On May 17, 1673, Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette, fur trader Louis Jolliet and five voyageurs leave the recently established Indian mission at St. Ignace to explore a great river known by the Indians as the “Messissipi.”
The French had been exploring the Great Lakes since Etienne Brulé reached the St. Marys River around 1620.
In two canoes, Marquette’s party traveled along the northern shore of Lake Michigan, entered Green Bay and then crossed present-day Wisconsin. The explorers paddled down the Mississippi but, by mid-July, they realized that the river was not the long-sought passageway across North America to China.
Marquette died in 1675, but the French continued to explore the Great Lakes, ship furs to Europe and Christianize the Indians. In 1679, Robert Cavelier Sieur de la Salle directed the construction of the Griffin—the first sailing vessel on the upper Great Lakes. That same year, la Salle built Fort Miami at present-day St. Joseph—the first non-Indian community in the Lower peninsula.
Sources :
May 17, 1673 by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources
Bill Federer, “What ‘horrible monsters’ did this missionary face?, WND, December 3, 2015.
Ericka Janik, “Remembering The Mississippi Voyage Of Marquette And Joliet“, Wisconsin Public Radio, May 16, 2016.
Frederick Douglass is one of the most iconic figures in American history, and, during the height of his career, he visited Ypsilanti on three different occasions to give speeches.
According to Matt Siegfried, a local Ypsilanti historian, Douglass came to Ypsilanti because of its important role in the Underground Railroad and the fact that it has a thriving Black community.
“The first speech occurred on May 17, 1866. The editor of the local Ypsilanti paper had gone to Kalamazoo to see Frederick Douglass speak about Lincoln’s assassination and share anecdotes about his own meetings with him during the Civil War, and urged him to come to Ypsilanti to repeat that speech. So Douglass added another date on his calendar.”
“The second speech was much different. It was about six months later (January 16, 1867), and it was a speech in support of radical reconstruction measures and a speech against then president Andrew Johnson. So, Frederick Douglass was supporting things like suffrage of Black men, suffrage for Black women, all women.”
The third speech was much later. “It was clear that the struggles did not win the Civil War, and many things were being reversed. So what he’s actually doing here is urging Black people to continue in a process that has thrown them overboard in those last twenty years. Was the tone a little bit different? Very different. It’s a very different tone in the later speech and is more purely political tone. It’s a campaign speech for a particular candidate in the 1888 election.”
Sources :
George Avellan, “150 Years After Frederick Douglass Visited Ypsilanti, Michigan Historian Reflects On His Speeches”, WEMU (89.1 FM), February 15, 2017.
On May 17, 1881, Julius Ropes, a Marquette chemist and geologist, struck his exploring pick into some moss-covered rock near Ispheming, analyzed it, and discovered that it contained gold. Two years later, Ropes opened a mine, the only gold mine east of the Mississippi River, and hauled out $703,000 worth of gold and silver before labor disputes forced him to close in 1897.
Source: Mich-Again’s Day.
On May 17, 1920, the blast furnaces at the Ford Rouge Plant were fired up for the first time. Iron from the furnaces was transported directly to the foundry where it was poured into molds to make engine blocks, cylinder heads, intake and exhaust manifolds, and other automotive parts for the Model T (which was still assembled at Highland Park).
Ford began buying the property that was to become the Rouge in 1915. In total, he acquired a 2,000-acre stretch of bottomland along the Rouge River. The Rouge River property still was not earmarked for any particular use. Ford had even considered turning the land into a large bird sanctuary. That changed near the end of World War I, when Undersecretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt engaged Henry Ford to build boats.
In 1917, a three-story structure, Building B, was erected on the Rouge site to build Eagle Boats, warships intended to hunt down German submarines. Building B was the first substantial Rouge building and today serves as part of the Dearborn Assembly Plant. Although the war ended before the Ford Eagle Boats ever went into action, the effort did allow Ford to widen the Rouge River substantially, presenting the possibility of bringing ore boats up the river.
The Rouge soon became the destination of massive Ford lake freighters filled with iron ore, coal, and limestone. The first coke oven battery went into operation in October of 1919, while blast furnaces were added in 1920 and 1922. Iron from the furnaces was transported directly to the foundry where it was poured into molds to make engine blocks, cylinder heads, intake and exhaust manifolds, and other automotive parts. The foundry covered 30 acres and was, at its inception, the largest on Earth. In 1926 steelmaking furnaces and rolling mills were added. Eventually, the Rouge produced virtually every Model T component, but assembly of the Model T remained at Highland Park.
The first land vehicles actually assembled in the Rouge were not cars but farm tractors. No sooner had Henry Ford achieved low-cost transportation with the Model T than he set his sights on doing the same for the world’s farmers. In 1921 production of the world’s first mass-produced tractor, the Fordson, was transferred from the original Dearborn plant to the Rouge.
