eBooks are accessible online, and many are available for download or 2 week check out.
Father Abraham's Children : Michigan Episodes in the Civil War
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The Civil War was the largest and bloodiest conflict ever waged upon American soil, and while no fighting took place in Michigan, both the hardship of the war effort and the heroism of Michigan men at war touched residents deeply. In Father Abraham's Children: Michigan Episodes in the Civil War, Frank Woodford collects personal remembrances of the war from many sources. Originally published in 1961 and reissued in 1999, this volume is not a formal account of Michigan's part in the conflict or an analysis of military strategy and wartime politics, but instead presents stories of Michigan soldiers, both as individuals and as units, and their actions, thoughts, and aspirations, presented for the first time in a paperback edition. Among the episodes Woodford recounts with a wealth of colorful detail are Michigan's participation in the Underground Railroad; the strange tale of Sarah Emma Edmonds, alias Private Franklin Thompson; the ill-fated strategy that led to the slaughter at the Crater; an odyssey of escape from Danville and from Libby Prison; the bizarre Confederate plot to capture a Federal sloop-of-war on Lake Erie; the Michigan Cavalry Brigade's exploits under George Custer; the chance encounter with a Michigan soldier that brought death to the gallant Jeb Stuart; impressions and descriptions of camp life and the ordinary routine of a soldier from the diary of Private Frank Lane; the disaster of the First Michigan at Bull Run; the story of Michigan's medical services and the origin of Harper Hospital; the Detroit Riot of 1863; and the nightmare explosion of the steamer Sultana with a death toll of over 1,200 soldiers on their way home from Confederate prisons. Civil War buffs and readers interested in Michigan history will be grateful for the paperback edition of Father Abraham's Children.
Hollowed Ground: Copper Mining and Community Building on Lake Superior, 1840s-1990s
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In Hollowed Ground, author Larry Lankton tells the story of two copper industries on Lake Superior-native copper mining, which produced about 11 billion pounds of the metal from the 1840s until the late 1960s, and copper sulfide mining, which began in the 1950s and produced another 4.4 billion pounds of copper through the 1990s. In addition to documenting companies and their mines, mills, and smelters, Hollowed Ground is also a community study. It examines the region's population and ethnic mix, which was a direct result of the mining industry, and the companies' paternalistic involvement in community building. While this book covers the history of the entire Lake Superior mining industry, it particularly focuses on the three biggest, most important, and longest-lived companies: Calumet & Hecla, Copper Range, and Quincy. Lankton shows the extent of the companies' influence over their mining locations, as they constructed the houses and neighborhoods of their company towns, set the course of local schools, saw that churches got land to build on, encouraged the growth of commercial villages on the margin of a mine, and even provided pasturage for workers' milk cows and space for vegetable gardens. Lankton also traces the interconnected fortunes of the mining communities and their companies through times of bustling economic growth and periods of decline and closure. Hollowed Ground presents a wealth of images from Upper Michigan's mining towns, reflecting a century and a half of unique community and industrial history. Local historians, industrial historians, and anyone interested in the history of Michigan's Upper Peninsula will appreciate this informative volume.
Ink Trails: Michigan's Famous and Forgotten Authors
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Long revered as the birthplace of many of the nation's best-known authors, Michigan has also served as inspiration to countless others. In this entertaining and well-researched book--the first of its kind--the secrets, legends, and myths surrounding some of Michigan's literary luminaries are explored. Which Michigan poet inspired a state law requiring teachers to assign at least one of his compositions to all students? Which young author emerged from the University of Michigan with a bestselling novel derided by some critics as "vulgar. And from what Michigan city did Arthur Miller, Robert Frost, and Jane Kenyon draw vital inspiration? The answers to these questions and more are revealed in this rich literary history that highlights the diversity of those whose impact on letters has been indelible and distinctly Michiganian.
Michigan: A History of the Great Lakes State
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The fifth edition of Michigan: A History of the Great Lakes State presents an update of the best college-level survey of Michigan history, covering the pre-Columbian period to the present. Represents the best-selling survey history of Michigan Includes updates and enhancements reflecting the latest historic scholarship, along with the new chapter 'Reinventing Michigan' Expanded coverage includes the socio-economic impact of tribal casino gaming on Michigan's Native American population; environmental, agricultural, and educational issues; recent developments in the Jimmy Hoffa mystery, and collegiate and professional sports Delivered in an accessible narrative style that is entertaining as well as informative, with ample illustrations, photos, and maps Now available in digital formats as well as print.
