Category Archives: Wayne State University

(Re)Introducing the Michigan Black History Bibliography

July 9, 2020Civil Rights, Urban Affairs, Wayne State UniversityArchives, Archives talk, Black History, Civil Rights, Michigan, Wayne State UniversityWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Reuther Library field archivist Dr. Louis Jones and former archives students and staff members Mattie Duggan and Allie Penn discuss the Reuther’s Michigan Black History Bibliography (MBHB) and the multi-year, student-led project to digitize a decades-old index card file. Meticulously compiled by Reuther librarian Roberta McBride in the 1970s, the MBHB cataloged well-known and obscure articles, theses, and other bibliographic sources about African American history in Michigan, including slavery in Detroit in the 1700s, Underground Railroad activity in the 1800s, the racism and discrimination Blacks faced in the 1900s, and African American community-building efforts throughout. Jones discusses the history and importance of the MBHB card file, while Duggan and Penn describe the efforts of the Wayne State University chapter of the Society of American Archivists to digitize the resource, with financial assistance of a Carnegie-Whitney Grant from the American Library Association.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewees: Louis Jones, Mattie Duggan, Alexandrea Penn
Sound: Troy Eller English
With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, Paul Neirink, and Mary Wallace

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Creating that “A-Ha!” Moment: Using Archives and Primary Sources to Inspire Active Learning in the Classroom

April 30, 2020Civil Rights, Labor History, Urban Affairs, Wayne State UniversityArchives, Archives talk, Primary Resource Instruction, Primary Resources, Wayne State UniversityWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Outreach archivist Meghan Courtney discusses the Reuther Library’s efforts to extend primary source instruction beyond history classes to inspire active learning in the classroom and empower students to become part of scholarly conversations. Through the Reuther’s innovative Archives and Primary Resource Education Lab (APREL), Wayne State economics students have studied Detroit-area public food programs to understand the intersection of economics and public health. Law students have examined police reports, eye-witness accounts, and contemporary reporting to weigh the evidence and draw their own conclusions about Detroit’s infamous 1969 New Bethel Incident. And K-12 teachers have learned how to integrate primary source instruction into their curricula at all age levels. Courtney also discusses how students and teachers can access digitized archival resources, and offers suggestions and resources for archives and special collections looking to make their archival instruction more robust.

Detroit 1967
Judge Damon Keith: A Life of Service and Great Purpose
League of Revolutionary Black Workers
Radicalism in American Politics
What is the Labor Movement

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Meghan Courtney
Sound: Troy Eller English
With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, Paul Neirink, and Mary Wallace

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Poorly Described Folders and Human Hair: Processing Report with ALUA Archivist Shae Rafferty

April 16, 2020Civil Rights, Labor History, Urban Affairs, Wayne State UniversityArchives, Archives talkWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Shae Rafferty, the Reuther Library’s Labor and Urban Affairs Archivist, explains what happens behind the scenes to get donated collections ready for researchers. She discusses how collections are prioritized for processing, or organizing and describing them to make it easier for researchers to find the information they’re looking for. Rafferty describes some of the memorable things she has found in the collections she has processed, both pleasant (scrapbooks made by friends and Detroit theater ushers in the early 1900s) and unpleasant (human hair). She also recalls finding a deeply important but largely forgotten log of 1940s racial incidents in a folder unhelpfully titled, “Barometer Report,” emphasizing how important it is for archivists to re-evaluate and re-describe the contents of collections to make them more findable for researchers.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Shae Rafferty
Sound: Troy Eller English
With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, Paul Neirink, and Mary Wallace

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Punishing Promise: School Discipline in the Era of Desegregation

October 17, 2019AFT, Civil Rights, Urban Affairs, Wayne State UniversityCivil Rights, Desegregation, Detroit, Integration, School discipline, StudentsWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Matt Kautz explains how his observations while teaching in Detroit and Chicago led him to study the rise of suspensions and other disciplinary tactics in urban districts during school desegregation, fueling the school-to-prison pipeline. His research has focused particularly on Boston, Detroit, and Louisville during court-ordered desegregation, for which there is ample documentation of school disciplinary codes, statistics on usage against students, and responses from administrators, teachers, law enforcement, and the community. Kautz is a Ph.D. candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewer: Dan Golodner
Interviewees: Matt Kautz
Sound: Troy Eller English

