Bentley Uncovers Untold Story of African Americans at U-M

Bentley archivist Brian Williams is featured in a new University Record story about his work to collect the names and life stories of all African American students who attended U-M. Through his research, he unearthed previously untold stories of African American women who battled discrimination when the Mosher-Jordan dormitory was being built in 1930.

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Twelve Decades of Michigan History at Your Fingertips

A new online database of The Michigan Daily has made more than 23,000 issues digital and searchable. The high-resolution scans put 125 years of history at users’ fingertips. The digitization was a collaboration between the Bentley, Michigan Library, and The Michigan Daily.

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Don’t Store Your Data Like the Empire in Star Wars

A major plot point of the film Rogue One had Rebels stealing digital data from the Empire’s vast archive. Which got us thinking about the Bentley’s digital data. We asked a digital curation archivist for insights into Bentley digital collections, and how users can access them. Hint: it’s easier than what the Rebels did.

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Constructing Gender

When brothers Irving and Allen Pond built U-M’s League and Union, they constructed gender rolls right alongside the walls, floors, and windows. A new UMMA exhibition curated by the Bentley’s Associate Director, Nancy Bartlett, takes a closer look at how the Pond brothers’ vision changed the campus.

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A Date with History

This little desk calendar from 1899 is inscribed “With compliments of the season and of the university editor.” Each day has a printed factoid on it about the University of Michigan. This year, on the occasion of U-M’s Bicentennial, the days of 1899 and 2017 are an exact calendar match.

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MLK Performance Addresses Race and Relationships

The U-M Library MLK Day committee will bring Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni’s “One Drop of Love” performance to camps on January 16th. The one-woman performance is produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, and is free and open to the public.

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Loco for Locomotives

More than 550 digitized images have been added to the Bentley Image Bank, including historic pictures of locomotives and railroading from the collection of Claude T. Stoner, a photographer and avid fan of the “Iron Horse.”

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