Digging Detroit : The Backstory : Digging Detroit’s producers share their story and vision for the show. Featuring Thomas J. Reed, Jr., Pete Kalinski and Kevin Walsh.
Kevin Walsh, “Ken Burns-On-A-Shoestring: Creating Buzz for Launch of Mini-Doc ‘Digging Detroit’”, Huffington Post, January 1, 2015.
Digging Detroit, Episode 18 : Dearborn’s Arab American Museum : Some Arab Americans in metro Detroit trace their family back five generations, to the 1880s–while some have only just arrived. To honor metro-Detroit’s extensive role in offering haven and opportunity to one of the most influential waves of immigrants to the United States, Dearborn was selected as the site for the ten-year old Arab American National Museum. Host Pete Kalinski visits with Dr. Matthew Stiffler who shares the background of the museum and takes us on a tour through Hollywood, NASA, pro sports–and the heart of the culture, the kitchen! Dr. Stiffler helps bust a few myths–most notably that there are Arab Christians, Jews and Muslims, and that the museum is a home for all nationalities who have pursued the American dream.
Digging Detroit, Episode 17 : Birthplace of the Model T, Detroit’s Ford Piquette Avenue : In 1904, Henry Ford purchased three acres beside a railroad line off Woodward and moved his new car company from Mack to Piquette Avenue. Join Digging Detroit with special guest Tom Genova and come explore the historic Ford Piquette Avenue Plant, rescued from demolition and transformed into an amazing collection of priceless cars and fascinating stories about six revolutionary years for Detroit and America.
Digging Detroit, Episode 16 : Slavery in Detroit : Detroit has historically been seen as the last station on the Underground Railroad yet many of its residents including merchants, priests and illustrious citizens such as Brush and Macomb were slaveowners. Digging Detroit meets Prof. Tiya Miles of the University of Michigan whose team of graduate and undergraduate students uncovered a history of the colonial city that few remember or care to admit. But with the past comes inspiration from Elizabeth Dennison Forth, a former slave who became a wealthy businesswoman and landowner–whose homestead is now a parking lot. Prof. Miles takes her students on a tour of the former frontier town. Topics also include:
– Assembling a team at U of M
– Painstaking research, translation and transcription
– Primary roles of slaves including concubines
– Loaning slaves
– Importance in addressing Detroit’s past as a slave-city.
Links:
www.DiggingDetroit.com
www.MappingDetroitSlavery.com
Digging Detroit, Episode 15 : An Original Rosie, Marjorie Waters : In October 2015 the Guinness Record for the most Rosie the Riveters in one place was shattered in the heart of the arsenal of democracy. Over two thousand women paid tribute to the women of WWII by wearing red bandanas–and many original Rosies were there as well. Join our special guest host and author of the new book Detroit in World War II, Gregory Sumner, as he visits one of those original Rosies, Marjorie Walters of nearby Ypsilanti who from Wisconsin to find work in Detroit’s stove plants until the war began and she began her three years assembling bomber wings at Ford’s massive Willow Run plant. Marjorie shares…
– Her memories of the Depression,
– Seeing both President Coolidge and President Roosevelt,
– Pearl Harbor,
– Meeting her husband on the job and
– What she did in her spare time after a long hot day in the plant.
Digging Detroit, Episode 14 : Rails to Tales — Detroit’s Inner Greenway : Why did they cut the Dequindre Cut? What came first, Ford’s Highland Park plant or the railroad over Woodward? Are there really old railroad rails under those bumps on the road? Great questions! Join Digging Detroit and special guest host Gatini Tinsley of the Oakland Press as she spends an afternoon with Todd Scott, the leader of the non-profit rails-to-trails effort, the Detroit Greenways Coalition as he takes us on the historic sites of the future 23-mile bike loop around the city that will not only spur exercise but also commuter options and increased value in commercial and private property! Special thanks to Paul Vial, to Brian Wilson of the Benson Ford Research Center and to Mark Bowden, Romie Minor and AJ Funchess of the DPL’s Burton Collection for some awesome photos of the past for this episode!
Digging Detroit, Episode 13 : Treasures from the Burton Historical Collection at DPL : For Episode 13, curators Mark Bowden and Romie Minor share six of their favorite treasures from the Detroit Public Library’s Burton Historical Collection, celebrating its 100th year this fall.
