Collections Magazine, Fall 2019

FALL 2019

COL L E C T ION S A P U B L I CAT I O N O F T H E B E N T L EY H I STO R I CA L L I B RA RY

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contents [features]

Letters to the Editor

When publishing entrepreneur Arnold Gingrich started his fashion magazine for men, he decided he needed “masculine” content to draw in readers. He convinced Ernest Hemingway to write for him, and the pair began exchanging letters. Their archived correspondence reveals business dealings and a friendship, though neither would last.

10 Writing Aunt Lulu

During World War II, a farmer’s wife from Lake Orion, Michigan, began corresponding with service men and women. She invited them to call her “Aunt Lulu,” and by the time the war ended, she had more than 1,300 letters. Five scrapbooks at the Bentley preserve Lulu Middleton’s efforts to give soldiers at war a kind word from home.

18 Out of the Shadows

Alice Chipman Dewey was an eager partner in social and educational reform alongside her husband, John Dewey. Of John, much is known.

However, even though Alice guided and informed their shared work, many of her contributions have been ignored or lost. Alice’s spotlight as a pioneer and leader is long overdue.

[departments] DIRECTOR’S NOTES

PROFILES

1 A Revolutionary Change

28 A Good American Family 30 Three Generations of

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2 Select Bentley Bites IN THE STACKS

24 Witnesses to History 26 Voices from the Philippines

Michigan Connections

BENTLEY UNBOUND

31 The Case of the Missing Mastodon 32 Cropsey Up Close

Ernest Hemingway poses with his three sons after catching marlin in the Bahamas in 1935. Read about Hemingway’s correspondence with Esquire editor Arnold Gingrich on page four.

DIRECTOR’S NOTES

COL L E C T ION S

Terrence J. McDonald Director, Bentley Historical Library (Left) Women at Commencement in 1912.

A Revolutionary Change ON JANUARY 5, 1870, the University of Michigan Board of Regents passed the following anodyne resolution:

(OPPOSITE PAGE) JOHN F. KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY; (THIS PAGE) BL003666

“Resolved, that the Board of Regents recognize the right of every resident of Michigan to the enjoyment of the privileges afforded by the University, and that no rule exists in any of the University statutes for the exclusion of any person from the University who possesses the requisite literary and moral qualifications.”

Its intentional vagueness notwithstanding, this was the revolutionary action that admitted women to the University. As a result, Madelon L. Stockwell of Kalamazoo was admitted to the “classical course” in the Literary College of the University on February 2 that same year. She would be the first woman admitted to the University of Michigan.

Coeducation was underway at U-M. In 2020, we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of this remarkable change.

The following fall, 34 more women were admitted: 11 in the Literary Department (predecessor of the College of LSA); three in the Department of Pharmacy; 18 in the Medical Department; and two in the Law Department.

By 1924, more than 7,000 women had attended every school and college in the University, making U-M one of the largest producers of female college graduates in the country. Some of these women became pioneer faculty in the all-female colleges in America. In those days, most

coeducational institutions—including Michigan—generally refused to hire female faculty members.

But what was it like to be one of these female pioneers? Not always easy.

We know this because, in 1924, the Alumnae Council sent surveys to more than 7,000 women who had attended the University since 1870, as well as 3,500 then-current female students.

About 3,500 of these surveys still exist.

The originals are held at the Bentley in the files of the University of Michigan Alumni Association.

To celebrate the anniversary of coeducation, the Bentley has partnered with the University Library to put the entire collection of the existing responses online.

This collection contains both the original returned surveys—sometimes handwritten—and a transcribed version of each.

Because the alumnae were asked about both their experiences at Michigan and their lives after graduation, this collection is an unparalleled window into the lives of educated women in the time period. Their views of the University are both affectionate and sharp-edged.

Pioneering astronomer Mary Byrd from the class of 1878 was grateful for the way the University “deepened my devotion to genuine scholarship, opened up new vistas of study and investigation,” but recalled that “one of my keenest memories of college days at Ann Arbor is that the women

students were unwelcome.”

Chicago doctor Bertha Van Hoosen praised “the delightful relation that existed in the literary class of ’84 in regard to the sexes,” but deplored the lack of female faculty: “As far as giving women a chance in the teaching faculty, the Univ. of Michigan is our Pseudo Mater and not our Alma Mater.”

And graduate student Isabel Brodrick praised the “cultural value of the advanced work offered,” but was “amazed to see the prevalence of the term ‘University Men’ in all appeals for University affairs, and wondered at the apparent monopoly on the part of men in University activities.”

Of course, these comments were all linked; it was in part the intellectual experience of the University that supported critical insights about its institutional culture. And therein is the lesson of this wonderful archive: Revolutionary institutional change can never really stop.

In the next calendar year, we will celebrate U-M opening its doors to women at the same time we re-commit to the ongoing transformation of the institution so that all are always welcome.

Terrence J. McDonald

Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Professor of History, and Director Browse the Alumnae Survey online: quod.lib.umich.edu/a/alumnae

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ABRIDGED

abridg #1 Most accessed collection in the past six months is the Carl M. Levin papers.

“THEIR FIRST VIEW OF THE WORLD’S WONDER CITY” “I decided in my teens that I would do what one woman could to show that women had as much brains as men.”

Mountaineer Annie Peck Smith’s partial response to questions on the Alumnae Survey, which was sent to women who had attended U-M from 1870 (when they were first admitted) to 1924. More than 3,000 women responded, and their answers have recently been digitized and made available online.

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An immigration official points out the New York skyline to immigrant children in this 1920 image from the Theodore Wesley Koch Collection. Today, reproductions from Koch’s collection can also be found in the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration.

3322061 U.S. patent number for a device that could power rotisserie units for grilling. It would be capable of “continuously rotating the food” without an electrical outlet or fuel-driven engine because it would use “heated charcoal for driving power.” It was the product of prominent African American inventor Orville Zackariah Frazier (1896–1971), an engineer for the Crow-Elkhart auto company, who held a total of 16 patents. The Bentley has a family scrapbook of Frazier, his family, and friends, with images taken circa 1880–1910. The scrapbook has recently been digitized and made available online.

@GLOBALMICHIGAN #TBThursday Japanese Crown Prince Akihito visited @umich in 1953, via @michigandaily and @umichBentley. He later became emperor in 1989.

Earlier this year, he handed over the throne to his son Naruhito.

ged

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COL L E C T ION S

6,028 Number of names in a Bentley database as part of the Library’s ongoing work to identify African American students who attended U-M from 1897 to 1973.

LOST & FOUND

WAXZ The name of U-M’s 500-watt radio station, as pictured here in 1934. The station was used to maintain contact with the University’s summer camps in Wyoming, Kentucky, and northern Michigan, and with U-M groups abroad. It was also available for instruction and research.

A coin purse containing money and jewelry

See Ya Soon to Look at the Moon!

On June 26, 2019, the lenses from the Detroit Observatory’s Fitz telescope were officially packed away to be stored on North Campus while the Observatory undergoes a renovation and expansion. Fun fact: This is the farthest the lenses have ever been from the telescope since they arrived on campus in 1857.

2019 ERNST POSNER AWARD At this year’s Society of American Archivists’ meeting, Bentley archivists Melissa Hernandez Duran and Jeremy Evans were presented with the 2019 Ernst Posner Award for their article, “Rights Review for Sound Recordings: Strategies Using Risk and Fair Use Assessments.” The award came with a certificate and a $500 cash prize. Congratulations and well done!

KEY WEST CHICAGO DETROIT ITALY CHINA PHILIPPINES Some of the locations visited in this issue of Collections magazine.

