Who is … THE NIGHT TRAIN?
THE NIGHT TRAIN is a blog about metro Detroit history by Amy Elliott Bragg.
I am not a historian. But I do like a good story. I also like:
Wrecked fur ships,
Mad Anthony Wayne,
City parks,
19th-century cemeteries,
Memorial statues,
Zoo capers,
Other things like that.
When I started the blog in September 2009, upon returning home after seven years in Wisconsin, I was just looking for a sense of place. Getting at that through history was mostly an accident. So: yes, a Detroit history blog, and also, a blog about finding out about history, one ratty old library book and trampled headstone at a time.
Thanks to this blog, I’ve written a book about the arcane history of pre-automotive Detroit. In my free time I like accordions, bicycles, magazines, museums, animals, American history, vegetables and drinks.
Formerly I was the senior editor of Milwaukee’s ThirdCoast Digest (which itself was formerly Milwaukee’s monthly arts and culture print rag VITAL Source). I used to occasionally blog about music for The Post-Rockist, which is the reason I ended up in Detroit in the first place.
Contact me here or join me on Twitter and Facebook.
A note about scholarship
My research methods are largely improvisational, my sense of historical context is a work in progress and, like any other writer, my stabs at understanding sometimes miss the mark. I invite you to comment or contact me if you spot any inaccuracies, misinterpretations, incomplete perspectives or egregious typos, and I will do my best to correct them.
A note about supporting art
I take (and edit) most of the photographs you see with a Canon Powershot SX100 or, when I’m lazy, my iPhone. I invite you to make use of my photography under a Creative Commons license, although I’d especially appreciate it if you’d drop me a line to let me know that you’ve re-purposed my work. A link back is also polite.
Where possible I provide links and/or source information for images that I did not create myself; most of the time, I have determined these images to be in the public domain. If you own the copyright to any image you feel I have used inappropriately, please contact me and I will rectify the problem immediately.