Ford put a mammoth power plant into operation in 1920 that furnished all the Rouge’s electricity and one-third of the Highland Park Plant’s needs as well. At times, surplus Rouge power was even sold to Detroit Edison Company. An innovative glass plant began operation in 1923. Utilizing a continuous process that Ford had helped develop, it produced higher quality glass at lower cost. In 1928 the Model A became the first low-priced car to use laminated safety glass. By 1930 the Ford was making its own safety glass at the Rouge.
The Rouge achieved the distinction of automotive “ore to assembly” in 1927 with the long-awaited introduction of the Model A. Building B would be the home of assembly operations from that time forth.
Source : Detroit Historical Society Facebook page
For more information, see Ford Rouge Factory Tour
On May 17, 1964, the Detroit Board of Education was prepared to take up a request by a civil rights group to throw out a ninth-grade world history textbook because it “presents a grossly unrealistic, white-oriented, white-supremacist view of the world.”
The 712-page book is “World History,” subtitled, “The Story of Man’s Achievement” was found objectionable by the Group on Advanced Leadership (GOAL) because it deals primarily with “white history and the emergency of the European.”
This was not the only time the Detroit Board of Education heard complaints about textbooks.
After Superintendent Samuel Brownell and the Board of Education were blasted by the local NAACP for providing to its students a history textbook that did not accurately portray African Americans during the U.S. Civil War (May 1963?), DPS’ Department of Social Studies was compelled to research and publish “The Struggle for Freedom and Rights: The Negro in American History.” The controversial textbook “Our United States” continued to be used but a 57-page supplemental booklet for seventh and eighth graders was also provided.
Recent reporting suggests that today’s DPS textbooks are so old and out of date that students have been taking high-stakes standardized tests without fully understanding the material on which they are being tested. That’s crazy. The State of Michigan is largely to blame. Gubernatorial-appointed emergency managers have rule over the district for 15 of the last 18 years.
As DPSCD tosses out its outdated curriculum for one that is relevant and meet government guidelines, the time is right to include more local history that recognizes the contributions of area blacks, browns, Asians and others. Their triumphs and tragedies; our harmony and conflict.
Sources:
Detroit Free Press
MIRS News Service, May 17, 2018
Ken Coleman, “Local history can help transform Detroit’s outdated curriculum“, Michigan Chronicle, May 3, 2018.
Wallace D. Riley of Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, husband of the late Justice Dorothy Comstock Riley, one of the founders and president of the Michigan Supreme Court History Society, president of both the Michigan Bar Association and the American Bar Association and a top state advocate for the law profession, died on May 17, 2018.
In 1945 he was graduated first in his class out of 477 from Southeastern High School in Detroit. He accepted an Honor Entrance Scholarship to the University of Chicago, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy in 1947 (and lettered in basketball and baseball when that university still had competitive sports). From the University of Michigan he received the degrees of Bachelor of Business Administration in 1949 and Master of Business Administration in 1952. He received his Juris Doctor degree in 1952 from the University of Michigan Law School. Continuing his studies in law at George Washington University, Wally graduated second in his class in 1954 with a Master of Laws Degree.
Wally was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the JAG Corps of the US Army at the Pentagon. In 1968 he and wife Dorothy, along with George T. Roumell, Jr., founded the firm of Riley and Roumell. He served as president of the State Bar of Michigan from 1972-73 and as president of the American Bar Association from 1983-84. For over 25 years, he was president of the Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society, founded in part by his wife Justice Dorothy Comstock Riley. He served on the Board of Directors of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan from 1992-2002 and again from 2008-2018.
In his practice and professional life he was an advocate for the profession, and was a keen observer and protector of its integrity. In that role, he was quick to challenge policies that he thought would bring questions against its integrity, including a Supreme Court proposal – made after Ms. Riley resigned from the court – to allow judges to continue fundraising after an election. In recent years, he joined with a number of former Supreme Court justices and others in supporting proposals that would end the practice of nominating candidates for the non-partisan Supreme Court by partisan conventions.
Sources:
Wallace D. Riley entry from Gongwer News Services, May 21, 2018.
Help Detroit celebrate the 30th anniversary of the most illustrious of our pop culture traditions: the Motor City Comic Con at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi between May 17-19 (2019).
In case you haven’t been paying attention since Mom sold your Spider-Man collection at a garage sale, Comic Con has become an incredible hulk of entertainment over the decades. Worlds apart from the stereotypic gaggle of pasty geeks attacking boxes of musty pulp fiction, today’s comic convention is a multimedia whirl of graphic art and artists, elaborately costumed fans saluting their favorite characters through “cosplay” (costume play), movie and TV collectibles, and celebrity guests galore.
Goldman acknowledges that the San Diego Comic Con, with its proximity to Hollywood and massive size, may be better known (“When they doubled the size of their convention center, they had so much floor space the big companies started coming in,” he says). But Detroit is more than worthy of superhero worship. He says that per capita, southeast Michigan boasts the largest number of comic book shops in America. What’s more, in the epitome of the little-known fact, “Detroit had the first comic book show 50 years ago,” Goldman contends.
“Now, New Yorkers like to fight about it and say that they had the first, but in fact what was first considered a comic book show, an organized event where maybe 100 people showed up, was in a hotel banquet room here I believe in the spring of 1964,” Goldman says. “About a month later they had the first one in New York.”