Michigan: Visions of Our Past
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Several Michigan scholars believe there is much to learn from Michigan's colorful history. People study history to learn about the growth and experiences of their forebears, how they shaped the land we know today. One can gain much more from this study, however, if the lessons are used as a guide in making today's decisions. Throughout the history of Michigan, many problems occur and recur: satisfying a diverse population, economic booms and busts, business and labor conflicts, religion in public education, environmental concerns. A number of writers collaborated to bring such themes to light in 18 illuminating essays. The collection provides a tool for the teacher, a source for the scholar, and a pleasurable trip through Michigan history. Michigan: Visions of Our Past, also provides a challenge; a challenge to citizens to understand the past, and apply its lessons to the future of Michigan.
Oddball Michigan: A Guide to 450 Really Strange Places
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There's more to Michigan than beautiful forests, shuttered factories, and miles and miles of stunning shoreline. Armed with this offbeat travel guide, you'll soon discover the strange underbelly of the Great Lakes State. Michigan has monuments to fluoridation, snurfing, the designer of the Jefferson nickel, and the once-famous Mr. Chicken, as well as festivals honoring tulips, Christmas pickles, and a 38-acre fungus. It's where you'll find the World's Largest Lugnut, the Nun Doll Museum, Joe's Gizzard City, the Teenie-Weenie Pickle Barrel Cottage, Howdy Doody, and Thomas Edison's last breath. The state also has its share of weird history--it's where Harry Houdini perished on Halloween night in 1926, where skater Tanya Harding's posse whacked Nancy Kerrigan, and where the Kellogg brothers invented popular breakfast cereals and less-popular yogurt enemas. Along with humorous histories and witty observations, Oddball Michigan provides addresses, websites, hours, fees, and driving directions for each of its 450 entries.
West to Far Michigan: Settling the Lower Peninsula
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"West to Far Michigan "is a study of the lower peninsula's occupation by agriculturalists, whose presence forever transformed the land and helped to create the modern state of Michigan. This is not simply a history of Michigan, but rather a work that focuses on why the state developed as it did. Although Michigan is seen today as an industrial state whose history is couched in terms of the fur trade and the international rivalry for the Great Lakes, agricultural settlement shaped its expansion. Using a model of agricultural colonization derived from comparative studies, Lewis examines the settlement process in Michigan between 1815 and 1860. This period marked the opening of Michigan to immigrants, saw the rise of commercial agriculture, and witnessed Michigan's integration into the larger national economy. Employing numerous primary sources, "West to Far Michigan "traces changes and patterns of settlement crucial to documenting the large-scale development of southern Michigan as a region. Diaries, letters, memoirs, gazetteers, and legal documents serve to transform the more abstract elements of economic and social change into more human terms. Through the experiences of the early Agriculturists process, we can gain insight into how their triumphs played out in communities within the region to produce small-scale elements that comprise the fabric of the larger cultural landscape."
Yankees in Michigan
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As Brian C. Wilson describes them in this highly readable and entertaining book, Yankees defined by their shared culture and sense of identity had a number of distinctive traits and sought to impose their ideas across the state of Michigan. After the ethnic label of "Yankee" fell out of use, the offspring of Yankees appropriated the term "Midwesterner." So fused did the identities of Yankee and Midwesterner become that understanding the larger story of America's Midwestern regional identity begins with the Yankees in Michigan."
Streaming videos are viewable online. Search for more using the Films on Demand Database or AVON: Academic Video Online.
Circulating books may be checked out in 3 week intervals.
The Early History of Michigan: From the First Settlement to 1815
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"Three years since, while editing a literary periodical in Detroit, I commenced the publication of such facts as I could obtain concerning the early history of Michigan. Hon. Lewis Cass becoming interested in them, generously presented me with a large collection of manuscripts, containing official and narrative letters relating to the early French settlement, which he procured from the Colonial Archives at Paris, during his residence there as Minister Plenipotentiary. On examination of these papers, I found them interesting and valuable, furnishing many links in the broken chain of the early history of the Northwest. Encouraged by the commendation and proffered assistance of Rev. H. D. Kitchel, Capt. E. B. Ward, Rev. 0. C. Thompson, and Messrs. U. Tracy Howe, George F. Porter, Henry Hurlbut, and Robert E. Roberts, of Detroit, I undertook the task of translating and compiling the manuscripts, hoping thereby to be of some service to the American reader, and especially to the inhabitants of Michigan and other portions of the great Northwest. In this translation I was assisted by a native Parisian, and by an accomplished French scholar from Boston, Mass. The translation was made with the greatest possible care, every sentence being revised and compared with the original." Excerpt
The Making of Michigan, 1820-1860
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The Making of Michigan is a wide-ranging collection of primary accounts of life in Michigan during the pioneer period, the era from the 1820s to the outbreak of the Civil War. In this time of explosive growth, the state's population increased from 8,000 to 750,000. These emigrants brought the state into the union in 1837 and began to create a set of institutions and a way of life. Justin Kestenbaum draws on the rich documentary record left by those who sojourned in the state during this time and recorded their impressions. Not only pioneers but land speculators, missionaries, and sight-seers left valuable accounts of the Michigan landscape and its emerging society. Following a general introduction, the book is divided into six parts: The Interminable Forest, Laying the Foundation, The Great Migration, Education, A Vision of Life, and Political Life, each with its own brief introduction. Notes and a bibliography conclude this valuable resource history.