A lady’s gold bracelet A gentleman’s grey unfinished kid glove for the left hand A pair of spectacles in case A Waterman gym locker receipt A University treasurer’s receipt issued to D.A. Wallace

A list of items left at The Michigan Daily office according to an ad in the paper on March 20, 1912. The owner could claim an item by coming to the Daily office and helping pay for the advertisement.

POP QUIZ Which of the following is NOT considered a presidential record?  Tax returns  Emails  Social media posts Answer: Tax Returns This was explained by Steven Booth, archivist at the Barack Obama Presidential Library, who presented a lecture to the Bentley in April on the history of presidential libraries. His talk was titled “Escorting a Presidency into History: From Roosevelt to Obama.”

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By James Tobin

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B O N D E D — A N D

A P A R T .

Arnold Gingrich, a publishing entrepreneur not yet 30 years old, was starting a magazine that nobody thought could succeed, certainly not in the deepest pit of the Great Depression.

It was to be a fashion magazine for men.

The idea had a scent of “lavender,” people said—a euphemistic way of saying only homosexual men would read about fashion. The working title, which no one loved, was Esquire.

But men’s clothiers were begging for printed material to give or sell their customers. Gingrich and his partners figured if they could sell the magazine to men’s stores in advance of printing, it might work—if they bulked up the fashion content with overtly manly fare. They jotted notes about ideal articles: “Bobby Jones on Golf, Gene Tunney on Boxing, Hemingway on Fishing.”

By Ernest Hemingway. That byline alone could convince male consumers of a publication’s masculinity. The novelist was nearly as famous for his obsessions with fishing, hunting, and bullfighting as he was for his literature.

So Gingrich pitched Hemingway. To the young editor’s delight, the celebrity novelist said yes.

Thus began a relationship that would thrive for several years in Hemingway’s prime, and the writer’s reputation helped Esquire become a leading magazine. Copies of his letters are among the highlights of Gingrich’s personal papers, which the editor’s heirs gave to the Bentley Historical Library in 1976. (The original letters are archived at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.) The gift memorializes Gingrich’s student days at the University of Michigan from 1921 to 1925. The Bentley also has the full records of Esquire, Inc., containing correspondence, manuscripts, and letters from many more authors.

The Gingrich papers reveal a side of Hemingway seldom mentioned in English courses—the canny careerist behind the gifted artist. There are lessons here for anyone who seeks not just to produce distinguished work but to make a living at it.

IN THE SPRING OF 1933,

DO NOT COUNT ON ANYTHING

The two men happened to meet in a New York book shop. Gingrich had his opening to pitch his fledgling magazine to Hemingway.

“It will try to be to the American male what Vogue is to the female,” he wrote to Hemingway after their initial encounter. “It aims to have ample hair on its chest, to say nothing of adequate cojones.

“Just short of splitting a bowel, I’ll try anything to sell you the idea of being in that first issue. Something about fishing in Florida. Or about hunting. Or about anything you like . . . . And—I promise—no editing whatever. You write and I print—no monkey business en route to the printers.”

The catch was the low fee: $250 per article. By Hemingway’s standards, that was loose change.

But the writer liked Gingrich. “You write a very good letter,” he replied. For a nonprofit publication he charged nothing at all, he said, but for a commercial publication, he demanded “the top rate they have ever paid anybody. This makes them love and appreciate your stuff and realize what a fine writer you are.”

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“JUST SHORT OF SPLITTING A BOWEL, I’LL TRY ANYTHING TO SELL YOU THE IDEA OF BEING IN THAT FIRST ISSUE. SOMETHING ABOUT FISHING IN FLORIDA. OR ABOUT HUNTING. OR ABOUT ANYTHING YOU LIKE . . . .

For Gingrich he made an exception. He was about to go fishing off Cuba. “If I get suddenly flat and need 250 dollars,” he might knock out a piece for Esquire. “But do not count on anything.”

Gingrich coaxed Hemingway along, praising his work and even sending him a nice suit. (He had great connections in the clothing trade.) Hemingway promised to write one “letter” (his term for a casual piece of first-person nonfiction) for each of Gingrich’s first year of quarterly issues. “You send me the first 250 when I write for it and so on. Getting the money will make me write the piece.”

It’s not clear why he agreed to such a low fee. Whatever the reason, he asked Gingrich to keep it secret.

“Writers get paid by a certain category—i.e. what they can get—it is a racket controlled by supply and demand. I would rather write for nothing if I had any way of living or enough cash otherwise. Because I haven’t I have to keep the category that I have and charge them plenty . . . . But if you tell anyone I wrote you pieces for 250 it would cost me 2500 a piece . . . .”

AN EYE ON BUSINESS

In handwriting or typewriting, Hemingway’s letters tumble like boulders from clause to clause, topic to topic, through thickets of punctuation.

(PREVIOUS SPREAD) LLOYD ARNOLD/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; (THIS PAGE)ARNOLD GINGRICH COLLECTION, BOX 1

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OPENING SPREAD: Hemingway outside with his typewriter in Idaho, 1939.

PREVIOUS PAGE, RIGHT: Gin grich’s introductory letter to Hemingway, asking him to be part of Esquire.

THIS PAGE, TOP: Arnold Gingrich, circa 1938.

(TOP) HS1220; (BOTTOM) ERNEST HEMINGWAY PHOTOGRAPHS, JOHN F. KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

THIS PAGE, BOTTOM: Ernest Hemingway and first mate Carlos Gutierrez aboard Hemingway’s boat, Pilar, in 1934.

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COL L E C T ION S

He reported on his opinions of other writers (Gertrude Stein “was a damned pleasant woman before she had the menopause”); his fishing expeditions (“ . . . caught 3 bonita, a mackerel, two big barracuda . . . ”); his health (“Now have an infected right finger . . . hurts like holy bloody hell”); and his productivity.

“Finished the long book [Green Hills of Africa] this morning, 492 pages of my handwriting,” he wrote from Key West in 1934. “Going to start a story tomorrow. Might as well take advantage of a belle epoque while I’m in one.”

But he also kept a close eye on business. When Gingrich invited him to go on a first-name basis, the writer said: “I’ll drop the Mr. if it means anything to you,” but only with reservations. “In dealing with anyone in business when you become pals they can always invoke the necessities of business versus your own needs”—thus “the proffessional’s [sic] reluctance to become a friend to either his employer or his audience.”

Hemingway got Gingrich to advance him $3,000 against future articles so he could buy a 38-foot fishing boat. He promised that he, or his estate, would be good for the money. “If I bump off . . . owing you money my wife will pay you what is due i.e. if I have written eight articles and owe you two . . . she will send you check for 500 at same time as paying undertaker.”

WARY FRIENDS

Gradually the relationship tilted toward friendship—the kind that executives might cultivate on a golf course, liking each other but watching for opportunity.

Before long, Hemingway invited Gingrich to come south for some deep-sea fishing. The novelist John Dos Passos, a pal of Hemingway, came along. Watching the two, Dos Passos saw “Papa” capitalize on the junior partner’s hero-worship.

“It was as much fun to see Ernest play an editor as to see him play a marlin,” Dos Passos recalled. “The man never took his fascinated eyes off Old Hem . . . . Sure he would print anything Hemingway cared to let him have at a thousand dollars a whack.”

But who had played whom? Gingrich had been savvy, too. It was he who had induced a world-famous writer to lend his byline to a start-up magazine at a deep discount—quite possibly the leading factor in Esquire’s early success, since Hemingway herded other big names, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ring Lardner, and Dos Passos himself, into Gingrich’s stable.

