The troubled origins of the Italian Catholic labor movement, 1878–1914

In his book, Sándor Agócs explores the conflicts that accompanied the emergence of the Italian Catholic labor movement. He examines the ideologies that were at work and details the organizational forms they inspired.

During the formative years of the Italian labor movement, Neo-Thomism became the official ideology of the church. Church leadership drew upon the central Thomistic principal of caritas, Christian love, in its response to the social climate in Italy, which had become increa…

As if we were prey: stories

The electronic version of this item was provided by the Wayne State University Press.

The shaping of Jewish identity in nineteenth-century France

Nineteenth-century French Jewry was a community struggling to meet the challenges of emancipation and modernity. This struggle, with its origins in the founding of the French nation, constitutes the core of modern Jewish identity. With the Revolution of 1789 came the collapse of the social, political, and philosophical foundations of exclusiveness, forcing French society and the Jews to come to terms with the meaning of emancipation. Over time, the enormous challenge that emancipation posed for …

All our yesterdays: a brief history of Detroit

All Our Yesterdays is an accurate account based on extensive historical research when initially published in 1969, and is written in such a style as to make interesting and historical snapshot of the history of the city of Detroit.

The authors recount the founding of the town by the French, control by the British, and growth as an American city. These episodes are recounted in the words and deeds of the people who lived and worked here, men like Judge Woodward, Father Gabriel Richard, a…

Detroit to Fort Sackville, 1778-1779: the journal of Normand MacLeod

In 1777 Normand MacLeod, a British army officer, assumed the post of town major of Detroit, then a British colony on the frontier of late eighteenth-century America. Although it was not in the forefront of action in the American Revolution, the fort at Detroit had an important role because its strategic location made it a point of interest to military leaders on both sides.

Songquest: the journals of Great Lakes folklorist Ivan H. Walton

Ivan H. Walton was a pioneering folklorist who collected the songs and stories of aging sailors living along the shores of the Great Lakes in the 1930s. His collection is unique in the annals of Great Lakes folklore. It began as a search for songs but broadened into a collection of weather signs, shipboard beliefs, greenhorn tales, and stories of the intense rivalry between sailors and the steamboat men who replaced them. Edited by Joe Grimm, Songquest: The Journals of Great Lakes Folklorist Iva…

The women were leaving the men: stories

The electronic version of this item was provided by the Wayne State University Press.

The life and work of Ludwig Lewisohn. Volume II. “this dark and desperate age”

An imposing literary figure in America and Europe during the first half of the twentieth century, Ludwig Lewisohn (1882–1955) struggled with feelings of alienation in Christian America that were gradually resolved by his developing Jewish identity, a process reflected in hundreds of works of fiction, literary analysis, and social criticism.

After-music: poems

The electronic version of this item was provided by the Wayne State University Press.

Independent man: the life of Senator James Couzens

First published in 1958 by Charles Scribner’s Sons, Independent Man is the only book-length biography of one of Michigan’s most remarkable men. His many careers embraced both the business and political spheres.

An American map: essays

"This title features meditative travel essays by Michigan author Anne-Marie Oomen that explore new landscapes across America. In "An American Map", Anne-Marie Oomen, award-winning writer and self-confessed northern Michigan homebody, chronicles her recent travels across America, in essays that span rediscovered landscapes, wild back roads, vital cities, and everything in between. Oomen takes both a wide and narrow lens to her destinations, giving readers a vivid sense of each locale while findin…

The lost tiki palaces of Detroit: stories

From the Publisher: A quirky and compelling collection of short stories set in and around Detroit, by award-winning local writer Michael Zadoorian.

The iron hunter

Originally published in 1919, The Iron Hunter is the autobiography of one of Michigan's most influential and flamboyant historical figures: the reporter, publisher, explorer, politician, and twenty-seventh governor of Michigan, Chase Salmon Osborn (1860-1949). Making unprecedented use of the automobile in his 1910 campaign, Osborn ran a memorable campaign that was followed by an even more remarkable term as governor. In two years he eliminated Michigan's deficit, ended corruption, and produced t…

Medieval Jewish seals from Europe

The publication of this volume in a freely accessible digital format has been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Mellon Foundation through their Humanities Open Book Program.

The life and work of Ludwig Lewisohn. volume I. “a touch of wildness”

An imposing literary figure in America and Europe during the first half of the twentieth century, Ludwig Lewisohn (1882-1955) struggled with feelings of alienation in Christian America that were gradually resolved by his developing Jewish identity, a process reflected in hundreds of works of fiction, literary analysis, and social criticism. Born in Berlin, Lewisohn moved with his family in 1890 to South Carolina. Identified by others as a Jew, he remained an outsider throughout his youth. Lewiso…

Tradition and politics: the religious parties of Israel

Tradition and Politics is acomprehensive study of the religious parties of Israel. Gary S. Schiff traces the religious parties of the modern state of Israel from their origins in Europe early in the twentieth century to, in response and reaction to the rise of Zionism, their transplantation to Palestine, their adaptation to the new realities, their participation in the quazi-government of the Jewish community under the British mandate, and their unfolding roles after independence. Schiff examin…

On Jewish folklore

On Jewish Folklore spans a half-century of scholarly inquiry by the noted anthropologist and biblical scholar Raphael Patai. He essays collected in this volume, some of which are presented for the first time in English translation, provide a rich harvest of Jewish customs and traditional beliefs, gathered from all over the world and from ancient to modern times.

All-American anarchist: Joseph A. Labadie and the labor movement

All-American Anarchist chronicles the life and work of Joseph A. Labadie (1850-1933), Detroit's prominent labor organizer and one of early labor's most influential activists. A dynamic participant in the major social reform movements of the Gilded Age, Labadie was a central figure in the pervasive struggle for a new social order as the American Midwest underwent rapid industrialization at the end of the nineteenth century.

This engaging biography follows Labadie's colorful career from …

Jewish Buenos Aires, 1890-1939: in search of an identity

Victor Mirelman, in his study of the greatest concentration of Latin American Jewry, examines the changing facade of the Argentinean Jewish community from the beginning of mass Jewish immigration in 1890 to its decline in 1930. During this period, Jews arrived from Russia, Poland, Romania, Syria, Turkey and Morocco Each group founded its own synagogues. mutual help organizations. hospitals. cultural associations. and newspapers of particular vitality was the Yiddish press and the Yiddish theatre…

For our soul: Ethiopian Jews in Israel

Between 1977 and 1992, practically all Ethiopian Jews migrated to Israel. This mass move followed the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia and its ensuing economic and political upheavals, compounded by the brutality of the military regime and the willingness—after years of refusal—of the Israeli government to receive them as bona fide Jews entitled to immigrate to that country. As the sole Jewish community from sub-Sahara Africa in Israel, the Ethiopian Jews have met with unique difficulties. Based on f…