Making Waves: Michigan's Boat-Building Industry, 1865-2000
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Michigan will always be known as the automobile capital of the world, but the Great Lakes State boasts a similarly rich heritage in the development of boat building in America. By the late nineteenth century, Michigan had emerged as the industry's hub, drawing together the most talented designers, builders, and engine makers to produce some of the fastest and most innovative boats ever created. Within decades, gifted Michigan entrepreneurs like Christopher Columbus Smith, John L. Hacker, and Gar Wood had established some of the nation's top boat brands and brought the prospect of boat ownership within reach for American consumers from all ranges of income. More than just revolutionizing recreational boating, Michigan boat builders also left their mark on history--from developing the speedy runabouts favored by illicit rum-runners during the Prohibition era to creating the landing craft that carried Allied forces to shores in Europe and the Pacific in WWII. In Making Waves, Scott M. Peters explores this intriguing story of people, processes, and products--of an industry that evolved in Michigan but would change boating across the world.
Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America
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In Masters of Empire, the historian Michael A. McDonnell reveals the vital role played by the native peoples of the Great Lakes in the history of North America. Though less well known than the Iroquois or Sioux, the Anishinaabeg, who lived across Lakes Michigan and Huron, were equally influential. Masters of Empire charts the story of one group, the Odawa, who settled at the straits between those two lakes, a hub for trade and diplomacy throughout the vast country west of Montreal known as the pays d'en haut. Highlighting the long-standing rivalries and relationships among the great Indian nations of North America, McDonnell shows how Europeans often played only a minor role in this history, and reminds us that it was native peoples who possessed intricate and far-reaching networks of commerce and kinship. As empire encroached upon their domain, the Anishinaabeg were often the ones doing the exploiting. By dictating terms at trading posts and frontier forts, they played a crucial part in the making of early America. Through vivid depictions--all from a native perspective--of early skirmishes, the French and Indian War, and the American Revolution, Masters of Empire overturns our assumptions about colonial America. By calling attention to the Great Lakes as a crucible of culture and conflict, McDonnell reimagines the landscape of American history.
Michigan: A History of the Wolverine State
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This book examines Michigan's colorful history from 1780 to 1994. George May has used the large body of new studies that have appeared in recent years to expand and improve the book's coverage of Indians, African Americans, various ethnic groups, recent political developments, labor and business, and numerous other topics.
Michigan Yesterday and Today
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In the middle of the country and the middle of the continent, a Great Lakes state and a great Midwestern center, Michigan is the sum of America past, present, and future--a state in which yesterday's history and tomorrow's promise endlessly vie for pride of place. This book offers visions of Michigan in all its glory, past and present--from Native American settlements to trading outposts, from farming riches to vacation splendors, from its artistic heritage to its automotive muscle. Here images of yesterday and today appear side by side--state landmarks and architecture, capitol buildings and icons of pop culture--bringing to life the transformations of time and history, and the marvels that persist. Photographs and postcards, brochures and advertisements document the history of Michigan as it lives in pictures and memory, a stalwart of the American heartland.
Sailing into History: Great Lakes Bulk Carriers of the Twentieth Century and the Crews Who Sailed Them
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The Great Lakes create a vast transportation network that supports a massive shipping industry. In this volume, seamanship, cargo, competition, cooperation, technology, engineering, business, unions, government decisions, and international agreements all come together to create a story of unrivaled interest about the Great Lakes ships and the crews that sailed them in the twentieth century. This complex and multifaceted tale begins in iron and coal mines, with the movement of the raw ingredients of industrial America across docks into ever larger ships using increasingly complicated tools and technology. The shipping industry was an expensive challenge, as it required huge investments of capital, caused bitter labor disputes, and needed direct government intervention to literally remake the lakes to accommodate the ships. It also demanded one of the most integrated international systems of regulation and navigation in the world to sail a ship from Duluth to upstate New York. Sailing into History describes the fascinating history of a century of achievements and setbacks, unimagined change mixed with surprising stability.