Hemingway’s generosity fully emerged when Gingrich sought his advice on writing.

The editor, a bear for work, had written a novel in his spare time, and the early draft was good enough to earn a contract from Alfred A. Knopf, a prestigious publisher.

Hemingway warned Gingrich about the danger of splitting his time between writing and business.

“You have this ungodly amount of drive and energy . . . ,” he wrote Gingrich, “but no matter how good a paragraph it would make for your obituary how you ran this mag days and wrote a novel nights . . . that is not the way to write a novel. Writing a novel is such

hard work that it is a full time job.

“The real secret in writing a novel is to keep inside of your action all the time like a horse. Don’t let the damned horse run away on you when you are going to have to keep racing him forever. And always stop at an interesting place when you still know what is going to happen. Then you can go on from there the next day and the next and etc . . . . Do a certain amount every day or every two days and always stop where it is interesting and while you are going good.”

When Gingrich defended the draft of his second novel against one of Hemingway’s critiques, the pro took the amateur to school.

“You’ve gotten yourself into a hell of a state about this book Arnold,” he lectured. He cautioned Gingrich against getting too attached to his words. “Goddamn it if you start defending what you write instead of attacking it to yourself and trying to beat it or better it or get rid of it you make yourself into an amateur.” He told the young writer that words couldn’t just mean something to the writer, they had to mean something to the reader, too. And that an amateur wouldn’t know the difference. “You want to split yourself into two people—the one that is to receive and the one that is to give. An amateur never can cut anything out or change anything radically Because He Wrote It.”

POSTSCRIPT

In the summer of 1936, deep into drafting a new novel, Hemingway begged off his commitment to Esquire.

“It is practically a sin against the holy ghost for me to interrupt writing the novel at this point to write a [journalistic] piece or a [short] story,” he told Gingrich. “If I don’t give it every bit of juice I have . . . I’m a son of a bitch . . .

“I feel goddamned bad about this Arnold . . . . I think of you as the best and most loyal friend I have and the one guy who knows what I am trying to do. By staying out of the magazine now I am probably f---ing up my commercial career as badly as I f---ed up my critical status (the hell with it) by staying in it. But I haven’t any choice as long as I am working on this.”

Hemingway was writing To Have and Have Not (1937), parts of which drew a thin veil of fiction over the real-life marriage of the millionaire-executive G. Grant Mason and his socialite-sportswoman wife, Jane Kendall Mason. Hemingway had been conducting an affair with Mrs. Mason whenever he was in Cuba, where her husband was running Pan American Airlines.

When Gingrich urged Hemingway to soften the novel’s hard edge in order to avoid a libel suit, the two argued, and that was the end of the friendship.

It was complicated. Gingrich and Jane Mason married in 1940.

When one of Hemingway’s sons asked why he had suddenly stopped writing for Gingrich, the novelist said the former friends had “disagreed about a blonde.”

Hemingway’s letters to Arnold Gingrich fill several folders in the 25 boxes of Gingrich papers at the Bentley Historical Library. This collection is open to the public.

Additional sources for this story:

Scott Donaldson, By Force of Will: The Life and Art of Ernest Hemingway (2015); Bernice Kert, “Jane Mason and Ernest Hemingway: A Biographer Reviews Her Notes,” Hemingway Review, 21:2 (Spring 2002); Arnold Gingrich, Nothing But People: The Early Days at Esquire (1971); and Hugh Merrill, Esky: The Early Years at Esquire (1995).

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During World War II, Lulu Middleton wrote letters to service men and women, sending along advice, cookies, candy, and ultimately a connection to home in Michigan.

By Cinda Nofziger

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In 1943, Lulu Brown Middleton, a farmer’s wife from Lake Orion, Michigan, read the names of World War II service men listed in her local paper.

“I just think I’ll write to them,” she thought. And so began what became a massive undertaking.

By the end of the war, Middleton had corresponded with more than 500 service men and women, primarily from Lake Orion and Oakland County, Michigan. She carefully saved their letters, still nestled into their envelopes, in five scrapbooks—four of which are now housed at the Bentley Historical Library.

The scrapbooks contain approximately 1,300 letters, plus photographs and mementos sent from the war. The collection reveals a woman who cared deeply about connecting with young people, many of whom she hadn’t met, but to whom she still became family. “Just as soon as you are in the service, I automatically become your Aunt Lulu, so of course I know you and I hope you feel acquainted (This page) Wallace with me,” she wrote.

Through “Aunt R. Furber sent a series of three mil- Lulu,” these Oakland County seritary training photos to Middleton, vice members identifying himself learned about in this one. home, even as they moved (Opposite page) V-mail consisted of around European and Pacific thesmall, notoriously hard to read letters. aters. The majority of the letters The Bentley was in her scrapbooks able to scan and enhance this note come from men, from Corporal Sam whom she called Burman stationed her “nephews,”

in Italy.

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but Middleton also wrote to her “nieces.”

She wrote to hundreds of soldiers, sailors, pilots, nurses, Women’s Army Corps volunteers (WACs), Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service members (WAVES), and other military personnel.

they raised three sons and owned a 200acre farm. She was active in her church and various clubs, and, before the war broke out, had been submitting content to the local paper for years—in the form of recipes.

From Recipes to Reserves A Beautiful View The Lake Orion Weekly Review, Middleton’s local paper, was the connective thread in Middleton’s correspondence. She would send the paper the letters she got from service members, and the paper would reprint excerpts, sometimes with Middleton’s comments included. Middleton would at times reply to a letter through the paper itself. The public correspondence was a way for Middleton to let the community know whom she’d been writing to and whom she had heard from.

The public correspondence went far beyond Lake Orion.

The local American Legion Charlton-Polan Post 233 sent the Weekly Review to “every service man and woman from Orion and Oakland Township,” according to an article published in 1964. In this way, Oakland County service members learned about home and stayed in contact with each other, even as they moved around Europe and the Pacific.

Middleton was the perfect person for the job. Born in Orion Township in 1881, she never strayed far from the area.

She was educated at Pontiac Normal School, then became a teacher. She married Frank Middleton in 1908. Together,

In May 1943, Middleton began corresponding with Private Perry Galpin when he was stationed at Camp Gordon, Georgia. Galpin lived in Pontiac until he joined the Army, but his parents had moved to Lake Orion, which is how Middleton began writing to him. They continued to correspond as Galpin’s unit went to North Africa on its way to Italy. There, he fought in the Battle of Anzio beachhead, then moved to France, where he helped “clean out the Colmar Pocket” before he “finally got” to Germany.

Over the next two years, in approximately 80 letters, Galpin shared some of his experiences, reflections, and memories of home with Middleton. “It really makes a person feel a lot better to receive a letter like the one you wrote to me,” he told Middleton while he was in North Africa in 1943.

Galpin was often careful to note how long it had been since he’d received mail, or how many other letters he needed to send. Frequently, he was low on paper, and usually asked Middleton to send him more. Otherwise, he’d have to send letters on “V-mail,” a special type of mail

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designed to take up less weight and space during overseas transport. Writers would use particular paper to compose their missives, then those papers would be microfilmed. They’d be carried to the U.S., where the letters would be printed, but they ended up very small—almost illegibly so.

Galpin, and others with whom Middleton corresponded, complained about using V-mail and worried that it would be hard for their friends and relatives to read.

Galpin and Middleton sent each other jokes in their letters, and traded reminiscences about the Orion and Plymouth areas. Sometimes, Galpin would write descriptions of places he remembered from home. In a V-mail from April 1944, he writes about looking out from a hill between Orion and Rochester. “Just before dark, when the sun is setting, it is a beautiful view to see when everything is fresh and green in the spring.”

