto tourists almost as soon as they began making cars.
Say the name “Kellogg,” and one might immediately think of cereal. Relatively few people realize, however, that that same cereal sprung from the early days of the health food industry.
As the United States entered World War II, the US military needed weapons. Already well known for expertise in manufacturing, Michigan seemed the logical place to begin mass production of defense products.
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.
Detroit’s John L. Hacker gained exceptional fame as a boat designer. He created racing boats, cruisers and recreational runabouts, and became the founder of the Hacker Boat Company.
The Grange – or “the National Order of the Patrons of Husbandry” – sought to educate and build cooperation among American farmers. Over the past 137 years, it has left a rich legacy of charity, community service, and education that continues today.
Next spring, when your annual special issue of Michigan History magazine arrives in the mail, what would you like to see inside? This year, we’re inviting you to weigh in on the topic.
Here is the “World’s Largest Stove” at its current location – the State Fairgrounds in Detroit. The “giant stove” symbolizes Detroit’s time as the center of the American stove industry.
For more than seventy years, the schooner Rockaway remained undisturbed at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Then, on September 29, 1983, a charter fishing boat discovered the wreckage.
When we see letters appear on our computer screens, we usually give them little thought. Paul Hayden Duensing, however, cared deeply about the “look of letters.”
Vandalia, Michigan farmers found some curious fragments in their fields. Were those stories about a runaway slave community true?
In 1902, five Kalamazoo businessmen bought Orville Gibson’s patent for a new type of mandolin. The Gibson name would come to carry special resonance for lovers of fine stringed musical instruments.
John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. As the nation grieved, a hunt for the killer ensued. Baker’s cousin, Lafayette Baker (also from Lansing) headed the Secret Service investigation, with Luther and Everton J. Conger assisting him. Once they picked up Booth’s trail, they set out in pursuit.
The Michigan Historical Commission launched its “Historymobile” in 1964. This fifty-four foot long “museum on wheels” traveled to Michigan communities for the next ten or so years.
I do like some markers more than others for different reasons: the topic, the way the marker is written, and the research/writing process for that particular subject. Here are a few that fit under the “favorite heading” and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
The archaeological discovery that saved America’s first great mineral boom. Prospectors and adventurers, many knowing little of the geology, topography or climate of the region flocked to the Copper Country.…
In 2007, the Archives of Michigan was awarded a National Historical Publication and Records Commission (NHPRC) Digitizing Historical Records grant. The project, named, “Thank God for Michigan” set the ambitious task of digitizing every government-related Civil War record in the Archives collection (about 100,000 pages).
A significant number of Michigan death records were added this week to the Death Records, 1897-1920 collection. With this second batch of records now loaded, the project is now about 2/3 complete; currently, there are about 660,000 of the approximately 1,000,000 certificates on this site. We’ll continue adding records regularly in the next few weeks, so check back often
Why is the Archives of Michigan displaying old beer labels? These labels can found within official state records. The Archives received them from the Michigan Liquor Control Commission.
Introducing the Michigan Death Records Collection
Welcome to Seeking Michigan! As a partner in the site, The Library of Michigan is excited to make these Michigan death certificates for the years 1897 to 1920 freely available online. The years 1915 to 1920 are particularly significant, as a readily available statewide index did not exist previously.
On September 1, 1980, Emil and Mary Petri hosted a Labor Day picnic to remember. Their guests included Republican Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan and Michigan Governor William Milliken. (That’s Mary Petri seated in the middle, between the two.)
Like many Michiganians, this man and woman were engaging in some winter fun. Winter recreation has a long tradition in the state. Back in the 1700’s, Detroit’s French-Canadian residents held horse races on the frozen Detroit River…
GLCE: H3.0.7
Michigan’s pioneers—the first people of European decent to settle in various places throughout our state—wrote many accounts of their experiences. A woman who came to Yankee Springs in Southwestern Michigan when she was four years old created one of my favorite accounts. Mary Lewis Hoyt was over seventy when she wrote her story, but she painted wonderful word pictures that answer questions historians ask—
Where did people live?
How did they travel?
What did they eat?
What did they do for fun?
Can you imagine hunting elephants with weapons like these? Around 10,000 years ago, Paleo-Indian peoples hunted prehistoric elephants called mastodons using spears tipped with stone points. How were they able to do that? They were also armed with knowledge and cooperation. They knew a lot about their environment, including the habits of mastodons. And, since killing a mastodon required many spears, they had to assemble a group of several hunters and develop a strategy that would allow a handful of people to kill a large, powerful animal like a mastodon.
Angling has a long and storied past in Michigan including authors such as Ernest Hemingway and Robert Traver (John Voelker).
"If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you." The Michigan state motto served as the inspiration for this blog. If you look, you will find stories, photos and more to connect you to this great state and its wonderful history.
Yamasaki remains an important part of our international architectural heritage. This is part one of a two part blog on Yamasaki and his life as written by guest blogger Dale Allen Gyure, Ph.D.
