On May 21st, 1834 Detroit’s first streetlights were introduced lighting up Jefferson from Cass Ave. to Randolph st. The estimated cost as follows:
20 lamps including posts: $5
3 quarts of sperm whale oil per night: $.75
Total cost per year: $262.50
Source: Detroit History Tours and Detroit History Club Facebook Page
On May 21, 1891, Michigan’s final county was established in the Upper Peninsula.
Dickinson County was established by an act of the legislature and was named after Donald Dickinson, a Detroiter who served as postmaster general in the President Grover Cleveland administration.
Source: Michigan Every Day
In 1887, Ransom Olds developed an experimental steam-powered car. An updated version of the car was featured in the May 21, 1892 issue of Scientific American. A company in London saw the article and bought the car, making it the first American-car sold for export! The two-passenger vehicle was good for 15-miles per hour. Olds would go on to form the Olds Motor Works and sell 4000 Oldsmobiles by 1903.
Source : Michigan Every Day.
Detroit native Charles Lindbergh became the first person to successfully complete a nonstop solo transatlantic flight when he landed the Spirit of St. Louis in Paris on May 21, 1927.
He left the Roosevelt Field airstrip on New York’s Long Island, 33.5 hours before. By the time he landed about 3,600 miles later (1,000 of it through snow and sleet), Lucky Lindy was a worldwide celebrity.
Tens of thousands of people greeted the 25-year-old when he touched down at the Le Bourget air field at 10:22 p.m.
Source : Zlati Meyer, “Lindbergh soars to aviation mark”, Today In Michigan History, Detroit Free Press, May 19, 2013.
“My Michigan” was adopted as an official state song on May 21, 1937.
The state Senate returned the bill about the official state tune on that day, after amending it from “the” to “a,” according to Robert Garrett of the state archives. The state House of Representatives had initially adopted the “the” bill on March 3, 1937.
The song, composed and written by Giles Kavanagh and H. O’Reilly Clint, was chosen because it “express(ed) the hopes, ambitions and pride of the people of the State of Michigan” and contained “the fine thoughts conveyed in the words and music of this lovely memorial to the State of Michigan,” the resolution explained.
Ironically, for being an official state anthem, the song is rarely sung and never used on formal state occasions. This may be because doing so would incur liability to pay a royalty. The State did not purchase or/and the authors would not sell the copyright, and neither was the song released into the public domain. Under current federal law, the song’s copyright will expire at the end of the 70th year following the deaths of its authors. There are two versions of the sheet music; one is held at the Rare Book Room at the Library of Michigan and the other is housed at the Bentley Historical Museum.
“My Michigan” should not be confused with the song “Michigan, My Michigan” by Douglas Malloch.
Sources:
Zlati Meyer, “Michigan adopts an official state song“, Detroit Free Press, May 15, 2015; updated May 17, 2015.
My Michigan : Michigan State Song, StateSymbolUSA.
On May 21, 1941, after years of bitter and sometimes violent resistance by Henry Ford, workers of the Ford Motor Company voted to have the United Auto Workers represent them. Ford was the last of the Big Three automakers to be organized.
Source: Historical Society of Michigan
On May 21, 1958, the Dearborn Press published an extensive feature on the Dearborn South End and the early Arab American community that lived there. The full newspaper issue can be read more clearly here: https://dearbornhistoricalmuseum.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/1958-05-21.pdfpic.twitter.com/kdK9ftas6K
Newspaper image courtesy of the National Arab American Museum.
On May 21, 1971, “What’s Going On,” the 11th studio album by soul musician Marvin Gaye, was released by @motown subsidiary Tamla Records. Its title song reached #1 on the R&B charts, and the album was Gaye’s 1st to sell over a million copies.
On June 19, 2021, city of Detroit and Motown personalities will dedicate a Marvin Gaye Drive, a stretch of an existing Detroit street, to add to others like Aretha Franklin Way, Stevie Wonder Boulevard, and Glenn Frey Drive.
Sources :
Brian McCollum, “Celebrate Iconic Song ‘ What’s Going On'”, Detroit Free Press, May 16, 2021.
Governor Aaron T. Bliss was born May 22, 1837 in New York.
