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Making Michigan: A Lecture Series

Join us for the next free talk, and learn what U-M’s history means for its future!

A variety of paper materials from the Bentley archives layered on top of each other including a postcard of the University of Michigan campus, a page from a yearbook, and an old letter.

Making Michigan explores the history of the University of Michigan from its origins in 1817 to the present.

These talks are offered from September-May by the Bentley Historical Library and hosted by the Judy and Stanley Frankel Detroit Observatory.

Audiences can attend in-person or online. Advance registration is encouraged.

Upcoming Lecture

Thursday, September 17, 2026

Making Michigan

Cake and Ice Cream: Creating a Sense of Belonging at U-M Student Banquets in the Early 20th Century

  • 6:00 – 7:30 pm
  • Judy & Stanley Frankel Detroit Observatory
  • In-Person & Virtual

Dorm dinners and late night snacks with friends and roommates have been a major part of the college experience for generations of students. At U-M this has been true since […]

Join us for the next Making Michigan to learn about these stories and to explore a number of questions around writing about the University's history:

Go to Event

Watch Previous Lectures

The Lost Campus: The University of Michigan’s Vanished but not Forgotten Spaces

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Staff from the Bentley Historical Library and a group of Chinese archivists in Nanking, China.

Archiving the World: The Bentley Library and U-M’s International Aspirations

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The 1962 U-M Baseball Team leaving a plane after returning from Japan.

Go, Blue: A History of Michigan Athletics and International Travel

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African American U-M students picketing in support of the Black Action Movement in front of Hill Auditorium.

A Place for Politics, Protest, & Performance: Exploring the Hidden Histories of Hill Auditorium

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Angell Hall seen from the southwest.

The Children’s Psychiatric Hospital at the University of Michigan, 1955 – 1990

Watch Video
Angell Hall seen from the southwest.

The Edmund Fitzgerald Investigations

Watch Video
Professor David Gerdes performs a physics demonstration using a plastic ball on a string.

Saturday Morning Physics: Thirty Years of Engaging, Educating, and Entertaining the Public

Watch Video
A yellow typewriter superimposed over a map of the U-M campus.

Unboxing the Unexpected: The Notable and the Infamous in U-M’s archives

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A map of Michigan showing its counties in 1842.

The 1817 Project: U-M’s Origins, Indigenous Lands, and Institutional (In)Action

Watch Video
Older lectures