Occasionally, Middleton and Galpin would discuss other servicemen from home whom they both knew. In December of 1944, he talked on the phone with his pal Sam Burman, another “nephew” of Middleton’s and a Lake Orion resident. Galpin and Burman made plans to meet as they were in the same area, but Burman’s unit moved before Galpin got to him.

Galpin almost always described the places he was when he wrote—whether that was in an older couple’s home in France, or on guard duty with the paper in his lap. In a foxhole on an Anzio beach, he wrote, “we have a mouse or two that eats our C-ration crackers.” In France, he wrote, “today you would find me in the kitchen of a house, along a rail road track. An old couple lives here and at this time, mamma is sitting in a chair with her [head] bent over catching a few winks of sleep. Papa, likewise only he is in a[n] arm chair where it is more comfortable. His book and glasses are on the table in front of me. Outside it is raining and blowing and really dark.”

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Almost Like a Mother to Me

They also sent each other more than letters. Middleton sent Galpin blank paper, candy, and cookies in care packages.

Galpin wrote a thank-you message for some maple candy that Middleton had sent. They exchanged photographs. Galpin sent samples of money back from the various places he was stationed, an armband from the Hitler Youth movement, and cans of sand, an easy-to-get souvenir during a tough time.

Galpin and Middleton became close, as revealed through the more intense and sometimes difficult conversations they had. Middleton asked for advice about what she should say to soldiers she met on the streets, and Galpin asked for advice about his girlfriend, who wanted to live in the country, while Galpin wanted to remain in Pontiac. The two broke up.

Galpin also revealed to her how scared he was in letters written from the Anzio beachhead, the location of a months-long battle of Allied forces against German and Italian troops for control of Rome.

In April 1944 he wrote, “[A] short time ago I was crawling in here while some shells were exploding nearby. All during that time I was saying a silent prayer to myself.” About a month later, he wrote, “Well Aunt Lulu, yesterday I just missed death by 3 minutes and I sure thanked God for keeping me safe. I just broke down and cried when I found out what happened.

I can’t say more than that because of the censorship, but this morning I am still nervous about the thing.”

Later, Galpin apologized for sharing so much. He wrote, “I guess when you don’t know who will get it next that you start talking all you know.” But through it all, Middleton provided a sounding board for Galpin, even as he struggled with telling stories and describing how those moments felt.

“I spill my feelings on to you once in a while and you come right back to me almost like you were a mother to me,” Galpin wrote.

Galpin continued to write to Lulu until he returned to the U.S. in 1945. His last letters to her are Christmas cards, sent from Pontiac. Galpin continued to live in the area. He married and raised two children.

For 25 years, he drove for GM Truck and Bus before retiring in 1987. He died in Rochester Hills, Michigan, in 2018, at age 95.

A Look Inside

Middleton kept the letters and envelopes from her “nieces and nephews” in carefully constructed scrapbooks. The pages are organized somewhat chronologically and include maps—of the United States, Europe, Asia, and the world on which she marked the locations of her correspondents. She listed their names and where they were stationed.

Her scrapbooks also include some of the souvenirs that her correspondents sent, including paper money, badges and patches, cartoons, newspaper clippings, and photographs.

These artifacts provide a rich look into the lives of individual service men and women during World War II. They offer insight into soldier’s experiences and thoughts as they served in various capacities around the world.

The Bentley Historical Library acquired the collection in 1964. Middleton passed away in 1969 and was buried in Eastlawn Cemetery in Lake Orion.

Lulu Middleton’s scrapbooks are open to the public.

COL L E C T ION S

(Previous spread, left) Middleton put stars on a map indicating the places where her many pen pals were stationed; (previous spread, right) Middleton meticulously kept letters and memorabilia

from everyone with whom she corresponded.

(This page) Fallen soldiers are remembered in the local paper.

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A lice C hipman D ewey was a philosopher , social reform er , educator , pioneer , and among the ear liest women to graduate from U-M .

H er

incredible leg acy has been historically overshadowed by that of her husband , J ohn

D ewey , though research and papers at the

B entley are now helping define

A lice in

her own right .

By Sarah J. Robbins

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(PREVIOUS SPREAD) HS176; (OPPOSITE PAGE) HS904

OF

New York, who championed the rights of women and American Indians.

Chipman had wanted to attend the University of Michigan immediately upon her graduation from high school, but she instead stayed closer to home to care for her grandmother. She studied music briefly, and then saved money for tuition while working as a high school teacher in nearby Flushing. Though she matriculated later than she would have liked, she was still among the first women attending classes at U-M

the little that is well-known about the rich life and therefore in the country. That’s because U-M’s president, James B. Angell, held a of Alice Chipman Dewey—one of the first women to much more progressive attitude about edugraduate from the University of Michigan, a founder cating women than most other higher education leaders at the time. But even at her and a freethinker and a philosopher, who dedicated forward-thinking university, only 10 perher life to education reform—almost all is connected cent of her classmates were women. to her husband, John Dewey. The two shared the In those days, the trees on the Diag had same boarding house in Ann Arbor, on the northwest just been planted, and dormitories didn’t exist. “The students were taught self-relicorner of Maynard and Jefferson Streets. It is here ance by being thrown together in boardwhere Chipman, a philosophy major, first got to know ing houses—just as they are forced to live when they leave college,” wrote U-M stuthe shy new instructor in the Department of Philosdent Genevieve O’Neill in response to a ophy, when they both were in their mid-20s, more 1924 survey of all of U-M’s female graduates than 135 years ago. conducted by the University of Michigan Alumnae Council, and known more comOf John Dewey, much is known: He is widely considmonly today as the Alumnae Survey. “The interminered to be a leading American philosopher, a propogling of boys and girls in the same home brought about nent of pragmatism, and a pioneer of social reform a democratic and broadminded outlook upon life, as and progressive education. Of his partner of 41 years, well as mutual understanding between the sexes.” “no biography of her has ever been written, and she Chipman and her classmates struggled for equal has been virtually neglected in the historical literature access.

Still, six out of 13 philosophy majors in her graduon progressive education,” wrote Irene Hall in her 2005 ating class were female. Chipman had already taken sevthesis The Unsung Partner: The Educational Work and eral classes in the department when Dewey arrived as an Philosophy of Alice Chipman Dewey. “She is mentioned instructor, earning a $900 annual salary. She eventually in biographies of her husband, but these biographies took three of his classes: Plato’s Republic, Special Topics provide little insight into her thinking or her life.” in Psychology, and Greek Science and Philosophy.

As U-M prepares to mark the 150th anniversary of As they become more closely acquainted, Dewey was women’s admittance in 2020, there is still so much to working on his first book, Psychology, as well as two understand about profound ways that women have early articles—one that analyzed the method of social shaped the university and the world. And nowhere is science, and the other that looked at the effect of a unithat power more apparent than in the story of Chipversity education on women’s health. The latter seemed man Dewey, who guided her husband’s focus from a departure for the philosopher, wrote Linda Robinson the purely theoretical to the more practical. She was Walker in her 1997 Michigan Today article, “John Dewey an equal partner in many ways—particularly in his at Michigan”: “It suggests that by 1885 he was a feminist quest for education reform. And materials at the Bentand one of the reasons may have been the influence of ley Historical Library help paint a richer and more Alice Chipman.” detailed picture of her life and work.

