Desserts by Decade: The Swinging 40's with Keegan Rodgers & Patti Smith

Join us for the next installment in AADL's new series on the history of desserts by decade.  We will focus this week on the 1940s!

The USA enters World War II, the first nuclear chain reaction is produced, and a president is elected for an unprecedented fourth term--and all that happened in just the first four years!

Stars Rising: Why U-M's Detroit Observatory Matters and Where It's Going

Why is an observatory in Ann Arbor named for Detroit? What made the Detroit Observatory a milestone for the University of Michigan and American higher education? How was the Observatory central to the growth of American astronomical science, when did it lose that role, and how did it get it back? And who were some of the people who made it all happen? Gary Krenz of the University’s Bentley Historical Library will explore these and other questions in this talk.

A History of Native American Activism and Policy

From the very beginning the United States has dealt with Native Americans with a series of policies and treaties.  Most of the policies were aimed at assimilation and forced Native Americans to live by standards set by the United States.  But with the formation of the American Indian Movement, they started to fight back.  Learn about the beginnings of the American Indian Movement and the organized protests that they led including the Occupation of Alcatraz and Wounded Knee.  And also learn how the activism of the 1960's lives on to

Discovery of a New Nation: Native Americans and the Beginning of the United States

Native History predates 1492. Native peoples have been on the North American continent for centuries before colonization began. Learn about U.S. History but from perspective of Native Americans. From the formation of the Iroquois Confederacy to landing on Plymouth Rock. From the Lost Colony of Roanoke to the tribes that participated in the American Revolution and the move westward. Discover the creation of the treaties between the United States and Native Nations.

Reception | Farmers Market Centennial Exhibit

In 2019, the Ann Arbor Farmers Market celebrates its centennial.  It was first established as a “curb market” where farmers would back their wagons or trucks up to the sidewalks around courthouse square to sell their wares.  Farmers from across the county drove vegetables, fruits, flowers, eggs, meats, dairy products, and baked goods into the city early Saturday morning to get a spot and a chance to sell to eager Ann Arborites.  After a donation of land in Kerrytown, the city enlisted the WPA to construct a permanent structure for the market, its home ever sinc

Summer of '69

The summer of 1969 is famous as a flashpoint year in the US:  Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, the full size of the hippie movement became clear at Woodstock, and the Stonewall riots stood as an example of the deep divide between progressives and the establishment.  It was a time of social upheaval in Ann Arbor as well: there were marches, protests, civil actions, and an attempt to issue a traffic ticket to a motorcyclist on South University led to several days and nights of pro

Shockwaves from Stonewall: Gay Liberation in Michigan

In the first few years following the Stonewall Uprising in New York, Michigan experienced a surge in gay liberation activism, what today might fall under the umbrella of the LGBT movement.  Historian Tim Retzloff explores the multiple queer organizations that sprang up in Metro Detroit and elsewhere in the early 1970s and key events from that time that sent political and social shockwaves through the state still felt today.

Local History Event | African American Living Oral History Project

Join the African American Cultural & Historical Museum of Washtenaw County in collaboration with the Ann Arbor District Library for Phase VI of our Living Oral History Project. Watch a clip reel of interviews with Walter Blackwell, Gerald Edwards, Henrietta Edwards, Hortense Howard, and Audrey Monagan, followed by a meet and greet and refreshments.

AACHM