With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, and Paul Neirink

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

“You Do It and You Teach It”: 90 Years of Dance at Wayne State

September 5, 2019Wayne State UniversityDance, Wayne State UniversityWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Eva Powers, recently retired associate professor and former chair of the Maggie Allesee Department of Dance, share the fascinating history and bright future of the modern dance program at Wayne State University. One of the longest-running dance programs in the country, it traces its origins to the Dance Workshop, founded in 1928 by Professor Ruth Lovell Murray. A pioneer in dance education, Murray’s philosophy, “You do it and you teach it,” was evidenced by the Dance Workshop’s influence on a robust dance program within the Detroit Public Schools well into the 1970s. Powers also describes the bright future of the dance program at Wayne State, with state-of-the-art facilities, an impressive roster of alumni renown as much for their teaching as for their artistry, and well-respected faculty drawing more students to dance than ever before.

Reuther Library archivist Aimee Ergas discusses the photographs, videos, choreographic notes, and other documents contained within the Wayne State Dance Department Records, as well as other robust collections contained within the Michigan Dance Archive at the Walter P. Reuther Library, including the personal papers and teaching notes of Harriet Berg, Denise Szykula, and Genevieve Siegel Schoenberg.

Related Resources
Michigan Dance Archives at the Reuther Library

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewer: Dan Golodner
Interviewees: Eva Powers and Aimee Ergas
Sound: Troy Eller English

With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, and Paul Neirink

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

From the Vault: Metalsmith and Professor Phillip Fike and the Wayne State Academic Mace

April 25, 2019Wayne State UniversityWalter P. Reuther, Wayne State UniversityWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

In anticipation of the upcoming Wayne State University graduation ceremonies, University Art Curator Grace Serra and University Archivist Alison Stankrauff share the history of the university’s academic mace, a ceremonial and symbolic object carried during commencement exercises and other important events. The first mace, commissioned in the 1950s, has been lost to the ages. A second mace was created specifically for the university’s 1968 centennial. The third mace, currently in use, was crafted in 1984 by famed metalsmith and Wayne State professor Phillip Fike using ebony wood, bronze, and steel. As Serra and Stankrauff discovered during a visit to the Reuther Library’s vault, what the centennial mace lacks in artistry, symbolism, and gravitas when compared to the Fike mace, it makes up for in being easy to carry.

More Information
Blog: The Wayne State University Mace
Image: Phillip Fike Academic Mace
Image: Centennial Academic Mace
Image: Centennial Academic Mace

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Grace Serra and Alison Stankrauff
Sound: Troy Eller English

With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, and Paul Neirink

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

“She Never Gave Up on This City:” Remembering Firebrand Detroit City Councilwoman Maryann Mahaffey

February 14, 2019Civil Rights, Urban Affairs, Wayne State UniversityCivil Rights, Detroit, Fair housing, Gender Discrimination, Integration, Social Justice, Social Work, Wayne State UniversityWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Labor and Urban Affairs archivist Shae Rafferty shares how Maryann Mahaffey’s college summer job as recreation director at the Poston Japanese internment camp in Arizona in 1945 strengthened her resolve to fight against discrimination and help those in need later in her career in social work. In Detroit, Mahaffey created a tenants’ council while program director at Detroit’s Brightmoor Community Center in the 1960s, and established the Detroit Mayor’s Task Force on Malnutrition and Hunger while also teaching in the School of Social Work at Wayne State University. Although she lost her first campaign for public office in 1970, she won a Michigan Supreme Court ruling affirming women’s right to use their maiden names when running for public office.