At Michigan, Chipman helped establish the firstever college chapter of the women’s club Sorosis, C ommon G round which was founded in 1868 in New York City, and Harriet Alice Chipman was born in 1858 in Fenton, included the writer George Eliot, the abolitionist and Michigan. She and her sister, Augusta, were raised by women’s suffragist Lucretia Mott, and many other their freethinking maternal grandparents when both powerful women of the day. Along with Dewey, of their parents died before she was five years old. Her she was also a founding member of a Russian grandfather was originally a fur trader from Upstate

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P revious pages : Alice Chipman Dewey was a member of the Samovar Club, which met to discuss literature and philosophy and drink hot chocolate.

Members in this photo are: (Back row, standing left to right) Elise Jones, Charles H. Cooley, Allen Pond. (Seated left to right) Will McAndrew, Alice Chipman, Caroline Gelston, Mary Ashley, Delbert J. Haff.

T his page : University of Michigan campus circa 1863.

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literature club called the Samovar. In the words of the Argonaut, the student-run paper before The Michigan Daily, the club took its name “from the Russian tea pot around which the members will gather on the snug winter evenings of the coming season.”

Chipman was particularly interested in Tolstoy’s accounts of establishing his own free school for peasant children and his analysis of public education.

These tea-time talks, and the time they spent together around them, reflected big questions about social progress at a time of widespread industrialization and urbanization.

H ome A s S chool , S chool A s L aboratory Dewey was promoted to assistant professor in 1886, with a huge salary increase—to $1,600. In preparation for her graduation that year, Chipman sat on the committee that sent out invitations to the senior reception.

She did not, however, consent to adding her height, weight, and hair and eye color to be catalogued in the yearbook, then called the Castalian. The couple married a month later, in Chipman’s hometown.

Though Chipman Dewey continued her association with Sorosis and helped found the University’s Women’s League in 1890, her focus turned inward. Decades later, she would respond to her own 1924 Alumnae Survey survey and list her career as “homemaker.”

She saw and seized true power in that role—first as an active faculty wife, hosting receptions in a home that, according to the wife of one of Dewey’s colleagues, was “a meeting place for the best minds in Ann Arbor.”

The couple would have seven children; the first, Fred, was born in July 1887, and two more would follow in Ann Arbor. The couple’s letters from this time reveal hands-on, self-reflective parents who believed in the value of discovery and independence.

In one letter, Chipman Dewey wrote that children “show the value of their bringing up in the way they look after themselves.”

Some of this freedom did raise the ire of the neighbors. One dissertation on Dewey, written by Willinda Savage, includes the remembrance of a fellow professor’s wife, who said that some parents “had to convince their own children that they couldn’t ignore shoes and stockings as the Dewey children did.” The Deweys seemed to care little for appearances, working to find, follow, and foster their children’s interests.

These efforts ranged from supplying cameras, tools, and stamps for collecting, or inviting Fred and his sister Evelyn to witness the home birth of their younger brother, Morris.

The Deweys’ study of their children was driven both by love and academic interest. In The Psychology of Infant Language, published in 1894, Dewey charted the behavior of Fred and Evelyn

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over the course of 19 months, concluding that having other children in the family helps the speed and range of vocabulary development.

This focus on language—including foreign language—was a priority, and the children benefited from immersion: In 1894, Chipman Dewey and the children spent several months in Europe, sending letters home that detailed time with French teachers, trips to Versailles, and many books. Two-year-old Morris contracted diphtheria on this trip and died while the family was overseas.

This tragedy marked the close of the family’s time in Michigan. John Dewey had accepted a new position at the University of Chicago, where he would oversee a new department that combined philosophy, psychology, and education.

P racticing T heory The Deweys’ circle in Chicago included many of the other progressive leaders of the day, including Jane Addams, co-founder of Hull House, one of the nation’s first social settlements (John Dewey was a trustee for several years). Chipman Dewey and Addams were very close, according to Hall, who says that they shared beliefs about education and social action. One of the Dewey girls, Jane Mary, was named after Addams and her lover, Mary Smith.

To further both their work and their children’s educations, the couple together founded the University Elementary School, widely known as the “Laboratory School,” in 1896. Unlike many schools of its kind, which prioritized teacher training, it instead focused on investigating ideas and methods. Chipman Dewey directed the school’s English program; she also served as principal from 1900 to 1904, growing the original 16 students to a group of 140, who ranged in age from four to 16.

Among the ideas that guided Chipman Dewey’s work at the school was her belief in the important connection between school and home. Cooking was a key part of the curriculum, for example, incorporating math, science, art, and social interaction. She expected a great deal of her teachers, writing that their job was “to give the child a fair opportunity to reveal himself.”

Neither Chipman Dewey’s standards nor her methodology suited everyone. There was friction between the Deweys and the president of the University of Chicago, William Rainey Harper, both over the school itself and his broader views of education, including his belief that men and women should be taught in separate classes. In 1904, Harper consolidated the Laboratory School with another campus school, causing an abrupt end to Chipman Dewey’s tenure. Her husband resigned the next day in protest, later accepting a role at Columbia University.

Before Chipman Dewey and the children settled in

New York, they embarked on another sea voyage to Europe, on which Gordon contracted typhoid fever. He died soon after. (The Deweys later adopted Sabino, a child they met in Venice, completing their family.)

While in New York, Chipman Dewey continued to write and to teach, developing coursework for correspondence courses through the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences for Non-Residents. Chipman Dewey’s focus was elementary education; she wrote in the introduction to one methods class that “all teaching should follow an order that is to some extent new, that has some degree of variability in its progress.”

The years to follow brought much writing, travel, and activism—particularly for the cause of women’s suffrage. Chipman Dewey was the vice president of the College Equal Suffrage League of New York City—a part of the National American Woman Suffrage Association—which, according to Hall, focused on the idea that education was a tool to bring about social change.

She later served as Assembly District leader for the Woman Suffrage Party of New York City, sparking controversy in 1911 for inviting both white and black women to her home for a recruitment drive.

The slow progress toward suffrage disturbed Chipman Dewey. Writing to her daughter, Lucy, she asked, “This is still a world of sad revelation for what men do and do not think about women, is it not?”

Her study of women’s rights took on an international focus in later years, particularly in 1919, when the couple went on an extensive speaking tour of Southeast Asia, also spending several months in Japan and then time in China. During a later trip to Mexico, in 1926, Chipman Dewey suffered a heart attack, followed by a series of other ailments from which she never recovered. She died in 1927, just before her 70th birthday.

Despite an outpouring of remembrances after her death, Chipman Dewey’s influence seemed to quickly fade from view. In John Dewey’s obituary in The New York Times, 25 years after his wife’s death, she is mentioned briefly and in name only—a pattern that has been followed by many biographers since.

These omissions distressed her children, writes Hall, who sought to rectify this in her own course of study. Without “understanding Alice Dewey’s crucial work as an innovative educator and social activist,” she argues, biographies of John Dewey and histories of 20th century education are incomplete.

There is not an Alice Chipman Dewey collection at the Bentley Historical Library, though the collection of her husband, John Dewey, is open to the public.

Additional sources for this story include:

Jim Tobin, “The First Women,” Heritage.umich.edu; Linda Robinson Walker, “John Dewey at Michigan,” Michigan Today, Summer 1997; Irene Hall, The Unsung Partner: The Educational Work and Philosophy of Alice Chipman Dewey, Harvard thesis, 2005; The 1924 University of Michigan Alumnae Council Survey (Alumnae Survey)

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(Clockwise from top) Street scene from Nanchang, the city where the Blydenburghs lived from 1920–1931; cart traffic on a road in northwest China; a man pushing a large wheelbarrow pauses for a photo; the ancient city walls of Nanchang being torn down, 1927; farmers raise water from a stream to irrigate their crops.