Here’s what you can expect at the 29th annual event. Motor City Comic Con gathers over 250 comic book creators, writers and artists, and more than fifty actors from the television and movie industry. Over a million comics for sale, plus collectible toys, anime, movies, pop culture crafts and gaming merchandise! Truly something for all fans of comics and pop culture!
Fans will be able to meet celebrities from “Arrow,” “Game of Thrones,” “IT,” “The Lost Boys,” “Batman Forever,” “Toy Story,” “Star Trek: Voyager,” “Sons of Anarchy,” “The Walking Dead,” “Boy Meets World” and “The Princess Bride.”
“We work year-round to host an event that engages fans of all ages in a fun-filled atmosphere bursting with escapist, family-friendly entertainment,” promoter Michael Goldman said.
The 20th annual event’s guest list includes Jerome Flynn, Lucy Lawless, Stephen Amell, Jason Patric, Alanna Masterson, Wallace Shawn, Summer Glau, Val Kilmer, Ryan Hurst, Will Friedle, Rob Paulsen, Tara Strong, Trish Stratus, Jaeden Lieberher, Frank Quitely and John Cassaday, with stars to be added.
More than 300 comic creators, writers, illustrators and actors will greet fans, sign autographs, take pictures and participate in panels and Q&A discussions. Cosplayers in disguise as their favorite superhero and comic character can enter a Cosplay Contest with celebrity judges Saturday and attend an evening party with entertainment and refreshments. Sunday’s Kid’s Day features kid-friendly activities.
Sources:
Jim McFarlin, “Star-Powered Celebration: The Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman, and even Captain Kirk are coming to Motor City Comic Con’s 25th anniversary”, Hour Detroit, May 2014.
Edward Pevos, “Shatner beams back to the MotorCity ComicCon”, MLive, May 12, 2015.
Julie Hinds, “Motor City Comic Con 2017: Why we need this weekend more than ever“, Detroit Free Press, May 17, 2017.
“Motor City Comic Con unveils cast for 2018“, Hometown Life, April 4, 2018.
Father Jacques Marquette, better known as Pere Marquette, was reburied on June 8, 1677, according to American-Indian funeral customs.
The French-born Jesuit priest — who explored the Mississippi River and the shores of Lake Michigan, founded St. Ignace and ministered to Indians — died somewhere along the Lake Michigan coast at age 37 on May 18, 1675, and was buried there.
However, two years later, Kiskakons and Iroquois disinterred him and put his cleaned bones in the sun to dry before putting them in a birch-bark box. They transported Marquette’s remains in a convoy of 30 canoes to St. Ignace, where two priests rowed out to meet them. The pair asked the Native Americans to confirm it was Marquette, and then they recited the “De Profundis” psalm, according to Reuben Gold Thwaites’ book, “Father Marquette.”
After the funeral rites, Marquette was lowered into a small vault in the middle of the church, the book says, “where it rests as the guardian angel of our (Ottawas) mission, The savages often come to pray over his tomb.”
Source : Zlati Meyer, “This week in Michigan history: Pere Marquette’s remains are reburied”, Detroit Free Press, June 2, 2013.
On this day, Governor Alpheus Felch signed a bill outlawing capital punishment, making Michigan the first government in the English-speaking world to do so. Furthermore, it was also banned in the state Constitution in 1964.
Sources :
Michigan Every Day
Eugene G. Wanger, “Michigan and Capital Punishment”, Michigan Bar Journal, September 2002, pp.38-41.
Barton Deiters, “Why has Michigan opposed the death penalty for more than 150 years?”, MLive, April 17, 2012.
One of the first and one of the worst cases of school violence ever recorded. We live in an age where we think that schools shootings, bombings, and the like are only a modern phenomenon. It’s not the type of thing that we would have expected to happen in the 1920s. And in Bath, Michigan.
On May 18, 1927, 45 people, mostly children, were killed and 58 were injured when disgruntled and demented school board member Andrew Kehoe dynamited the new school building in Bath, Michigan out of revenge over his foreclosed farm due in part to the taxes required to pay for the new school.
Across the world, newspaper headlines announced the shocking tragedy in the village with the unlikely name of Bath. The story competed for page one space with the Charles Lindbergh flight and massive floods on the Mississippi River. The New York Times story of May 19 read “MANIAC BLOWS UP SCHOOL, KILLS 42, MOSTLY CHILDREN.”
Bath School Disaster Sources:
Bath massacre : America’s first school bombing / Arnie Bernstein. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c2009.
My scrapbook on the Bath School bombing of May 18th, 1927 with many never before published photographs, stories & survivors’ quotes / by Bath historian Gene H. Wilkins. Bath, MI : Timber Wolf LTD, 2002.
Lorraine Boissoneault, “The 1927 Bombing That Remains America’s Deadliest School Massacre“, Smithsonian.com, May 18, 2017. Ninety years ago, a school in Bath, Michigan was rigged with explosives in a brutal act that stunned the town