During her time on the Detroit City Council from 1973-2005, including many years as president, Mahaffey created the city’s first rape crisis unit within the police department, expanded the city’s healthcare benefits to include gay couples, chaired the Council’s Housing Task Force, opened the Detroit Athletic Club to women. Host Dan Golodner calls for a building to be named in her honor. The Maryann Mahaffey Papers are now open and available for research at the Reuther Library.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewees: Shae Rafferty
Sound: Troy Eller English

With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, and Paul Neirink

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Dirty Socks, Goose Fat, and Hot Toddies: Cold Remedies from the Folklore Archive

January 24, 2019Urban Affairs, Wayne State UniversityDetroit, Folklore, Health care, Urban Legends, Wayne State UniversityWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Reuther Library archivists Elizabeth Clemens and Dan Golodner raise a glass for the regional and ethnic cold remedies collected in the Reuther’s extensive Folklore Archive, including whiskey, honey, lemon, hot toddies, goose fat poultices, the color red, horehound, catnip tea, dirty socks, and the more dangerous turpentine and kerosene — don’t try those at home! Clemens explores why the informants interviewed resorted to folklore remedies, why we still use them today, and why a few of these remedies just might work.

Related Collections
Folklore Archive

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewees: Elizabeth Clemens
Sound: Troy Eller English

With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, and Paul Neirink

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

The First Noel (Night): How the Public Found Its Detroit Adventure in Noel Night, The City’s Festive Cultural Open House

November 22, 2018Urban Affairs, Wayne State UniversityArts and Culture, Detroit, Events, Holidays, Wayne State UniversityWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Outreach archivist Meghan Courtney traces the evolution of Detroit Adventure, a coalition of cultural organizations founded in 1958 to promote cultural conversations and experiences in metropolitan Detroit. In 1973 the organization debuted Noel Night, a free holiday open house in Detroit’s cultural center. Now run by Midtown Detroit, Inc., Noel Night features: performances and family activities at Detroit’s midtown museums, churches, and venues; holiday shopping; food; horse-drawn carriage rides; and more. Courtney offers a sneak preview of the Reuther Library’s contributions to the 46th Noel Night on December 1, 2018: live labor- and holiday-themed music from our talented University Library System musicians; story time with children’s books from the ULS Special Collections department; Hanukkah games; festive archives-inspired crafts and photobooth opportunities; snacks and hot chocolate; and modern indoor plumbing. All for free!

More Information
NoelNight.org
Reuther Library Subject Focus: Detroit Adventure and the First Noel Night

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewees: Meghan Courtney
Sound: Troy Eller English
Music: Bart Bealmear

With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, Paul Neirink, and Mary Wallace

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

International Architect Minoru Yamasaki’s Impact on the Wayne State Campus

October 4, 2018Wayne State UniversityArchitecture, Detroit, Minoru Yamasaki, Wayne State UniversityWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Reuther Library archivist Shae Rafferty discusses the career of Minoru Yamasaki, renown architect of the original World Trade Center, the Dhahran International Airport in Saudi Arabia, and many buildings in the metropolitan Detroit area. University archivist Alison Stankrauff shares the history and design of four Yamasaki buildings on the campus of Wayne State University in Detroit.

Related Collections:

Minoru Yamasaki Papers

Wayne State University Office of the President Clarence B. Hilberry Records

Wayne State University Office of the President William Rea Keast Records

Wayne State University College of Education Building Committee Records

Collection Spotlight: Minoru Yamasaki’s Campus Buildings

Images

Wayne State University – Events

Wayne State University – Places

Virtual Motor City

Episode Credits

Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English

Host: Dan Golodner

Interviewees: Shae Rafferty and Alison Stankrauff

Sound: Troy Eller English

With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, Paul Neirink, and Mary Wallace

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Tales from the Reuther Library

Stories on labor history, Detroit, and Wayne State University

Category Archives: Wayne State University

(Re)Introducing the Michigan Black History Bibliography

Creating that “A-Ha!” Moment: Using Archives and Primary Sources to Inspire Active Learning in the Classroom

Poorly Described Folders and Human Hair: Processing Report with ALUA Archivist Shae Rafferty

Punishing Promise: School Discipline in the Era of Desegregation

“You Do It and You Teach It”: 90 Years of Dance at Wayne State

From the Vault: Metalsmith and Professor Phillip Fike and the Wayne State Academic Mace

Dirty Socks, Goose Fat, and Hot Toddies: Cold Remedies from the Folklore Archive

The First Noel (Night): How the Public Found Its Detroit Adventure in Noel Night, The City’s Festive Cultural Open House

International Architect Minoru Yamasaki’s Impact on the Wayne State Campus