Mark shares the story of Clarence Burton, a Detroit attorney whose passion for history sent him into attics, cellars and even chicken coops to save the heritage of his town. Mark and Romie’s treasures include:
– The wampum belt that was the deed of sale for Belle Isle
– Grace Bedell’s letter to candidate Abraham Lincoln recommending he grow whiskers
– A city directory that not only gives Ty Cobb and Henry Ford’s addresses but also is a genealogist’s dream-come-true
– The abolitionist newspaper “The Voice of the Fugitive,” written 10 years before the Civil War by a former slave
– A diary from inside Fort Detroit as Chief Pontiac lay siege for seven months
– A rare picture of Elvis Presley backstage at his only concert at Olympia stadium.
Digging Detroit, Episode 12 : WGPR TV’s 40th Anniversary : Dr. Banks’ Vision to Transform Detroit’s Media, Message and Messengers : 40 years ago, On September 29th, the nation’s first African American-owned television station was launched in Detroit by Dr. William V. Banks. Host Pete Kalinski is joined in WGPR TV’s original studio by station alumni, Karen Hudson Samuels and legendary Detroit anchor Amyre Makupson as they discuss the vision of Dr. Banks to create not only a station but a training school as well. As the WGPR Historical Society prepares not only for the anniversary and historical plaque from the state on Jefferson Avenue, it also prepares for its special exhibit at the Detroit Historical Museum in January. We had a chance to catch up with seven other professionals who share there insights of the early days as well as the incredible impact of Dr. Banks plan. Topics include:
– The city’s first 24-hour television station
– A telethon to save the NAACP (on six days’ notice)
– The launchpad of successful media careers across the country
– All night movies
– The first news crew in town to use videotape instead of film
– The crowd-sourcing plan to help fund the exhibit and a museum
Digging Detroit, Episode 11 : Four Generations, One Detroit Home – The Sisoy Family : Meet Peter Sisoy and his family. In the 1920s his Russian immigrant father moved his young family from the crowds of Hamtramck to the wide-open country near the intersection of Southfield Rd. and Warren Ave. Pete and his wife of 68 years, Lorene, are joined by their two daughters and two granddaughters as they share memories of the house, Warrendale neighborhood and Detroit including the early days of howling wolves, burning crops, orchards and swimming holes through WWII and streetcars to the Grande Ballroom and sporting white gloves at Hudsons.
Digging Detroit, Episode 10 : The Assassination of Jerry Buckley, Detroit’s Voice of the People : On the 85th anniversary of the assassination of famous Detroit radio voice Jerry Buckley, Digging Detroit is proud to release its 10th episode: The Assassination of Jerry Buckley – Detroit’s Voice of the People. Author of The Purples (Amazon) and Professor Tom Klug of Margrove College’s Detroit Studies Program join host Pete Kalinski as they look at the unusual story of a voice from nowhere who took over the new world of radio, led the recall of Detroit’s mayor of just six months then was brutally gunned down in a the lobby of the Woodward Avenue LaSalle Hotel the evening of the recall–and how few are alive today who know his name.
Digging Detroit, Episode 9 : Henry the Hatter – History and Haberdashery : For its ninth episode, Digging Detroit meets Paul Wasserman, owner of Henry the Hatter, whose father Seymour purchased the haberdashery from the original Henry in the early 1950s and suddenly moved his family from New York. Hats and history go hand-in-hand as Wasserman shares the ups and downs of hat popularity as well as the trending of headwear from straw hats, caps, bowlers and fedoras to President Eisenhower’s decision to choose a Homburg for his second inauguration instead of a top hat to reflect the troubling economy. Also a look at how President’s Kennedy’s too-small hat ended hat-wearing for two generations–until Kid Rock, Paul Harvey and an uptick in downtown Detroit business and major construction on the block has made business challenging for Paul, despite the resurgence in hats.
Digging Detroit, Episode 8 : Cinema Detroit – 100 Year Old School Thrives as Indie Film : As Cinetopia opens in Detroit, a film festival of all great film festivals, one of its venues is a 100 year-old school on Cass Avenue–Cinema Detroit, owned and operated by husband and wife Paula and Tim Guthat, who followed their dream to create a venue in Detroit for independent films that were scarce in Michigan, let alone the midwest. Digging Detroit’s Pete Kalinski and Thomas J. Reed, Jr. visit with Tim and Paula, talk opening a business, keeping it fresh–and of course, some favorite movies.
