Do You Zoom?

For your next Zoom meeting, why not use a historic U-M background from the Bentley? With thousands of digitized pictures in our online image bank, there are plenty to choose from. And, to help your selection, we curated some of our favorites below. Click the link to the right of each image to download. New to… Complete Story

Postcards from the Edge

Inside the Bentley Historical Library’s vast postcard collection are pictures and missives from U-M spanning the centuries. We pulled out a few postcards, and their accompanying messages, to take you back to U-M’s bygone years.

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Co-Education at Michigan

One hundred and fifty years ago, Madelon Stockwell became the first woman to attend the University of Michigan, but she did not arrive at this achievement in isolation. Explore our digital exhibit celebrating the anniversary of the admission of women to U-M.

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Coeducation for Democracy

As U-M marks the 150th anniversary of the admission of women, the Bentley invites the public to a lecture by Andrea L. Turpin, Associate Professor of History at Baylor University, for her talk “Coeducation for Democracy: The Changing Moral Vision for Educating the Sexes at the University of Michigan, 1870–1920.”

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Constructing Gender

We invite you to step back in time to learn what the League and Union buildings looked like when they were built, and why. A new online Bentley exhibit explores how these buildings not only reflected the era’s ideas about gender roles but also sometimes perpetuated them.

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Grand History in the Making

Sandwiched between Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas is a legendary hotel with more than 130 years of memorable moments. The Bentley Historical Library has partnered with the Grand Hotel to digitize, conserve, and preserve thousands of photos from the hotel’s history. Enjoy this slideshow of some of our favorite snapshots.

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Please Join Us for a History Lecture with Director McDonald

What is exactly is “the liberal arts?” Join us for a lecture by Bentley Director Terry McDonald, who will trace the (surprisingly short) history of the “liberal arts” in America and at the University of Michigan, where the current form emerged only in the early 1930s.

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