Ann Arbor has never been a typical college town, typical industrial town, or typical agricultural center. The city was founded in 1824 by John Allen and Elisha Rumsey. Settlers from the Eastern U.S. of British origin were soon followed by Germans, who brought with them many practical skills. With the opening of the University of Michigan campus in 1841, still more people came from across the country to teach and learn. Ann Arbor in the 19th Century: A Photographic History, details the grow...

Ann Arbor began the 20th century as a modest manufacturing and farm trading center with a small co-existing university community. By the end of the century, Ann Arbor had developed into a cosmopolitan city, home to people from all over the world. Ann Arbor in the 20th Century details the important developments that occurred over a period of 100 years, as residents witnessed the growth of its neighborhoods, schools, shopping areas, and social services. Enormous changes to the physical lands...

Twenty-five years ago Grace Shackman began to document the history of Ann Arbor’s buildings, events, and people in the Ann Arbor Observer. Soon Shackman’s articles, which depicted every aspect of life in Ann Arbor during the city’s earlier eras, became much-anticipated regular stories. Readers turned to her illuminating minihistories when they wanted to know about a particular landmark, structure, personality, organization, or business from Ann Arbor’s past.Packed with pho...

Five generations of Marnie O. Mamminga’s family have been rejuvenated by times together in Wisconsin’s Northwoods. In a series of evocative remembrances accompanied by a treasure trove of vintage family photos, Mamminga takes us to Wake Robin, the cabin her grandparents built in 1929 on Big Spider Lake near Hayward, on land adjacent to Moody’s Camp. Along the way she preserves the spirit and cultural heritage of a vanishing era, conveying the heart of a place and the community that gathere...

In 1836, Irving published " Astoria ; or, Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains ;" a somewhat curious example of literary skill. A voluminous commercial correspondence was the dull ore of the earth which he refined and wrought into symmetry and splendor. Irving reduced to a regular narrative the events to which it referred, bringing out the picturesque whenever he found it, and enlivening the whole with touches of his native humor. His nephew, Pierre M. Irving, lightened his...

In this page-turning true-life whodunit, author Mardi Link looks into the cold-case files of the murders of a wealthy Detroit-area family in their northern Michigan cabin in 1968, detailing and reviewing all the evidence to date. She crafts her book around police and court documents and historical and present-day statements and interviews, in addition to exploring the impact of the case on the community of Good Hart and the stigma that surrounds the popular summer getaway. Adding to both t...

Pittsburgh Pennsylvania was the center of the world of Steel at the beginning of the 20th century. Take a look at Steel and Steel making in the industrial powerhouse of turn of the century Pittsburgh.

Historians may not agree on when or where ice cream was first developed, but there is little debate that one of the best versions of this sweet treat today is made by Graeter's Ice Cream in Cincinnati. Louis Charles Graeter started his ice cream business in 1870, hand churning the concoction in a cylinder pot set in a larger bucket of ice and salt, a contraption known as the French pot. The ice cream business in America has evolved to favor mass production, but little has changed in the wa...

Probably no American journalist, man or woman, has had a more extraordinary career than Grace Halsell. Before President Lyndon Johnson personally hired her to work in the White House, Halsell had, over a period of two decades, written her way around the world - Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Orient, and the Americas.Born on the windswept plains of West Texas, Halsell was encouraged from the age of five by her pioneer father, who had led cattle drives on the Chisolm Trail, "to...

Peoria harkens back to the 1670s glory days of the French voyageurs and became the now-familiar face of Americana--its townsfolk have touched every aspect of national and international life, often significantly. In comedy, Fibber McGee and Molly, Charles Correll, Richard Pryor, Sam Kinison, and even Bishop Sheen with his witty homilies have made Peoria the "Habitat of Humor." Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique jump-started the 1960s feminist movement, while Philip José Farmer's The Love...

     There are no tales like high-sea tales and here’s a baker’s dozen of true sea adventures—tales filled with salt spray, blood-and-thunder, and man-overboard action all guaranteed to satisfy the hardiest armchair adventurer.      Researched from ships’ logs, manuscripts, newspaper accounts and historical records and penned by Richard Dillon a gifted storyteller and one of California’s finest historians. Here’s a sampling:

Cincinnati is an amazing place to live and visit for so many reasons. Local author Wendy Beckman and illustrator Allison Ranieri celebrate the city's eight wonders--architecture, art, commerce, food, customs, geography, history and people. With its Venetian Gothic lancet arches and crystal chandeliers, the Cincinnati Music Hall stands as an architectural masterpiece. The Cincinnati Red Stockings made history as the first professional baseball team. Remnants of marine fossils from the Ordov...