Past Stories

The newly renovated Michigan Union highlights the remarkable lives of the building's architects, Irving and Allen Pond. But their vision for democratic architecture wasn't fully realized until long after they were gone.

A history professor and her undergraduate research fellows bring fresh eyes to the fraught history of American imperialism in the Philippines.

Alice Chipman Dewey was a philosopher, social reformer, educator, pioneer, and among the earliest women to graduate from U-M. Her incredible legacy has been historically overshadowed by that of her husband, John Dewey, though research and papers at the Bentley are now helping define Alice in her own right.

During World War II, Lulu Middleton wrote letters to service men and women, sending along advice, cookies, candy and ultimately a connection to home in Michigan.

The earliest paintings of U-M's campus have been scanned into the 21st century.

A mastodon was discovered in 1934, and its bones came to the University of Michigan. But what happened to them after that remains a mystery.

Betty Bishop has trusted the materials of her family’s Michigan legacy, stretching back to the 1800s, to the Bentley Historical Library.

On January 5, 1870, the University Board of Regents passed a resolution that paved the way for coeducation at Michigan. In 2020, we celebrate the 150th anniversary of this remarkable change.

Daniel Cherrin was at the epicenter of change in Detroit after Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick resigned. His papers at the Bentley give researchers an inside look at a city and its leaders.

The newly digitized papers of U-M President James Angell show his influence in higher education and beyond.