Working detroit: the making of a union town

Babson recounts Detroit's odyssey from a bulwark of the "open shop" to the nation's foremost "union town." Through words and pictures, Working Detroit documents the events in the city's ongoing struggle to build an industrial society that is both prosperous and humane.

Babson begins his account in 1848 when Detroit has just entered the industrial era. He weaves the broader historical realties, such as Red Scare, World War, and economic depression into his account, tracing the ebb and flow …

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.

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…

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…

Steamboats and sailors of the Great Lakes

The Great Lakes shipping industry can trace its lineage to 1679 with the launching on Lake Erie of the Griffon, a sixty-foot galley weighing nearly fifty tons. Built by LaSalle, a French explorer who had been commissioned to search for a passage through North America to China, it was the first sailing ship to operate on the upper lakes, signaling the dawn of the Great Lakes shipping industry as we know it today.

Steamboats and Sailors of the Great Lakes is the most thorough and factual …

Love/imperfect

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

Toast of the town: the life and times of Sunnie Wilson

As part of the great migration of southern blacks to the north, Sunnie Wilson came to Detroit from South Carolina after graduating from college, and soon became a pillar of the local music industry. He started out as a song and dance performer but found his niche as a local promoter of boxing, which allowed him to make friends and business connections quickly in the thriving industrial city of Detroit. Part oral history, memoir, and biography, Toast of the Town draws from hundreds of hours of ta…

The Detroit Sunday Journal:: January 11-17, 1998

Issue of The Detroit Sunday Journal, a weekly newspaper published by striking workers during the Detroit Newspaper Strike.

The Detroit Sunday Journal:: January 12 - 18, 1997

Issue of The Detroit Sunday Journal, a weekly newspaper published by striking workers during the Detroit Newspaper Strike.

The Detroit Sunday Journal:: December 15-21, 1996

Issue of The Detroit Sunday Journal, a weekly newspaper published by striking workers during the Detroit Newspaper Strike.

The Detroit Sunday Journal:: November 16-22, 1997

Issue of The Detroit Sunday Journal, a weekly newspaper published by striking workers during the Detroit Newspaper Strike.

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 7 Number 4

The Detroit Sunday Journal:: August 10-16, 1997

Issue of The Detroit Sunday Journal, a weekly newspaper published by striking workers during the Detroit Newspaper Strike.

Queen of the Lakes

This book is an account of the ships that have borne the name "Queen of the Lakes," an honorary title indicating that, at the time of its launching, a ship is the longest on the Great Lakes. In one of the most comprehensive books ever written on the maritime history of the lakes, Mark L. Thompson presents a vignette of each of the dozens of ships that have held the title, chronicling the dates the ship sailed, its dimensions, the derivation of its name, its role in the economic development of…

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 5 Number 1

The Detroit Sunday Journal:: October 19-25, 1997

Issue of The Detroit Sunday Journal, a weekly newspaper published by striking workers during the Detroit Newspaper Strike.

American salvage: stories

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

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.

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 8 Numbers 1 and 2

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…