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
The first Holland Tulip Time was held on May 18, 1929.
Two years earlier, local high school biology teacher Lida Rogers had pitched to the Women’s Literary Club the idea of planting tulips in the city and dedicating one day every spring to the Dutch flower, according to Randy Vande Water, a local historian and former editor of the Holland Sentinel who wrote the book “Holland: The Tulip Town.”
In 1928, Mayor Earnest Brooks suggested the city buy 100,000 tulip bulbs from the Netherlands, which were planted in his backyard, Centennial Park and along some city streets. (Tulip Lane now runs more than 6 miles.)
After the successful 1929 start, the 1930 festival included an operetta by Holland High School students and a flower show at the local Masonic Temple, organized by area nurseries. The next year, the tradition of scrubbing the streets in period costumes began, and 1932 saw the debut of parades.
Starting in the late 1930s, Hollywood stars joined the fun; later years saw Bob Newhart and “The Lawrence Welk Show” performers, and earlier this month, Bill Cosby. President Gerald Ford, who previously represented Holland in Congress, was the first sitting president to go to Tulip Time; the next presidential election year, former Presidents George Bush and Ronald Reagan came.
Tulip Time wasn’t held in 1943-45, because of World War II.
Now Holland’s premier event draws thousands of people every year.
In 2018, Tulip Time was celebrated from May 5-13.
For the full article, see Zlati Meyer, “This week in Michigan history: The first Holland Tulip Time”, Detroit Free Press, May 18, 2014.
On May 18, 1929, members of the notorious Jewish organized crime organization, the Purple Gang, were arrested for arms violations and protecting Detroit drug dealers.
Source : Detroit Historical Society Facebook page
Detroit’s Purple Gang entry from the Encyclopedia of Detroit
Detroit’s Infamous Purple Gang / Paul R. Kavieff. Charleston, SC : Arcadia Publishing, c2008. Chronicles “the Purples from their days as a juvenile street gang through their rise to power and eventual self-destruction. Using rare police department mug shots and group photographs, the book transports readers through the dark side of Prohibition-era Detroit history. Detroit had a gold rush atmosphere and a thriving black market during the 1920’s that attracted gangsters and unsavory characters from all over the country.
The Purple Gang : Organized Crime in Detroit, 1910-1945 / Paul R. Kavieff. Fort Lee, N.J. : Barricade Books, c2000. The Purple Gang was a loosely organized confederation of mobsters who dominated the Detroit underworld and whose tentacles reached across the country. Beginning in the Prohibition Era, the Purple Gang prevailed in distilling alcohol and running liquor from Canada, kidnapping, and labor racketeering. This is the hitherto untold story of the rise and fall of one of American’s most notorious criminal groups. In an era resembling the Wild West when post World War I America groped for identity, chaos was the rule. And in Detroit’s underworld, the Purple Gangsters were the rulers.
Daniel Waugh, “Off Color: The Violent History of Detroit’s Notorious Purple Gang“, [Holland, Michigan] : In-Depth Editions, [2014]. Those boys are tainted, off-color!” This plaintive lament from an early 20th century Detroit pushcart merchant was said to have given the Purple Gang their nickname. Off Color is the complete story of how a group of juvenile delinquents rose from robbing street peddlers to become one of the most notorious bootlegging mobs in history. Due to Detroit’s close proximity to Canada, the Purple Gang was in a prime position to strike it rich in the illegal alcohol trade, whether by smuggling whiskey across the Detroit River, hijacking it from those who did, or making their own. Not limiting themselves to the booze business, the Purples were violent jacks-of-all crimes who dabbled in kidnapping, extortion, arson, labor racketeering, narcotics, and murder-for-hire. Noted for being extremely dangerous, the Purples were known to victimize friend and foe alike. Their nefarious influence reached into the Michigan state capitol and members of the gang were suspected of participating in both the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and the Lindbergh kidnapping. While the loosely-knit Purple Gang would eventually dissolve under a storm of prison terms and violent infighting, they endure in American history as a colorfully named group of hoodlums who rose to prominence in the wild era when booze was illegal, men wore spats, women were flappers, and gangsters like the Purples enforced their will with the business end of a machine gun.
On May 28, 1940, the phone rang in Bill Knudsen’s office in the General Motors Building. Knudsen, a Danish immigrant who had made parts for Henry Ford’s Model T in a bicycle factory in Buffalo before working his way up to become president of GM, heard a voice familiar from newsreels and radio broadcasts on the other end.
It was President Franklin Roosevelt. “Knudsen?” the voice said. “I want to see you in Washington.”
France was collapsing under the Nazi blitzkrieg. Great Britain was slated to be next. Imperial Japan’s sun was rising in the Pacific.
America had the eighteenth largest army in the world, not much bigger than Holland’s, and no defense industry — it had been dismantled after World War I, “the war to end all wars.”
What FDR needed from Bill Knudsen, one of the fathers of mass production, was to tell him how to convert America’s economy from making cars, refrigerators, radios and farm machinery into making tanks, artillery shells, and even airplanes.
Sources :
Arthur Herman, “The Arsenal of Democracy : How Detroit turned industrial might into military power during World War II“, Detroit News, January 3, 2013.
Arthur Herman is the Pulitzer Prize Finalist author of “Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II” (Random House)