On January 3, 1814 a court martial was convened to try former governor William Hull on charges of cowardice and neglect of duty for surrendering Detroit to British in 1812. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. President Madison commuted his sentence because of his Revolutionary War record and his age.
Sources :
Epaphroditus Ransom was the first governor sworn in at the new capital in Lansing Michigan. Arriving in Michigan from Vermont in 1834, Ransom settled in Kalamazoo County and served as chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court from 1843 to 1847. A Democrat, Ransom believed that the state government, long controlled by his political party, placed too much emphasis on the eastern portion of the state. Ransom returned to Kalamazoo after one term as governor.
Ransom’s swearing in took place at this simple, wooden building that would serve as the Capitol for the next 30 years.
Sources :
Michigan Historical Calendar, courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.
Amy Elliott Bragg, “Michigan Governors: Epaphroditus Ransom“, the Night Train, September 8, 2010.
Epaphroditus Ransom wikipedia entry
Photo from Michigan State Capitol Facebook Page.
Ruth Thompson became Michigan’s first woman in Congress when voters elected her to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1950. A Whitehall native, Thompson (1887 – 1970) spent her entire working life as a public servant. While serving three terms as a Muskegon County probate judge (1925 – 1937), she gained national recognition as an advocate for children’s rights. Thompson was elected the county’s first female state representative in 1938. During and after World War II she worked as a civilian employee of the U.S. Army in Washington D.C. and in Europe. Upon taking Congregational office on January 3, 1951, she received the first House Judiciary Committee appointment granted to a women. Reelected for two subsequent terms, Thompson lost her primary bid for a fourth term in 1956 and returned to her home in Whitehall.
Sources :
Ruth Thompson, Michigan’s First Congresswoman, Michigan Historical Markers website.
Ruth Thompson entry, U.S. House of Representatives History, Art, and Archives website.
Although born in Memphis, Tennessee on March 25, 1942, Aretha Franklin’s parents brought her to Detroit at an early age where she and her sister began singing in the gospel choir of her father’s church, New Bethel Baptist Church. Later in her life, she would become famous for songs such as (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, Respect, Chain of Fools, and many more.
Motown singer Aretha Franklin became the first female vocalist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 3, 1987 . Now that’s what we call R-E-S-P-E-C-T!
Later on, she was invited to participate in President Obama’s Inaugeration on January 20, 2009. (See picture)
She will always be remembered as the Queen of Soul.
Update: Aretha Franklin died of pancreatic cancer on August 16, 2018.
Sources :
Detroit Historical Society Facebook Page
Historical Society of Michigan.
Kara Jayne, “Remembering When Aretha Franklin Made History As The First Woman To Be Inducted Into The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame“, January 3, 2020.
Susan Whitall, “Aretha Franklin celebrates Christmas with friends, family and music”, Detroit News, December 24, 2011.
Susan Whitall, “Rock Hall of Fame pays tribute to Aretha Franklin with a week of events”, Detroit News, October 25, 2011.
Also check out :
All Hail the Queen! A Tribute to Aretha Franklin by Bob Garrett, Archives of Michigan, February 1, 2011
Aretha Franklin biography from the Detroit African-American History Project jointly sponsored by the Wayne State University’s Education Technolgy Services/Computing and Information Services and the Walter P. Reuther Library/College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs.
Jon Pareles, “Aretha Franklin, the ‘Queen of Soul,’ Dies at 76“, New York Times, August 16, 2018.
Ken Coleman, “Aretha Franklin: Civil Rights Freedom Fighter”, Black Life, Arts, and Culture (B.L.A.C), August 2018.
If you to traveled up to Marquette and met Phil Pearce, owner of Phil’s 550 party store, consider yourself lucky. He was a big personality, a character, a person worth knowing. Perhaps not one of a kind, but the last of a kind.
He died Wednesday after a short and sudden battle with brain cancer. He was 64.
