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Explore the history of thousands of African American students and their enduring legacy at U-M. This online database lists the names and years of attendance of every African American student who attended the University for any length of time from 1853-1970.

When researcher Walt Di Mantova came to the Bentley to investigate a possible family connection to the Manhattan Project of WWII, he found more than he bargained for regarding famed physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.

With more than 75,000 feet of archived materials and 340.31 terabytes of digital material—and much more—it’s challenging to pick a favorite object from the collections. Still, some special holdings have made an indelible mark on the hearts and minds of staff.

Built in 1854, the Detroit Observatory is now a museum, part of the Bentley Historical Library. Its latest exhibit, Watcher of the Sky: Making and Remaking the Detroit Observatory, explores explore the life of this historic observatory, 170 years in the making.

Joseph Campau was Michigan’s largest and wealthiest landowner at the beginning of the 19th century. A small handful of Campau family papers were donated to the Bentley in 1979, and to find more in this vein would be a rare discovery—but that’s exactly what happened recently.