The Toledo War: The First Michigan-Ohio Rivalry
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"An engaging account of the Toledo War of 1835, a serious confrontation whose outcome established the borders of the state of Michigan. Faber expertly narrates the history of a dispute conducted by fascinating characters practicing political shenanigans of the highest order." ---Andrew Cayton, author of Ohio: The History of a People and a general editor of The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia Most are familiar with the Michigan-Ohio football rivalry, an intense but usually good-natured contest that stretches back over one hundred years. Yet far fewer may know that in the early nineteenth century Michigan and Ohio were locked in a different kind of battle---one that began before Michigan became a state. The conflict started with a long-simmering dispute over a narrow wedge of land called the Toledo Strip. Early maps were famously imprecise, adding to the uncertainty of the true boundary between the states. When Ohio claimed to the mouth of the Maumee River, land that according to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 fell in the territory of Michigan, the "Toledo War" began. Today the fight may bring a smile to Michiganians and Ohioans because both states benefited: Ohioans won the war and Michigan got the Upper Peninsula. But back then passions about rightful ownership ran high, and it would take many years---and colorful personalities all the way up to presidents---to settle the dispute. The Toledo War: The First Michigan-Ohio Rivalry gives a well-researched and fascinating account of the famous war. Don Faber is best known as the former editor of the Ann Arbor News. He also served on the staff of the Michigan Constitutional Convention, won a Ford Foundation Fellowship to work in the Michigan Senate, and was a speechwriter for Michigan governor George Romney. Now retired, Faber lives in Ann Arbor with his wife, Jeannette, and indulges in his love of Michigan history.
Upper Peninsula of Michigan: A History
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For the first time in over a century, a complete history of the U.P.-from prehistoric origins to the present-is available. Drawing on oral histories, newspapers, census data, archives and libraries, Russell M. Magnaghi has written the seminal history of a very ""special place"" as seen through the eyes of the men and women who have lived here-the famous and not so famous.
Wild Women of Michigan: A History of Spunk and Tenacity
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Countless Michiganian women performed extraordinary acts that challenged and improved the world. Madame Marie-Therese Cadillac served as the medicine woman in the frontier that became Detroit. Annie Taylor survived rolling over Niagara Falls in a barrel. After suffragist Anna Howard Shaw fought to vote, the state saw an influx of women running for office. In the 1970s, East Lansing's Patricia Beeman aided in efforts to end apartheid in South Africa. Suellen Finatri showcased an extreme side of equestrian sports by riding more than four thousand miles from St. Ignace to Skagway, Alaska. And World War II army flight nurse Aleda Lutz evacuated more than 3,500 wounded soldiers and is still recognized as one of America's most decorated servicewomen. Author and historian Norma Lewis commemorates the women who boldly left their marks.
Books from the reference section are available for in library use, or are available for online viewing.
Directory of Historical Collections and Societies in Michigan
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Historical Society of Michigan with the support of the Michigan Council for the Arts published this directory, discussing the many historical collections and societies throughout the state.
Michigan Biographical Dictionary
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Michigan Biographical Dictionary contains biographies on hundreds of persons from diverse vocations that were either born, achieved notoriety and/or died in the state of Michigan. Prominent persons, in addition to the less eminent, that have played noteworthy roles are included in this resource. When people are recognized from your state or locale it brings a sense of pride to the residents of the entire state.
Michigan Historical Markers
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In 1953, a growing interest in historical marking in other states inspired Governor G. Mennen Williams to appoint a committee to study methods by which Michigan’s historical resources could receive greater attention. The committee consisted of Willis F. Dunbar, Lewis Beeson, and Arthur Wilcox. Based by the committee's research, the commission drew up a bill to provide authority to mark historic sites. On October 14, 1955, the Legislature responded positively. Act 10 of that year provided for the registration of historic sites and the display at the site of “a suitable numbered marker, approved by the commission as to text and construction, indicating that the site is a registered state historic site.” The modern Michigan Historical Marker program was born.
Michigan Place Names: The History of the Founding and the Naming of More Than 5000 Past and Present Michigan Communities
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From Aabec in Antrim County to Zutphen in Ottawa County, from Hell to Hooker, Michigan Place Names is a compendium of information on the origins of the state's geographical names. With alphabetically arranged thumb-nail sketches, Walter Romig introduces readers to a host of colorful personalities and episodes which have achieved notoriety, though sometimes short lived, by devising or lending their names to the state's settlements. For the curious, the librarian, the genealogist, or the historian, his book is an indispensable resource. Michigan Place Names is another "Michigan classic" reissued as a Great Lakes Book.
DVDs must be viewed in the library. Search for more using the SC4 Library Catalog.
The First People: History of Native Americans in the Blue Water Area [dvd]
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This video explores the rich history of the Native Americans of Michigan's thumb region beginning with the Ice Age and concluding with a look at what life is like today.
Murder City: Detroit, 100 Years of Crime and Violence [dvd]
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Murder City traces the history of crime in Detroit from the Prohibition-era Purple Gang to more recent drug- and gang-fueled activity.
The Wizard of Flint [vhs]
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Combining archival footage with vintage photographs and interviews with historians, this program examines the life of Billy Durant, founder of General Motors Corporation.