John Carlisle of the Detroit Free Press does him justice with a touching tribute:
Few people might’ve ever heard of the owner of a tiny store on the edge of the northern Upper Peninsula, but Phil became world famous for no reason other than his personality, and the fact that someone put his face on a T-shirt that spread around the world.
His shack of a store offered little more than beer, wine, fishing bait, hunting licenses and some canned food, but the real draw was Phil and his personality, exemplified on the store’s roadside marquee where, instead of advertising what he sold, he’d put funny, silly, sometimes suggestive messages for no other reason than to give drivers on this rural road something to chuckle at.
Friends often stopped at the store to buy something just as an excuse to see Phil, because despite his seemingly cantankerous personality, he was able to make people laugh and cheer them up. Strangers came to meet the world-famous face from the T-shirt. Customers mailed him photos of themselves wearing the famous T-shirt in places all over the globe. And passersby could get a dose of Phil from the ever-changing message on the sign out front.
Sample Marquee Post : “Beauty Lies in Da Hands of Da Beer Holder”
Another: “Alcohol and calculus don’t mix, so don’t drink and derive.”
Sources :
Video: U.P. Loses a World-Class Character — Phil Pearce Dies at 64, Detroit Deadline, January 5, 2017.
John Carlisle, “Phil Pearce, legendary Upper Peninsula party store owner, dies at 64“, Detroit Free Press, January 4, 2017.
Jessica Shepard, “Iconic U.P. store owner behind Phil’s 550 Store dies at 64“, MLive, January 4, 2017.
Christie Bleck, “Phil Pearce dies after cancer battle“, Marquette Mining Journal, January 4, 2017.
When Rashida Tlaib stands on January 3 for her ceremonial swearing in as the first Palestinian-American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, it will be with her hand on a copy of the Koran.
But this won’t be just any Koran: She will use Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy of George Sale’s 1734 translation of the Koran into English, a two-volume work that resides in the Library of Congress.
“It’s important to me because a lot of Americans have this kind of feeling that Islam is somehow foreign to American history,” said Tlaib, who also will become, with Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar, one of the first two Muslim women sworn into the U.S. House. “Muslims were there at the beginning. … Some of our founding fathers knew more about Islam than some members of Congress now.”
She won’t be surprised, however, if her using the Koran raises hackles for some people who believe she shouldn’t be allowed to do so. Twelve years ago, when U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., used the same Koran for his swearing in as Congress’ first Muslim member, some commentators argued that only a Bible was suitable for the purpose.
Contrary to some beliefs, there is no requirement that new members of Congress be sworn in on the Bible or any other book. In fact, when they are officially sworn in, no book at all is used, though each member can hold one — any one — if they wish.
As the New York Times once put it, one could use “a comic book, a lesser Shakespeare play or nothing at all” for the function.
That official swearing in happens at the beginning of every new Congress, around noon on Jan. 3, shortly after the election of the House speaker, who then asks the members to rise together, raise their right hands and take the oath of office, required by the Constitution and written into law:
“Do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that you take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you are about to enter, so help you God?”
The members respond en masse: “I do,” after which they are, officially, members of Congress.
After that, however, new U.S. House members generally attend individual — and ceremonial — swearings-in inside the speaker’s office. Flanked by family and friends, the new member stands with the speaker for a photo, often placing one hand on the Bible and raising his or her other hand — though again, no book is mandated, no book is required.
It’s at this ceremonial swearing in that Tlaib will use Jefferson’s Koran.
In addition, Tlaib has announced that she will wear traditional Palestinian clothing at the swearing in.
Note: Tlaib will be one of the first two Muslim women to be elected to Congress.
Aljazeera described Tlaib’s Palestinian immigrant parents, who settled in Detroit, as coming from the “occupied” West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Sources:
Todd Spangler, “Detroit congresswoman to use Jefferson’s Koran for swearing-in ceremony“, Detroit Free Press, December 19, 2018.
Penny Starr, “Rashida Tlaib Will Wear Palestinian Garb for Congressional Swearing-In“, Breitbart, December 17, 2018.
