Detroit, Michigan
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Detroit Table of Contents Foreword ......................................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3 Detroit in Books, Serials, and Maps ............................................................................................... 5 Books and Serials ........................................................................................................................ 5 Primary Sources ...................................................................................................................... 5 Secondary Sources .................................................................................................................. 6 Detroit in Maps ........................................................................................................................... 7 Early Maps .............................................................................................................................. 7 Physical Features .................................................................................................................... 7 Cultural Features ..................................................................................................................... 8 Early Documents (Before 1850) ................................................................................................... 10 African Americans ........................................................................................................................ 17 Commercial and Industrial ............................................................................................................ 30 Ethnic ............................................................................................................................................ 49 Journalism: Newspapers, Radio, Television ................................................................................. 61 Political and Social Reform and Activism .................................................................................... 70 Politics, Government, and City Services ...................................................................................... 80 Professional: Lawyers, Physicians, etc. ........................................................................................ 94 Religion: Churches and other Organizations .............................................................................. 105 Religion: Clergy and other Persons ............................................................................................ 119 Travel Descriptions and Diary Accounts .................................................................................... 130 Visual Materials .......................................................................................................................... 140 Women ........................................................................................................................................ 145 Miscellaneous ............................................................................................................................. 164 1 Return to Table of Contents Foreword The year 2001 marks the three-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the city of Detroit, Michigan. Since 1935, the Michigan Historical Collections, now housed in the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, has been collecting books, maps, manuscripts and archival collections relating to the history of the state of Michigan. Because of the statewide focus of the collections, bibliographies and guides prepared in the past have usually explored resources on particular topics without any regional specificity within the state. This guide is an exception. Because of the importance of the tercentenary, Thomas Powers, archivist, and Leonard Coombs, associate archivist, offered to bring together in a single volume the major resources in the Michigan Historical Collections that document aspects of the history of Detroit. As this volume indicates, over the years many significant collections relating to Detroit have been donated to the Bentley Library, making it a central research resource for anyone interested in the evolution of Michigan's principal city. We are grateful to all those many citizens who have expressed their confidence in the Bentley Library as a repository for personal, family and organizational records. Without that sense of the public good, these resources would not be available for research. We are also grateful to Thomas Powers and Leonard Coombs for their work to bring together information about the library's Detroit related holdings in a single volume. This volume is the principal contribution of the Bentley Historical Library to Detroit's tercentenary celebration. The guide has been prepared in advance of the Fall 2001 semester at the University of Michigan, which has been designated the "Detroit Theme Semester." We are certain that students and others will find the guide useful as they work to gain a better understanding of the history and significance of Detroit. Francis X. Blouin, Jr. Director 2 Return to Table of Contents Introduction In partial commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of Detroit, the Bentley Historical Library of the University of Michigan has prepared this guide to its holdings of manuscript, visual, and published sources relating to the history of Detroit. The guide will have served its purpose if it informs interested researchers of the existence of unique Detroit materials at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. When founded in 1935, the Michigan Historical Collections (since renamed the Bentley Historical Library) undertook to collect and preserve documentary materials important for the understanding of state history. Although collecting from all parts of the state, the city of Detroit by virtue of its economic and political importance became a focus of our collecting. The range of material that has been collected is remarkable. From private citizens have come letters and diaries of their forebears, while clubs and societies have donated minutes of their meetings and files detailing their activities. Equally important are the scrapbooks and photograph albums handed down and now preserved that capture for all to see what everyday life was like in the growing and ever vital community that is Detroit. The result is a remarkable body of manuscripts and archives that has enabled and will continue to enable historians and other researchers to study and marvel at the richness of Detroit history and the accomplishments of its great personalities. As might be expected the strength of the library's Detroit holdings falls within the period of the Civil War to the end of the Twentieth Century, and within that from the beginning of the Depression through the 1980s. The intent of this guide is to list the library's holdings of archival and manuscript collections including photographic and other visual materials. The entries have been compiled from the library's catalog (part of the University's Mirlyn catalog) using Detroit as a search term. In some cases, the bulk of the materials described relate to Detroit; in other instances, there might be only an item or two that are specific to Detroit, perhaps a letter of a traveler to Detroit or part of a diary describing someone's classes at a Detroit high school. The goal has been to emphasize Detroit materials. The guide has been arranged into broad topical subdivisions: ethnic communities, religious life, African American life and contributions, etc. Within each subdivision, entries are arranged alphabetically. Included with each entry are dates of collection, size, brief biographical or institutional information, and a summary description of the contents. Also indicated is such information as the existence of a more extensive finding aid to the collection, or the language of the materials (if not English). Collections that fall within more than one of the topical subdivisions have been listed in each section. The guide has emphasized manuscript and visual materials. The library also has extensive holdings of published books, periodicals, newspapers, and maps. Rather than list these separately, the library's published works curator has provided a summarization of our holdings in these areas. This guide is not intended to replace the catalog to Bentley Library holdings available on the web. Rather through catalog descriptions and representative images interspersed throughout these pages, we offer our commendation to the city of Detroit on this important 3 Return to Table of Contents anniversary occasion. Our work over the last sixty-five years has been to join with others in preserving and making available for research Detroit historical materials. 4 Return to Table of Contents Detroit in Books, Serials, and Maps Books and Serials The Bentley Library has built a collection of books and serials related to Detroit, both primary and secondary historical sources, to supplement the library's collections of manuscripts and archives relating to the city. Because the collection was built in conjunction with the library's manuscript and archival collections, holdings of printed materials are sometimes fragmentary and not comprehensive. The library has about 875 titles classified under Detroit in the printed and newspaper