March 2, 2015
How Detroit changed the backyard garden
Made in Detroit: Beets, sweet peas, and a most perfect pickling cucumber.
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January 31, 2015
Here are the Representatives from Michigan who voted for the Thirteenth Amendment
There were six of them. 150 years ago, they all voted yes.
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November 9, 2014
Detroit ragtime’s founding fathers
A century before Motown, Detroit’s pioneering black musicians started syncopating beats.
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October 20, 2014
Introducing the Little Detroit History Letter
We’re launching a new-fangled old-fashioned email newsletter!
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September 1, 2014
Every Cemetery in Detroit: Old Redford Cemetery / Bell Branch Cemetery
A quirk of annexation means this old pioneer cemetery is only partially in Detroit.
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July 23, 2014
Happy 313rd, Detroit OR: Dancing on the straits
Detroit turns 313 this year. Does it matter that we’re the same age as our area code?
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May 11, 2014
Dedication of First Unitarian Church of Detroit, Nov. 29, 1890
“In the name of them who have gone from us and those who shall come in the future, I accept this building as a place where souls may be uplifted from evil ways.”
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April 23, 2014
Happy birthday to Bela Hubbard, prominent Detroit citizen and tree-hugger
The naturalist, bird-lover, explorer, and namesake of Hubbard Farms turns 200 today.
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April 8, 2014
EVENT! Forgotten mayors of Detroit @ Beer and Politics, Weds. 4/9
Doctors, lawyers, frontiersmen, furriers, veterans of obscure wars, leprosy victims, brewers, abolitionists, and scores of bad hairstyles.
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March 20, 2014
Detroit Tigers spring training, 100 years ago
The Tigers warmed up for the season in Gulfport, Miss., ate well, played golf, and stayed in the most luxurious hotel in the South.
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February 6, 2014
Early photography in early Detroit: J. Jex Bardwell
Celebrating the life and work of Detroit’s oldest photographer.
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December 31, 2013
The New Year’s Eve greeting heard ’round the world, and other selections
A New Year’s greeting sent by telegraph, plus a humble selection of historical New Year’s Eve & Day anecdotes.
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December 9, 2013
BEEP BEEP! Bus tours are back!
Join me for a jaunt around pre-automotive Detroit on Dec. 21.
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November 17, 2013
Every cemetery in Detroit: Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery
Detroit’s other oldest Catholic cemetery is full of giant religious statuary and beautiful, haunting porcelain gravestone portraits.
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November 5, 2013
Five Mayors of Detroit to know … before 1900
Detroit mayors who made history before the turn of the twentieth century. Includes secret society members, staunch abolitionists, anti-tax activisits, and explorers.
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October 4, 2013
Rembrandt Peale’s Court of Death at the Detroit Institute of Arts
The story of a painting at the DIA. It’s not the best, the most famous, or the most important, but it is the most gigantic.
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