Past Stories

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.

New courses and initiatives mean more U-M undergrads are getting their hands on history’s primary sources.

How the game as we know it formed out of class rivalries, rugby, and one troublesome picket fence.

Meet Frank Wilhelme, a philanthropist with an affinity for the past who rifled through the Bentley's archives when it was still in the basement of U-M's Rackham Building.

The daughter of former slaves, Eva Jessye would stand in Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and teach at the University of Michigan. Meet a woman who changed the face of the arts—and America.

New digitization efforts mean more access to Bentley materials, including videos and audio recordings such as John F. Kennedy's speech on the Michigan Union steps.