Update: Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib in the end chose to use her own copy of the Koran in her swearing-in ceremony.
The above illustration of Johnson’s Island was made by Edward Gould, Company B, 128th Ohio during the war. In the foreground is the U.S.S. Michigan. On the left is the fort’s wharf with a road leading back to the troops quarters and on to where the artillery position was created in 1864. Inside the stockade you can see the 12 2-story block houses that housed the prisoners. Each block house was responsible for its own mess. Behind the last row of block houses were the latrines or what they called their “sinks”. The radiating lines running from the block houses to the center are paths leading to pumps that were used to pump water from the bay into wells used by the prisoners.
No Civil War battles were fought on Michigan soil, but many Great Lakes mariners and ships fought for the Union Cause. It took the Union prison at Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie near Sandusky to bring the Civil War directly to the front doorstep of Ecorse, Michigan, a small village on the Detroit River. Confederates had tried numerous times to escape from the prison at Johnson’s Island, but the record shows only a few successful escapes before 1864. The year 1864 proved to be a successful year for escapes.
The Sandusky Register reported the escape of six rebel prisoners on January 4, 1864. The Register said that six Confederates – Major Stokes, Captain Stokes, Captain Robinson, and Captain Davis, all Virginians, Captain McConnell of Kentucky and Major Winston of North Carolina made a crude ladder by tying the legs of a bench with a clotheslines across a board at spaces of about three feet, about four feet short of the desired length. They gathered as much civilian clothes as they could from friends in the prison.
Some of the prisoners made it as far as Trenton, Michigan, before crossing the ice to freedom in Ontario. They eventually traveled up the St. Lawrence River to the ocean and Bermuda. Then they sailed on the blockade runner Advance to North Carolina and home.
Source : Kathy Warnes, “Six Confederate Officers Stage a Nautical Escape Through Downriver”, Definitely Downriver, October 2012.
The USS Michigan was laid down in December 1906; the hull was launched May 26, 1908; but the USS Michigan was not commissioned for active duty until January 4, 1910.
The Michigan and its sister ship South Carolina were both assigned to the Atlantic Fleet and were the US Navy’s first class of dreadnoughts.
USS Michigan, a 16,000-ton South Carolina class battleship built at Camden, New Jersey, was commissioned on January 4, 1910, one of the first “battlewagons” built by the U.S. Navy. After initial operations along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean, she steamed across the ocean to visit England and France during November and December 1910. Michigan spent the next eight years taking part in regular Atlantic fleet exercises and cruises off the eastern seaboard, in the Caribbean and off Central America. In April-June 1914, she played a major role in the Vera Cruz incident, with many of her men serving ashore. The battleship suffered two notable accidents, one in September 1916 when a twelve-inch gun of her second turret burst while being fired and the second in January 1918 when her “cage” foremast collapsed during a storm at sea.
Michigan’s First World War operations included convoy, training and battle practice operations in the western Atlantic area. In January-April 1919, soon after the war’s end, she was employed as a troop transport, bringing home over a thousand veterans of the conflict. In mid-1919, Michigan passed through the Panama Canal to the Pacific on a midshipmen’s training cruise that took her as far west as Honolulu. When the Navy formally adopted ship hull numbers in 1920, she was designated BB-27. Michigan made another long-distance training voyage in mid-1921, this time calling on European ports from Norway to Gibraltar. She was decommissioned in February 1922. Made redundant by the Washington naval limitations treaty, USS Michigan was stricken from the Navy list in November 1923 and scrapped during 1924.
Sources:
Mich-Again’s Day.
On January 4, 1918, production began at the historic Ford River Rouge plant.
At the height of production in the 1930s, more than 100,000 people clocked in at “The Rouge” regularly. Operating such a massive production complex required intricate coordination and planning. Besides assembly lines for building automobiles, the complex also included a massive power plant, 100 miles of railroad track and its own police and fire departments.