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Witnesses to History A newly digitized collection gives a rare glimpse into China during a time of upheaval and civil war.

By Robert Havey

CHINA WAS AT A CRITICAL POINT IN THE 1920S AND ’30S. Warlords, Nationalists, and Communists vied for control of the country, while new technologies—cars, electric lights, telephones—were transforming the ancient cities and the lives of the people who lived there. Historians and archivists look high and low for primary sources from this time when modern China was formed.

In the case of the Blydenburgh collection, they didn’t need to look any further than a dining room table in Saline, Michigan.

In 2015, Dr. Michael O’Donnell was looking for a home for the papers of his grandparents, George and Marion Blydenburgh, who were missionaries in China in the 1920s. Their photo albums, glass lantern slides, and boxes of correspondence had been stored in family closets and basements for nearly 90 years.

George and Marion were 29 years old when they left Middletown, Connecticut, to start their lives together as missionaries. They settled in the city of Nanchang, where Marion worked as a teacher and raised the couple’s three children. George was a physician who led the transformation of a small clinic into the first Western hospital in China by raising funds, training medical staff, and serving as superintendent.

Both George and Marion wrote letters frequently to their family back in the United States, describing in detail their work and their day-to-day lives. George also took many photos, capturing high-quality images of daily life in Nanchang. The photos and correspondence are now digitized and available online.

In a letter written in late 1926, George related his account of a battle fought in Nanchang. The hospital was inundated by wounded from both sides. “In the halls and corridors they were lying on the floor,” he wrote. “We had to turn away scores, and only took those who we thought we could help by operation.”

When the fighting ended, George and the hospital had “won the gratitude of the people” for treating each patient regardless of which side they fought for.

In 2015, Dr. O’Donnell invited Joseph Ho to evaluate his grandparents’ collection.

At the time, Ho was a Ph.D. candidate in U-M’s Department of History; today he is a history professor at Albion College, where his research focuses on photographs and films made by American missionaries in modern China.

“The first time I went to [Dr. O’Donnell’s] house, he had this all this stuff laid out on his dining room table. I knew right away this was something special,” said Ho. “It’s the kind of thing historians dream of, this near perfect situation where you have visual material and documentation with a family connection, all very well preserved and waiting for someone to explore.”

O’Donnell chose to donate the Blydenburgh collection to the Bentley. “We discovered that the Bentley would store the collection in a way that would extend its life by 200 years, while still making the actual documents available to scholars and students, and most importantly that it would digitize the full collection,” O’Donnell said. “I wanted to honor my grandparents by making their contributions more visible.” n The full collection is available online at quod.lib.umich.edu/b/blydenburgh

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SINCE 2015, THE MICHIGAN IN THE WORLD PROGRAM has brought undergraduate

Voices from the Philippines A history professor and her undergraduate research fellows bring fresh eyes to the fraught history of American imperialism in the Philippines.

By Robert Havey

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researchers to the Bentley for a deep dive into a particular historical moment or theme. In the summer of 2019, LSA History Professor Deirdre de la Cruz and her team of research fellows explored the Bentley’s archive for material relating to the Philippines during the first 35 years of American colonialization.

The Philippines had been a colony of Spain for centuries before it became a U.S. territory in the aftermath of the 1898 Spanish-American War. As part of the Treaty of Paris, Spain sold the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico to the United States for $20 million. Filipino nationalist groups, who had been denied representation at the negotiations, fought unsuccessfully against their new colonial government.

The Philippines would not be fully independent of the United States until 1946.

Professor de la Cruz’s idea for her Michigan in the World project was to explore this complex time in Philippine history through primary sources at the Bentley, with a focus on underrepresented voices including native Filipinos and women. This approach presented challenges, since much of the material about that era comes from the papers and records of American men.

De la Cruz not only needed to plan on what materials the fellows would research, but also teach them how to dig deep enough to uncover the material’s hidden stories.

De la Cruz brought her idea for the project to the Bentley’s “Engaging the Archives” seminar in winter 2019. The seminar was an opportunity for faculty members from around the university to collaborate with archivists on how to use primary sources in their classrooms.

“For part of the seminar we were supposed to produce a syllabus where we would use something from the collections,” said de la Cruz in an interview with the Bentley. “What I decided to do was, rather than have my final assignment be a regular semester course, was to have it be this Michigan in the World project.”

De la Cruz used the seminar as an opportunity to discuss her concerns with archivists about the potential bias in the material. “I think I posed it as a challenge to everybody as to how we could, with an archive that might be so weighted in one direction in terms of who’s represented, think creatively about finding sources, hearing voices, and telling stories that problematize the bigger imperial picture.”

Ultimately, her Michigan in the World students were eager to

tackle this challenge. After preliminary classes on the basics of archival research, they dove into boxes of material at the Bentley.

They found a collection of an American teacher who saved many of his students’ essays, which provided a rare opportunity to read firsthand accounts of life by native Filipinos. News reports from the Detroit News and the digitized Michigan Daily helped offer perspective on how the situation in the Philippines was viewed by Americans. “There were debates that were staged and then recorded in The Michigan Daily,” de la Cruz says, with opinions both in favor of and against colonization.

De la Cruz says that showcasing diverse perspectives was a critical component of the class. “It was really important to me that no group—American, Filipino—was seen as a monolithic category.”

The students’ research touched on many sensitive subjects, like racism, sexism, and violence, but de la Cruz says the undergraduates “brought a real level of maturity and thoughtfulness to these questions. They’ve been asking themselves: how do we research and write about this subject in a rigorous manner while still being able to take a critical angle to the history that it tells?”

Stipends for the students who studied the Philippines this summer were provided by the Jones Fund for Engaged Education, a gift from Bentley donor and U-M alumnus Thomas C. Jones (B.B.A, ’68, M.B.A. ’71), whose support will cover all the stipends for the students in this program for a total of five years.

This session of Michigan in the World is now complete, but the class will be building a website, and de la Cruz thinks there is an opportunity to expand the scope of the project to include multiple classes: “The idea is that the website that we build becomes the foundation for a continually growing digital exhibit and resource center for future teaching. There is so much [at the Bentley] that’s related to the Philippines, this project could really keep growing with every iteration of a course that I teach.” n

(Opposite page) Mary J. Johnson Methodist Hospital (Manila, Philippines), circa 1910.

(Below) Students in Deirdre de la Cruz’s history class pore over Bentley materials.

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MICHIGAN IN THE WORLD—ONLINE Michigan in the World is a paid undergraduate internship program in which students develop online public exhibitions of research about the history of U-M and its relationships with the wider world. In partnership with the Bentley Historical Library and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, students engage in extensive original research in campus archives and present their findings in a digital exhibit designed for public and classroom audiences.

MICHIGAN IN THE WORLD EXHIBITS INCLUDE: The Philippines and the University of Michigan, 1870–1935 The Social World of Black Women at the University of Michigan, 1920–1975 Give Earth a Chance: Environmental Activism in Michigan Go Blue: Competition, Controversy, and Community in Michigan Athletics (photo above) “A Dangerous Experiment”: Women at the University of Michigan The University of Michigan and the Great War Resistance and Revolution: Anti-Vietnam War Activism at the University of Michigan, 1965–1972 Ending the Business of Injustice: Anti-Sweatshop Activism at the University of Michigan, 1999–2007 Divestment in Humanity: The Anti-Apartheid Movement at the University of Michigan.

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PROFILES

A Good American Family 28 BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU

Author David Maraniss was just three years old, too young to understand what was happening when his father was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952. The Bentley’s archives helped him to make sense of his patriotic father’s place in the Red Scare as he researched his latest book, which questions what it means to be an American.