Digging Detroit, Episode 7 : The Ernie Harwell Sports Collection: Digging Detroit tours the incredible Ernie Harwell Sports Collection at the Detroit Public Library with curator Mark Bowden. In 1966, Hall of Fame radio announcer Ernie Harwell donated over 7,000 sports photos to the library and began the massive collection of sports memorabilia that also includes equipment, sports cards, clippings, broadcasting equipment and even Harwell’s original music. Host Pete Kalinski discusses not only the collection’s treasures but also the generous man from Georgia who has become synonymous as summer, baseball and kindness for generations of Detroiters.
Digging Detroit, Episode 6 : The Navin Field Grounds Crew : pisode 6 of Digging Detroit features the men and women dedicated to preserving the Tigers ball field of nearly 100 years. Professional baseball was played at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull for nearly a century. The Detroit Tigers played their final game in 1999 and it took 10 years for the city to complete its demolition. In just 5 years, the weeds and trash had grown so thick that few signs remained of the once manicured lawn cherished by so many metro-Detroiters. In 2010, after hearing of a pickup game of catch after Ernie Harwell’s funeral, Tom Derry visited The Corner and was so moved by its abandonment that he encouraged his friends to bring their mowers, rakes and trash bags and they began a five year journey to return the field to baseball fans. Host Pete Kalinski visits with University of Detroit professor Jason Roche whose documentary on Derry and The Navin Field Grounds Crew, Stealing Home, won the audience award at the 2014 Freep Film Festival. We discuss the new plans for the field and the controversy of removing the natural grass.
Digging Detroit, Episode 5 : Detroit’s Nain Rouge : The legend of Detroit’s ominous red dwarf goes back over 300 years, to Cadillac’s ill-advised decision to abuse the little guy while foolishly ignore a fortune teller. In Episode #5, Digging Detroit explores the legend of the little guy as he has morphed quite a bit from the mischievous house-elf of Normandy who might fix your broken saddle to the harbinger of bad-times. The Nain Rouge has become a bad guy with a badder disposition who taunts and is taunted by sturdy Detroiters in a quickly growing Midtown tradition that includes a parade, neighborhood floats and costumes resembling Mardi Gras and a Masonic Temple speech. Join us as we look inside one of the art houses preparing for the March 22nd event and check in with an expert at the Detroit Historical Museum on this elusive fellow.
Digging Detroit, Episode 4 : Historic Detroit Theaters : The Detroit Film Theatre and the Redford Theatre are featured in Episode 4 of Digging Detroit. February is the DIA’s Detroit Film Theatre’s biggest month as sell-out crowds have now made a tradition of attending the Oscar Shorts screenings–the only place in the state you can see all the live-action and animated short films in one location. The Redford Theatre, run completely by volunteers for over 30 years, has never closed its doors–despite its Japanese theme severely decreasing attendance after WWII. Now movie-star-dinners and a social media blitz campaign has made the Redford’s rentals sell-out into 2015–for films, weddings, and even power-lifting competitions!
Digging Detroit, Episode 3 : Detroit’s Music, Vault of the Detroit Public Library : Inside the musical treasures of the E. Azalia Hackley Collection at the Detroit Public Library, begun in 1943 with an annual concert to celebrate Ms. Hackley and her incredible influence on African American music and its appreciation. Special guest: Romie Minor, Curator of the Hackley Collection.
Digging Detroit, Episode 2 : Rediscovering Detroit – One Bar at a Time : For its second episode Digging Detroit joins historian Mickey Lyons and the Detroit Bus Company examining four historic Detroit bars–as Metro Detroiters are rediscovering their city by visiting its past.
Digging Detroit, Episode 1 : Tommy’s – Inside A Detroit Speakeasy : It’s been a bar off and on since 1840, but in the summer of 2013 an archaeological team from Wayne State University did some digging to uncover a hidden staircase. A look underground with Tom Burelle, the owner of Tommy’s Detroit Bar & Grill along with Prof. Krysta Ryzewski of Wayne State.
Wayne State University was a prime spot for zombie sightings today. Zombified students, staff and faculty danced, crawled and groaned their way through campus during the university’s zombie parade.
The special event was sponsored by Theatre and Dance and Music at Wayne.
