Past Stories

It was a big deal when the long-haired boys of the House of David baseball team came to town.

One U-M class uncovers lost aspects of Civil Rights history and makes them available online.

Detroit’s Harmonie Club was once the hub of German singing groups, whose music fueled fellowship and cultural pride. When the Harmonie Club went belly up, its historic German music was in danger of being lost forever—but found a safe home at the Bentley.

A U.S.-led effort in 1965 to win over Communist hearts and minds through music landed U-M Jazz Band members in the middle of gunfire in the Dominican Republic. This strange tale of U-M students, concerts, and Red Scare politics is showcased in a new collection at the Bentley, 50 years in the making.

Bentley Director Terrence J. McDonald discusses how the Bentley is helping perfect the way that University faculty use the Library's collections for teaching.

The class of 1849 was the fifth class to graduate in the University of Michigan’s young history, and they worked to ensure their time on campus would be memorialized for generations to come.

When Jim Toy stood up and delivered a speech at an anti-Vietnam War demonstration in 1970, he became the first person in the state of Michigan to publicly come out as gay. The equality pioneer has spent his life working to change the gay rights landscape in Michigan and beyond.

Mark Harrington was a brilliant botanist and meteorologist as well as a lumberjack and boxcar jumper. His tragic battle with mental illness would drive him from positions of prestige, taking him across oceans, to flop houses and sugar plantations, and eventually to an East Coast asylum.

You know Ann B. Davis as Alice the housekeeper, the beloved heart of The Brady Bunch. But you may not know the two-time Emmy winner, author, and comedienne left Hollywood to pursue a life at the center of a different home--one founded on the tenets of the Episcopal faith.