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Spring 2024

Lawyer-activist Belford Lawson’s work helped reshape the national fight for civil rights. Beginning in the late 1880s, U‑M women campaigned for athletic facilities of their own. And one researcher’s quest to revive a nearly extinct rye takes him from seed banks to national parks and beyond.

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Selected Stories

A selection of stories of this issue. Please download PDF to read all content.

A Riot, a Murder, and a Psychic

by Lara Zielin

After a U-M student was killed in 1890, a psychic visited town claiming to be able to name the murderer.

Archives are for Everyone

by Katie Vloet

Meet Kate Donovan, the director of the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. She’s part of our new series about great archivists doing important work in the field.

Teaching Black History in the Early 20th Century

by Sarah Derouin

An adult-education class brought Black history to life in a Depression-era Ann Arbor classroom.

Language Lessons

by Lara Zielin

What do you do when the descriptions of archival collections are outdated, even racist? A new initiative at the Bentley is tackling a strategic, long-term fix.

Seeing Stars Through the Clouds

by Andrew Rutledge

For both astronomers and the public, predicting the weather was long an impossible dream. That is, until U-M’s Detroit Observatory trained a man who created the weather forecast.

The Business of the Hour

by Greg Kinney

Belford Lawson’s work as a lawyer and activist changed the course of civil rights in the United States. His incredible story is told, in part, through archived materials at the Bentley.

A Sporting Chance

by Madeleine Bradford

Women at U-M fought to have athletic facilities where they could exercise and play sports, same as the men. The battle highlights the ways in which women had to carve out spaces for themselves on campus time and again.

Fields of Gold

by Lara Zielin

One researcher’s quest to resurrect a nearly extinct strain of rye seed started in the archives but quickly expanded to seed banks, national parks, a whiskey distillery, and beyond.