During the American Civil War, Bliss enlisted as a private in the Peterman Guards of the Tenth New York Volunteer Cavalry, October 1, 1861, and reported for duty at Elmira, New York. After a quick advancement to lieutenant, his regiment formed a part of Kilpatrick’s Brigade and was ordered to the front, joining the Army of the Potomac. He commanded a squadron from Washington, D.C. during the Second Battle of Bull Run and his rank advanced to captain. He also fought in the battle of Fredericksburg, the Wilderness, Petersburg, Ground Squirrel Church, Stony Creek, South Mountain, Falls Church and Warrenton. Then he was captured on General Wilson’s raid near Richmond.
For six months he was held at the Confederate prisons of Andersonville, Georgia, Charleston, South Carolina, Macon, Georgia, and Columbia, South Carolina, where on November 29, 1864, like the man who would later precede him as governor, Hazen S. Pingree, Bliss escaped from a Confederate prison. He walked near three weeks until he reached General Sherman’s army at Savannah, Georgia, just two days before its evacuation. Bliss soon rejoined his own command at Petersburg, Virginia, where he remained until the war ended.
In December 1865, he moved to Saginaw, Michigan and found employment at a shingle mill. With his brother, Lyman W. Bliss, and J. H. Jerome, he formed A. T. Bliss & Company and engaged in the manufacture of lumber and the exploitation of lands along the Tobacco River. In 1868 the brothers bought the Jerome mill at Zilwaukee, and it became A. T. Bliss & Brother. In 1880, Bliss was one of the organizers and a director of the Citizen’s National Bank, which was reorganized into the Bank of Saginaw, and was president and director of the Saginaw County Savings Bank.
In 1882, Bliss was elected member of the Michigan Senate from Saginaw County (25th district), and during that time helped establish a soldiers’ home in Grand Rapids. He was appointed aide-de-camp on the staff of Governor Russell A. Alger in 1885, with the rank of colonel, and held the same position on the staff of the commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1888.
In 1888, Bliss was elected as a Republican from Michigan’s 8th congressional district to the 51st Congress, serving from March 4, 1889, to March 3, 1891. Among notable bills he introduced were for appropriating $100,000 for a federal building in Saginaw and $25,000 for an Indian school at Mt. Pleasant. He was an unsuccessful candidate for re-election in 1890 to the 52nd Congress, being defeated by Democrat Henry M. Youmans.
After leaving Congress, Bliss resumed the lumber business and also engaged in banking. He was department commander of the Grand Army of the Republic in Michigan in 1897.
In 1900, Bliss was elected Governor of Michigan, defeating mayor of Detroit William C. Maybury, and was re-elected in 1902, serving from 1901 through 1904.
During his four years in office, the Michigan Employment Institution for the Adult Blind was established in Saginaw, a state highway department was formed, and railroad taxation was sanctioned.
Source: Aaron T. Bliss wikipedia entry
William Ferguson was born on May 22, 1857 to the family of Joseph Ferguson, the first African American graduate of the Detroit Medical College. He was educated in Detroit schools. Ferguson had a successful career in printing and real estate and also became a lawyer.
In 1890 he was expelled from Gies’ European Hotel Restaurant for refusing to eat in the colored section. He filed a lawsuit and was the successful plaintiff in a landmark civil rights case before the Michigan Supreme Court — Ferguson v. Gies — when the court ruled that separation by race in public places was illegal. The ruling propelled Ferguson to a prominent position in the African American community, and he subsequently became Michigan’s first African American legislator when he was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in 1893 and again in 1895.
A photo of William Ferguson.
Ferguson died in 1910 and is buried in section 10, Lot 54, of Historic Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit.
A Michigan Historical Marker was placed at Ferguson’s former homesite on Alfred Street near the Brewster Wheeler Recreation Center.
Source : Historic Elmwood Cemetery William Ferguson Biography
Ferguson was a Republican from Detroit at a time when most African Americans were Republican, thanks to their appreciation of the efforts of Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party on their behalf.
Source : Nick Minock, “First Portrait of African-American to be placed in Michigan State Capitol building“, Newschannel 3, February 23rd 2018.