PAST NEWS

Meet Gregory Parker, the new director of the Judy and Stanley Frankel Detroit Observatory. His passion for public history and experience with exhibits, programing, and U-M converge in his new role.

Ocha Potter was a global adventurer and miner, with treks that took him from Anchorage to Africa. During the Great Depression, he plotted to save the economy of Michigan's Upper Peninsula through tourism. His full story, from wilderness to wealth, can be found in his papers at the Bentley Historical Library.

Historical photos of Ann Arbor and surrounding communities are now available digitally as part of the Bentley Historical Library’s contribution to the Ann Arbor Bicentennial.

Preserving sports history for past, present, and future Wolverines is a big part of the Bentley Historical Library’s work. But to keep sports history alive and accessible, the archive needs your help.

The Bentley Historical Library is pleased to announce that the Regents of the University of Michigan have approved Alexis Antracoli as the library’s next director. Antracoli will work with archivists and other professionals overseeing the Bentley’s vast collections.

A historian and an artist recently teamed up to create a comic book celebrating Michigan’s first-ever Pride celebration in Detroit, in 1972. “It’s my job to bring to life people we wouldn’t know about otherwise,” the author says.

The powerful oral histories of 28 African American athletes have been digitized and made available online through the Bentley’s new Digital Media Library. Hear in their own words the stories of athletes who overcame adversity to triumph on the field and off.

A new searchable database lists the names and years of attendance of every African American student who attended the University for any length of time from 1853-1956. It includes archival materials and other data for an in-depth look at African American experiences at U-M.

Martin Luther King Jr. came to Ann Arbor to speak at U-M just once, in 1962. Rarely seen documents from the Bentley Historical Library shed light on the leader's legendary visit.