By Katie Vloet

COURTESY DAVID MARANISS

THE COVER OF THE BOOK A Good American Family pictures, as one might expect, a good American family: dad, mom, one daughter, two sons, all posed on a ferry near the Statue of Liberty in the summer of 1952. But take a closer look at the subtitle of the book and the complicated subtext of the image comes into focus: The Red Scare and My Father.

David Maraniss’s new book looks back at a time in his family’s history that he, the youngest of the children in the photo, didn’t understand until he was an adult. His father, Elliott Maraniss, had been called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) for being a communist just a few months before the Statue of Liberty visit.

“It is hard for me to overstate how much of a force for good he was . . . ,” David Maraniss writes in A Good American Family (Simon & Schuster, 2019). “But there was a time when Elliott Maraniss was a communist. I say this without hesitation, without shame or pride.” Elliott was a communist during his years as a student at the University of Michigan and beyond. He wrote articles in The Michigan Daily in which he sympathized with the Soviet Union, and he worked in communist organizations along with his wife, Mary.

But Elliott Maraniss was much more: a World War II veteran who commanded an all-black company in the still-segregated Army; a hard-working, thoughtful journalist; a beloved husband and father. He loved baseball and, the younger Maraniss says, “showed a deep belief in America and the American promise.” David Maraniss deftly contrasts his father’s devotion to his family and country with the unsavory qualities of some of the HUAC members: Committee Chair John Stephens Wood, for one, had belonged to the Ku Klux Klan and championed segregation, and had participated in the lynching of a Jewish industrialist who was falsely accused of murder. Yet Wood, Maraniss writes, “had the authority to question whether Elliott Maraniss was sufficiently American.”

David Maraniss—whose research was informed by visits to the Bentley Historical Library—returns to that theme often in the book. In discussions of his latest work during interviews and on his book tour, he also has drawn the parallels between

“I WOULD RATHER HAVE MY CHILDREN MISS A MEAL OR TWO NOW THAN HAVE THEM GROW UP IN THE GRUESOME, FEARRIDDEN FUTURE FOR AMERICA PROJECTED BY THE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES.” the Red Scare and the current era of division and hate-speech in the United States.

“The larger themes of the book are what does it mean to be an American, and who decides, and how fear is used as a tool,” says Maraniss, who has written bestselling biographies of Barack Obama, Vince Lombardi, and Bill Clinton, along with several other nonfiction books. The Pulitzer Prize winner is also an associate editor at The Washington Post.

Even before he began his research for the book, David Maraniss knew the rough outline of his father’s appearance before HUAC, which occurred when the committee took its hearings on the road to Detroit: He invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to name others who were communists. He was fired from his job on the rewrite desk at the Detroit Times, blacklisted, followed for years by the FBI, and unable to find a steady newspaper job for another five years.

What David didn’t discover until conducting research for the book were the contents of a statement that his father had prepared to give to HUAC but was never allowed to read during the hearings.

“In the 34 years of my life, in war and

(Opposite page) On the cover of David Maraniss’s latest book, the Maraniss family, with David in the center, poses on a ferry near the Statue of Liberty in the summer of 1952. Earlier that year, David Maraniss’s father, Elliott, was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

peace, I have been a loyal, law-abiding citizen of the United States,” said a portion of Elliott Maraniss’s three-page statement. “ . . . I must sell my home, uproot my family, and upset the tranquility and security of my three small children in the happy, formative years of their childhood. But I would rather have my children miss a meal or two now than have them grow up in the gruesome, fear-ridden future for America projected by the members of the House Committee on Un-American Activities.” When David unearthed the statement in the HUAC files, 63 years after the hearing, he writes that he “started to absorb, finally, what I had never fully allowed myself to feel before: the pain and disorientation of what my father had endured.”

Maraniss’s research for the book took him around the country, including numerous trips to Ann Arbor. At the Bentley, he researched the Stanley M. Swinton papers for insight about student life and David Maraniss’s uncle, Bob Cummins, a fellow U-M student who fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War; the Charles E. Potter papers for a better understanding of the member of HUAC who later wrote a book condemning the rise of McCarthyism (and who spoke the phrase to Elliott Maraniss that became the title A Good American Family); and the digitized archives of The Michigan Daily. If the Daily articles had not been digitized and therefore easily searchable, Maraniss estimates it would have taken him three months to get through them.

“The breakthroughs at Bentley were really from reading his editorials,” Maraniss says in an interview. “I knew he was an excellent writer, but I was really stunned by the sophistication of The Michigan Daily in that era. Some of the breakthroughs were, ‘C’mon, dad, how could you possibly rationalize the Soviet-Nazi pact?’

I got a better understanding of his thinking at the time, for better or worse. . . . I would say he was 80 percent a great writer and very thoughtful, and 20 percent naïve about the Soviet Union.”

His research at U-M did more than just provide data, quotes, and historical context. “The whole question was, could I put myself back in that time and place and understand what was going on,” Maraniss says. “The Bentley really helped me do that, to put myself in my father’s time.” n

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Betty Bishop has trusted the materials of her family’s Michigan legacy, stretching back to the 1800s, to the Bentley Historical Library.

By Lara Zielin

ON A SUNNY SUMMER DAY THIS PAST AUGUST, Bentley archivists carted 17 boxes of material out of the Ann Arbor home of Betty Bishop. Inside the boxes were letters from Bishop’s family, including her great-great-aunt, Helen Frances Warner, who attended U-M’s Medical School in the 1870s. But many of the letters were folded so carefully, and were so fragile, that Bishop herself hadn’t even read them.

“I wanted conservationists at the Bentley to have them first,” she says, to ensure the letters could be preserved, and no damage would be done to them.

It’s not the first time Bishop has placed her family’s materials in the hands of the Bentley—and it probably won’t be the last.

Bishop represents the third generation in her family with deep U-M ties.

Bishop received her B.A. in psychology

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in 1972 from U-M. Her grandfather, William Warner Bishop, did his undergraduate work at U-M and received his master’s degree here in 1893. He was the University Librarian and was instrumental in the creation of the Library Science Program, now the School of Information. Bishop’s father, William Warner Bishop Jr., received his B.A. in 1928 and his J.D. in 1931, and was a law professor. The Bentley holds the papers of both Bishop’s father and grandfather.

“The Bentley is the archive for our family in many ways,” says Bishop. “I’m the end of a family line, and I want to make sure these materials are in a good home where they’re safe and well cared for.”

Bishop says she is also glad that the Bentley has the collections of several organizations of which she is a part—including the Ann Arbor Association of University Women, the League of Women Voters, the U-M Alumnae Council, and the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor.

“All the organizations I belong to have their records tucked away at the Bentley, and we love it,” Bishop says. “It means having access so that when we need them we can get them. The materials will be

Oakes (right) in Ontario, Canada, circa 1914.

WILLIAM WARNER BISHOP COLLECTION

PROFILES

Three Generations of Michigan Connections

safe, clean, organized, and they won’t get thrown out.”

To help ensure the long-term care of Bentley materials, Bishop has established a bequest through the Library. “I’m giving the Bentley a fair bit of tangible stuff, so it’s nice to also give something to look after it with.”

The bequest allows the Bentley to put the support to use where it’s needed most.

“I want to see the good work the Bentley does continue into the future. I don’t know what kind of records the Library will be keeping in the next few years. It’s hard to dictate now what you’ll need in the future, so I kept the bequest language more general.”

Among the many feet of boxes that contain her family’s long history and connection to U-M, Bishop says some of her favorite things are photos of her grandfather and grandmother. “I never knew my grandmother, and I was four years old when my grandfather passed.”