The Rouge is now called the Ford Rouge Center. The 600-acre site remains Ford Motor Co.’s largest single industrial complex. Now under revitalization, the complex will include one of the world’s most advanced and flexible manufacturing facilities, capable of building up to nine different models on three vehicle platforms. The Dearborn Truck Plant will become the centerpiece of the new Ford Rouge Center, the largest industrial redevelopment project in U.S. history and the flagship of Ford’s vision of sustainable manufacturing for the future.
River Rouge plant in 1927.
Henry Ford’s plan in creating the Rouge was to attain complete self-sufficiency by owning, operating and coordinating all the resources needed for automotive production. At the time, Michigan was ideally suited for automotive production because many of the raw materials needed were located within Michigan, including forests, iron mines and limestone quarries. Ford also owned coal mines in Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and a rubber plantation in Brazil.
Ford’s vision was never fully realized, as bringing all aspects of auto production under one roof — or at least within one complex — proved too unwieldy. Still, no other auto manufacturer came as close.
Ford’s massive production complex is located a few miles south of Detroit at the confluence of the Rouge and Detroit rivers. Originally, the Rouge was 1.5 miles wide and more than a mile long. The plant encompassed 93 buildings totaling more than 15.7 million square feet of floor space served by a network of 120 miles of conveyors. Equipment included ore docks, steel furnaces, coke ovens, rolling mills, glass furnaces and plate-glass rollers. Buildings included a tire-making plant, stamping plant, engine casting plant, frame and assembly plant, transmission plant, radiator plant, and a tool and die plant. At one point, the complex even included a paper mill. There was even a soybean conversion plant that turned soybeans into plastic auto parts.
To construct the Rouge, Ford began buying the property in 1915. Originally, the Rouge was intended to support America’s efforts in World War I. 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. However, the war ended before the Ford Eagle Boats ever went into action.
The first land vehicles assembled in the Rouge were farm tractors. In 1921, production of the world’s first mass-produced tractor, the Fordson, was transferred from the original Dearborn plant to the Rouge. Production of passenger vehicles came with the production of Model A’s in the late 1920s. Other notable vehicles produced there include the Ford Thunderbird, Mustang and F-150 pickup truck.
The Great Depression didn’t halt production at the plant, but cost-cutting measures did make life harder for workers, which helped give way to the growing union movement. Ford resisted unionization attempts, and believed companies should deal directly with workers. However, auto workers wanted to work together to collectively bargain in order to negotiate better working terms with Ford.
The tension erupted in the famous Battle of the Overpass on May 26, 1937, when a group of union organizers led by Walter Reuther attempted to distribute union literature at the Rouge. Ford security and a gang of hired thugs beat them severely. It would mark a turning point in organization efforts, and Ford would eventually recognize union representation.
During World War II, production shifted to jeeps, amphibious vehicles, parts for tanks and tank engines, and aircraft engines used in fighter planes and medium bombers.
After the death of Henry Ford in 1947, ideas about how to best run an auto company began to change. Instead of having all production concentrated at one plant, new auto leaders — including Henry Ford II — began to develop a decentralized and more global approach. Rather than having all aspects of production in-house, automakers began developing networks of suppliers for their raw materials, and later, auto parts.
Production at the Rouge dwindled. In 1992, the only car still built at the Rouge, the Ford Mustang, was about to be eliminated and assembly operations in Dearborn Assembly terminated. UAW Local 600, which represents workers at the plant, worked with Alex Trotman — then president of Ford’s North American Operations — set out to keep the Mustang in production and to keep production in the Rouge. Together, the company and the UAW established a modern operating agreement and fostered numerous innovations to increase efficiency and quality. The company, for its part, would redesign and reintroduce the Mustang, and invest in modern equipment.
Tours of the Rouge are now offered as part of the Henry Ford Museum on Mondays through Saturdays.
Source : #MIHistory – Jan. 4 – The Rouge, Official Blog of the Michigan House Democrats