For the full article, see anya Wildt, “Zombie parade lumbers through Wayne State”, Detroit Free Press, October 30, 2015.
On this day, Minnesota custodian Oscar Munson found Michigan’s discarded water jug in the visitors’ locker room. The discovery came after a bitter contest in which Minnesota dominated the Wolverines in almost every statistical category except one: points. The game ended in a tie after Minnesota scored a touchdown with two minutes left on the clock. Exuberant fans stormed the field, forcing an early end to the game, which many football pundits considered a major upset over the Wolverines. It was Fielding Yost’s first “defeat” as head coach at Michigan. It was also the first live “broadcast” of a college football game.
Source : Deborah Holdship, “Trophy life: The Little Brown Jug”, Michigan Today, September 17, 2014.
Another interesting sidelight of the game:
Gridgraph used to “broadcast” football games to Hill Auditorium
Long before Hill Auditorium hosted a signing day extravaganza, the venerable hall was regularly filled with U-M fans for away football games, following their team’s fates on an elaborate “gridgraph.” Before there was radio, the first “broadcasts” of away games were the work of The Michigan Daily, which received telegraphic updates on the game and posted them on a scoreboard on campus. For the 1903 Minnesota game (the “Brown Jug game”), U-M student David Mattice sat perched in a telephone booth atop a 40-foot pole at Northrup Field. He called the action over the telephone wire to a bank of 10 phones in University Hall Auditorium where students, each in turn, took in as much of Mattice’s commentary as they could repeat and relayed it to the crowd with a megaphone. The progress of the ball was marked on a large gridiron diagram. With the development of loudspeakers and amplifiers, the “broadcaster’s” voice could be sent directly to the crowd, and evermore elaborate gridgraphs were devised to chart the game. The model pictured was purchased by the Alumni Association in about 1921. The first radio broadcasts of U-M football came in 1924, but the gridgraph at Hill continued through the 1929 season. The Alumni Association and The Michigan Daily combined to sponsor gridgraphs at the Michigan Union for some games through 1933.
A famous performer in early twentieth century America, Houdini collapses after performing one last time at Detroit’s Garrick theater and dies on Halloween Day.
Source : Michigan Every Day.
Check out National Public Radio account
Also see Vivian M. Baulch, “Harry Houdini: Master of illusion and escape”, Detroit News, October 4, 2000 and Detroit News photo gallery.
The bridge that connects Sault Ste. Marie, U.S. and Sault Ste. Marie, Canada opened to traffic on this day in 1962.
Source : Michigan Every Day.
For decades in Detroit, Halloween Eve was synonymous with fire.
Photographers from around the globe flocked to the city to witness what became known as Devil’s Night, the notorious tradition of setting fire to houses, buildings, carsm and dumpsters.
Between 1979 and 2010, more than 100 fires broke out each year. The worst year was 1984, when firefighters responded to more than 800 blazes that covered the entire city in an eerie, smoky haze on Halloween morning.
On October 31, 1984, a combined 810 structure fires were reported in the city of Detroit for the three-day period between Oct. 29-31, marking the highest number of “Devil’s Night” blazes in the city’s history, according to the Detroit Firefighters Association.
Sources :
Steve Neavling, “Decades-long Devil’s Night is dead in Detroit, with fires disappearing on Halloween Eve“, Metro Times, October 31, 2019.
MIRS Capitol Capsule, October 31, 2019
Miles Bridges, the Michigan State star sophomore, and Sparty are featured on the cover of this week’s Sports Illustrated. under a banner called School Spirit.” It should bring a smile to anyone who bleeds Green and White!
From gender-bending costumes to gastrointestinal surprises, the history of Detroit offers some unusual practices revolving around Halloween.
Halloween wasn’t really celebrated in Detroit until late in the 19th century. An influx of Scottish and Irish immigrants in the 1840s brought the “witchier” tradition to the region, but the holiday wasn’t mentioned on paper until the 1860s.
Although there aren’t any stories that are unique to Detroiters, Amy Elliott Bragg said that a few of the stories were very funny. There were a few ways with which you would celebrate Halloween: if you were a high society type, it was a great excuse to have a huge party. Upscale hotels would have Halloween parties – the Griswold, the Detroit Athletic Club, the Boat Club – and they would decorate in a harvest themed motif. People would congregate at Grand Circus Park and Campus Martius for an unofficial parade of costumes and Halloween revelry.
