- Wayne State University Digital Collections

Building the Detroit Renaissance Center

The Renaissance Center sits on 14 acres in downtown Detroit. Its construction began in 1973 under the Ford Motor Company. The "Building the Detroit Renaissance Center" collection documents this construction. It was purchased in 1996 by General Motors. It's now known as the GM Renaissance Center or RenCen and hosts GM as well as other businesses.

Toni Swanger Papers

An active member of the Detroit women's rights movement, journalist Toni Swanger worked with the Detroit Women's Radio Workshop on programming for the Detroit public radio station WDET, and served in various roles for Detroit newspaper, Metro Times, including production manager and managing editor. Ms. Swanger's papers reflect her interest in women's issues and document her career as an activist and radio and print journalist.

First U.S. Human-to-Human Heart Transplant

The first U.S. heart transplant took place on December 6, 1967 at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., just three days after Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the world's first transplant in Cape Town, South Africa. The recipient, an infant boy, succumbed to a bleeding complication six and one-half hours later.
The son of a physician, Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz was born in 1918. He received his M.D. from Western Reserve University in 1943. In addition…

LGBT Detroit Records

LGBT Detroit started as Kick Publishing Company in 1994. Based in Detroit, Kick was the third Black American LGBT media company created in the United States. Distributed nationally, Kick Magazine provided the LGBT community with information, awareness, and a way to organize. In 2003, Kick Publishing Company was revitalized into the non-profit organization: KICK- The Agency for LGBT African Americans. KICK focused on health, education, employment, and social justice for the African American LG…

Herman Miller Consortium Collection

Herman Miller, Inc., based in Zeeland, Michigan, began in 1923 as a manufacturer of residential furniture. Over the years, the company has become a leader in design and manufacture of modern furniture for both home and office. Many famous designers, from Charles and Ray Eames to George Nelson, have created furniture for the company, and they are famous for innovations in design and ergonomics such as "Marshmallow Sofa" and "Molded Plywood Chair." Today, Herman Miller, Inc. has customers and loca…

Dennis Glen Cooper Collection

Dennis Glen Cooper (1905-1995) was a photographer, filmmaker and Detroit television host (Realm of the Wild) whose films were familiar to many Detroiters in the 1950s-60s. This collection consists of 35mm and lantern slides, drawn from a broader collection that also includes documents, 16mm films, and more. The collection spans the 1920s-1960s and includes coverage of Isle Royale, urban Saginaw, as well as the National Parks and the Caribbean. Cooper’s time as an Air Force captain in the Pacific…

Shakespeare Lear Project

This collection consists of early editions of Shakespeare’s play King Lear (1608, 1685), his sources for the play, and a 1736 adaptation of the play by Nahum Tate. These materials were digitized for Dividing the Kingdoms: Interdisciplinary Methods for Teaching King Lear to Undergraduates, an initiative funded by a micro-grant from the Folger Shakespeare Library and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Eloise Ramsey Collection of Literature for Young People

The Eloise Ramsey Collection of Literature for Young People was named for its creator, Eloise Ramsey. Ramsey was a Professor of English Education at Wayne State University, where she taught for 36 years. Ramsey believed that it was important for future teachers to take courses in children's literature. She provided over 400 rare or notable books to start this collection, which is now part of the Special Collections in the Wayne State University library system. Important books from this col…

Wayne State University eBooks

The Wayne State University eBooks collection is comprised of books and texts that have been digitized or otherwise converted to electronic form by Wayne State University for search, access, and preservation per our digital collections infrastructure. These include books in the public domain, collaborations with local institutions, digitized serials, or even physical books from our collections that have been digitized for online access. Each text in this collection contains page images of the o…

Florence Nightingale Collection

This collection consists primarily of letters written by Florence Nightingale throughout her life. Major topics of the letters include medical care for the soldiers and the poor, the role of nursing, and sanitation and public works in colonized India. These digitized items are part of a larger collection in the Wayne State University Library Special Collections, which contains more correspondence, books, and other items.

WPA Music Manuscripts

WPA Music Manuscripts is a digitization project with the goal of bringing the unique holdings of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra online. These music manuscripts represent the unique work of music copyists--men and women employed by the government with the task of copying music for the WPA orchestras, bands and choruses to perform. The full collection is housed in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's Archive, and consists of more than 300 compositions that include copied parts for both conductor's sco…

Michigan Opera Theatre Performance Images

The materials making up this collection are part of the Allesee Dance and Opera Resource Library, the official library and archive for the Michigan Opera Theatre. These photographs document forty years of performances at the Michigan Opera Theatre. These materials were digitized and cataloged with the assistance of the Wayne State University School of Library and Information Science. The original images are held at the Allesee Dance and Opera R…

Digital Dress Collection

The Digital Dress Collection contains images of clothing worn in Michigan during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Clothing reflects the culture and the time period of the wearer, so this collection offers insight into Michigan life and society. The items shown here are held in the collections of Wayne State University, The Henry Ford, Detroit Historical Society and Meadowbrook Hall.

The Lincoln Letters

The Lincoln Letters contains digitized copies of letters written to and from Abraham Lincoln. These letters mostly focus on appointments, pardons, and discharges, as well as requests for political favors. These letters are part of the Frank Howard Collection of Civil War History in the Wayne State University Library Special Collections. Additional related materials are available.

Made in Michigan Writers Series

The Made in Michigan Writers Series is made up of digital versions of books from the Wayne State University Press series of the same name. The series includes fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and essays. It celebrates the diverse and talented writers from Michigan. For more information on this collection, see the WSU Press Made …

The Detroit Sunday Journal

The Detroit Sunday Journal was a weekly tabloid newspaper, published by striking union workers from the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press. The strike began in July, 1995; spanning four years and just over 200 editions, the Sunday Journal was published from November 19, 1995, through November 21, 1999. Circulation for most editions was 40,000-60,000. It was available through t…

Selected Cass Gilbert Architectural Drawings of the Detroit Public Library

This collection contains 19 presentation drawings of the Detroit Public Library, many of them competition drawings, which were digitized for this collection. The originals are a part of the New York Historical Society’s Cass Gilbert Architecture Collection and were digitized by them, as part of a grant project funding by the Detroit Area Library Network (DALNET). The collection includes elevation drawings, floor plans, and exterior and Interior perspective views.

Van Riper Family Correspondence

This collection consists of 78 letters written between 1836-1889 to members of the Van Riper family of Wayne County, Michigan. The majority of the letters are between cousins, Alexander and Henry Van Riper, from the years surrounding the Civil War; others are written between various family members and friends.

Detroit Focus Quarterly

The Detroit Focus Quarterly was published by Detroit Focus, a non-profit arts organization that supports art and artists in the Detroit area. The publication, published from 1982 to 1998, included interviews with artists, articles about the art scene and current issues, and listings of art exhibits. Wayne State University Special Collections has related archival materials from Detroit Focus. Contact the library for more information.

Michigan Opera Theatre Archive Programs Collection

The Michigan Opera Theatre Archive Programs Collection contains the performance programs of the Michigan Opera Theatre. The early progams are part of an initiative called Overature to Opera. These were performances by local artists to promote the Metropolitan Opera Tour, which was brought to Detroit yearly by the Detroit Grand Opera Association. The modern Michigan Opera Theatre grew out of this initiative and continued after the Metropolitan Opera Tour ended in 1985. This collection documents t…

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