Past Stories

In the mid-1800s, U-M's medical faculty revolted when the state government tried to force homeopathy into the curriculum. Archives reveal the war between medical fact and fiction.

Jeep Holland's passion for music helped shape the 1960s Michigan scene. His collection at the Bentley Historical Library illuminates a tumultuous rock-and-roll journey.

U-M’s Mandolin Club records tell the story how this unlikely instrument took the campus and the nation by storm in the early 1900s, sold out concerts, then faded just as quickly.

Typhoid, dysentery, tuberculosis–in the early 1900s, they could all be spread by flies. That’s why one woman launched a crusade to rid the city of Cleveland of its flying pests.

Meet Thomas Hyry of the Houghton Library at Harvard University. He’s part of our new series about archivists who trained at the Bentley, and are doing important work in the field.

Fifty years ago, the Edmund Fitzgerald freighter sank in Lake Superior. Ric Mixter’s research into the wreck is archived at the Bentley, ready to help future shipwreck researchers.

The recent 50th anniversary of Gerald R. Ford’s presidency recognized his accomplishments on a national scale and made it easy to forget he was also an exceptional U-M football player.

When Walt Di Mantova visited the archives to investigate a possible family connection to the Manhattan Project, he found more than he bargained for regarding J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Records show how Lucinda Hinsdale Stone's tireless advocacy for women's education, even in the face of adversity, changed women's lives at U-M and across the state of Michigan.

U-M's ninth president opposed the U.S. war in Vietnam. His papers at the Bentley reveal how his experiences in an earlier conflict showed him firsthand the tragic loss of young people.