There’s a photo of her grandfather holding a fish on Georgian Bay in Canada that she’s particularly fond of. “I only remember him as an old man, so it was nice to have pictures of him when he was younger.”

Bishop says that she feels comforted by the fact that her family history is “safely tucked away in many boxes.”

William Warner Soon, she adds, “to Bishop (left) and be many more.” n fishing guide Tuff

The Case of the Missing Mastodon

By Lara Zielin

ON A WARM FALL DAY IN 1934, Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers were laboring in the sun to dredge a pond in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and construct a stone wall around its perimeter. Suddenly, the mouth of their steam shovel held not just dirt—but bones. Mastodon bones, to be precise.

Ermine Cowles Case, a U-M professor of paleontology and geology, wrote about the find in a 1935 article titled “The Bloomfield Hills Mastodon.” In it, he explained that the mastodon was young, “still retaining the last of its milk teeth” and befell some unfortunate fate at the edge of the pond some 25,000 years ago.

According to Case: “The massive carcass was probably dismembered by prehistoric carnivores, the bones scattered by the elements and interred in the organic layers of marl beneath the calm waters. The eons passed, as they do. Further layers of marl covered and

“THE MASSIVE CARCASS WAS PROBABLY DISMEMBERED BY PREHISTORIC CARNIVORES, THE BONES SCATTERED BY THE ELEMENTS AND INTERRED IN THE ORGANIC LAYERS OF MARL BENEATH THE CALM WATERS.”

ERMINE COWLES CASE COLLECTION

Ermine Cowles Case (far right) poses with a full mastodon skeleton in June 1947.

protected the sturdiest of the remains.”

While many of the preserved remains had decayed, broken, or simply degraded, paleontologists were able to take the skull, jaw, ribs, and a few vertebrae back to Ann Arbor. The pieces were cleaned up, “hardened and then reassembled,” according to Case.

But what happened to the remains after that remains a mystery.

By the fall of 1935, when Case wrote his article, the young mastodon was simply . . . lost. Case acknowledges that the remains were on display for a time at the University Museum, but then went missing. “Last attempts to find them were fruitless,” he writes.

Fortunately, the Ermine Cowles Case papers at the Bentley Historical Library have not suffered the same fate, and in fact they are a treasure trove of paleontology history—including his digs to unearth and name never-before-seen dinosaurs, and his research on prehistoric vertebrates. This collection is open to the public. n

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COL L E C T ION S

The earliest paintings of U-M’s campus are scanned into the 21st century.

By Lara Zielin

BEFORE IT HAD A FURNACE OR RUNNING WATER OR

(Clockwise from left) Jasper Cropsey painted the Detroit Observatory in 1855; Bentley conservators recently prepared the painting for digitization; a close-up of the painting’s minute details.

indoor plumbing, the University of Michigan president’s house had two paintings by Jasper Cropsey.

They hung in the home’s parlor beginning in 1855, when Henry Phillip Tappan was president. Tappan, who was a friend of Cropsey, had been able to get the Regents to approve a twenty-five dollar expenditure to have Cropsey paint the Detroit Observatory and U-M’s campus.

But when Tappan was fired and left U-M, the paintings were sold. They went up for auction and were eventually purchased by Herbert Randall, who ran a photographic studio in Ann Arbor.

Randall held onto the paintings until 1890, when Andrew Dickson White from Ithaca, New York, purchased them. White had been had been a professor of English literature and history at U-M before becoming

32 BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU

(LEFT) HS3489 (RIGHT) ROBERT HAVEY

B E N T L EY U N B O U N D

Cropsey Up Close

Cornell University’s first president. White ensured the paintings made it back to Ann Arbor, and a letter from U-M president James Angell in 1890 counted this among the "many debts" the University owed White.

Nearly a century later, in 1974, the paintings underwent conservation treatment by the Intermuseum Conservation Association in Oberlin, Ohio. After fixing a host of issues, conservators sent them back to Ann Arbor in care of the U-M Museum of Art (UMMA). They hung in UMMA until recently, when they were pulled off the wall once again—this time to be digitized.

This process involved bringing the two paintings to the Bentley, where conservation staff carefully removed the paintings from their frames and prepared them to be scanned. They were sent over to the Digital Conservation Unit at U-M Library, where they were digitized.

Up close, the tiny, intricate details of the paintings are visible. This meticulous style would continue as Cropsey distinguished himself as a Hudson Valley artist and as the founder of the American Society of Painters in Watercolor. n

COLLECTIONS, the magazine of the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, is published twice each year.

Terrence J. McDonald Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Professor of History and Director Nancy Bartlett Associate Director Lara Zielin Editorial Director Robert Havey Communications Specialist Patricia Claydon, Ballistic Creative Art Direction/Design Copyright ©2019 Regents of the University of Michigan ARTICLES MAY BE REPRINTED BY OBTAINING PERMISSION FROM: Editor, Bentley Historical Library 1150 Beal Avenue Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2113 PLEASE DIRECT EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE TO: laram@umich.edu 734-936-1342 Regents of the University of Michigan Jordan B. Acker, Huntington Woods Michael J. Behm, Grand Blanc Mark J. Bernstein, Ann Arbor Paul W. Brown, Ann Arbor Shauna Ryder Diggs, Grosse Pointe Denise Ilitch, Bingham Farms Ron Weiser, Ann Arbor Katherine E. White, Ann Arbor Mark S. Schlissel, ex officio The University of Michigan, as an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action. The University of Michigan is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, height, weight, or veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions. Inquiries or complaints may be addressed to the Senior Director for Institutional Equity, and Title IX/Section 504/ADA Coordinator, Office for Institutional Equity, 2072 Administrative Services Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1432, 734-763-0235, TTY 734-6471388, institutional.equity@umich.edu. For other University of Michigan information call 734-764-1817.

Meet Jim Richardson HELP PROTECT HISTORY FOR THE FUTURE.

Jim Richardson came to the Bentley as part of a rare set of photographs depicting African Americans serving in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the Great Depression. But precious little information was available about him, or any of the men in the images.

The Bentley digitized the CCC photos, then started a crowd-sourcing campaign to uncover identifying information. Jim’s full name, as well as his background as a hard-working farmer and community member, was brought to light.

Your support can help bring Jim’s story, and others like it, into the 21st century.

PLEASE USE THE ENCLOSED ENVELOPE OR GIVE ONLINE TO HELP US DIGITIZE OUR COLLECTIONS.

bentley.umich.edu/giving 734-764-3482

A B O U T T H E B E N T L EY

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 1150 BEAL AVENUE ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN 48109-2113

Where Michigan’s History Lives Every day, people use the Bentley Historical Library to explore history.

With more than 70,000 linear feet of letters, photographs, books, and more, the Library is a treasure trove of primary source material from the State of Michigan and the University of Michigan. We welcome you to uncover Michigan’s history here.

Our team is eager to help you find what you need. We offer assistance in person, by phone, and by email: 734-764-3482 Bentley.ref@umich.edu VISIT THE BENTLEY Monday–Friday 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

EXPLORE COLLECTIONS AND FINDING AIDS ONLINE bentley.umich.edu FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL facebook.com/bentleyhistoricallibrary @umichbentley MAKE A GIFT bentley.umich.edu/giving 734-764-3482

MISSIONARIES IN CHINA (Above) Farmers raise water to irrigate their crops in this photo taken by George Blydenburgh, who, along with his wife, Marion, was a missionary to China from 1920–1934. George’s images, now archived at the Bentley, provide a rare glimpse into the transformation of China during a period of great social change. Read the full story—and see more pictures—on page 24.