In an interview with Michigan Radio in 2013, local historian Bill Loomis said that there was a boom in popularity with people wanting to communicate with the dead from post-Civil War Era to the 1920s. “The Civil War saw a huge rise in the interest in that – in séances, in ouija boards and telepathy, and all kinds of things like that. Even hypnotism came around, spirit photography was real popular.
Another – considerably less safe – tradition was to bake random inedible objects into your food and serve it to unsuspecting people. “You would take a penny, a button, a key, and the fourth object varied. Sometimes it was a shell, sometimes it was a little heart charm, and you would bake it into a cake or put them in a bowl of mashed potatoes, and then you would serve the cake or potatoes,” Bragg said. “Whoever got the penny, it was said that that person would receive a fortune. Whoever got the key got the key to success. The heart charm would, of course, be true love.” Considering that biting into your food and finding inedible objects is already bad, Elliott Bragg says that the button was the worst object to find in your food. “I think the button was like, ‘You’re out of luck.’”
Yet another way to celebrate was for adults to allow “roving gangs of children” to run amok in the streets. These gangs often consisted of boys who would destroy property by uprooting people’s cabbage plants, breaking off the stalks, and throwing them at houses. They would also break off people’s yard gates and set large fires in the middle of the street. “People kind of wrote off this boy gang terrorism as, like, ‘Well you have to let the animal spirits get out once in awhile,” said Elliott Bragg.
“And sometimes, these roving gangs of children would interrupt high society parties. So, every once in awhile you would see a report where it said ‘a gang of boys busted into the Roosevelt Hotel and ran through the lobby!’ They would, like, knock over chairs, and pull off table cloths and one year they broke into a restaurant and stole a bunch of toothpicks,” Elliott Bragg said. “People were really afraid of these roving gangs of children.”
Gender-bending costumes played an integral part of terrorizing the neighborhood. “Little girls would dress up as little boys,” said Elliott Bragg. “They would parade in the streets with the freedom that they could experience as a little girl only when they were dressed up as a boy. And the boys would sometimes put on girls clothes while they were running around and breaking things.”
Even though Halloween was overwhelmingly a playful holiday, some children in these roving gangs did end up being seriously hurt or killed from being too rambunctious. As Detroit transitioned from the 1930s to the 1940s, Elliott Bragg said the mischief trickled to a stop with changing societal norms. The trick-or-treating that we know today started around the 1950s.
And more recently, we have parents checking their children’s candy to make sure it hasn’t been tampered with or poisoned.
Source : Kinsey Clarke, “All tricks, no treat: Here’s how Detroiters used to celebrate Halloween“, Neighborhoods Blog.
More About the History of Halloween in General
Straddling the line between fall and winter, plenty and paucity, life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. It is thought to have originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints and martyrs; the holiday, All Saints’ Day, incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows’ Eve and later Halloween. Over time, Halloween evolved into a secular, community-based event characterized by child-friendly activities such as trick-or-treating. In a number of countries around the world, as the days grow shorter and the nights get colder, people continue to usher in the winter season with gatherings, costumes and sweet treats.
For more information and a collection of video clips explaining Halloween, visit the History Channel website.
While activity outside was minimal, with tailgating in nearby parking lots prohibited and fans told to stay home, only a few hundred folks were allowed into Michigan Stadium for Saturday’s rivalry game between Michigan and Michigan State.
The announced crowd of 615, made up primarily of immediate family members of players and coaches, was the smallest crowd ever to witness a football game at the massive 107,601-seat venue at the corner S. Main Street and W. Stadium Blvd.
Big Ten protocols aimed to mitigate the spread of the ongoing coronavirus were to blame, with schools told not to sell tickets to the public for this abbreviated nine-game schedule.
Michigan State, fresh off a seven-turnover loss to Rutgers at home, was able to keep it together and score enough deep passes to stun Michigan, 27-24, at Michigan Stadium. MSU Coach Mel Tucker was the first coach since Nick Saban in 1995 to win their debut against the University of Michigan.
Source : Aaron McMann, “Smallest Big House crowd ever watched Michigan-Michigan State game”, MLive, October 31, 2020.
Robert Cavalier de la Salle built a fort at the mouth of the St. Joseph River near St. Joseph. It was the first European outpost in the Lower Peninsula.
Source : Historical Society of Michigan