Collections Magazine, Fall 2023

FALL 2023

COL L EC 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

THE RED SCARE COMES TO U-M A shameful chapter in Michigan history involved threats to academic freedom and the politics of fear.

contents

4 The Red Scare Comes to U-M

In the mid-1950s, U-M Mathematics Professor Chandler Davis was at the center of a House Un-American Activities Committee investigation as a suspected Communist sympathizer. Instead of protecting his academic freedom, U-M fired Davis, along with two other faculty members.

A student documentary helped bring this shameful era to light.

12 The Unsinkable Sarah E. Ray

In 1945, Sarah E. Ray tried to board Detroit’s Bob-Lo ferry, which transported passengers down the Detroit River to nearby Bob-Lo Island. She was denied passage based on the color of her skin and fought the injustice, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, her incredible story has a new home at the Bentley Historical Library.

18 How to Qualify as a Person

In 1871, Nannette Gardner, a widowed taxpayer, claimed that she was guaranteed the right to vote under the Constitution. A pioneering suffragist, she successfully cast her ballot in Detroit—49 years before the 19th Amendment would guarantee women the right to vote. According to her archived collection, her incredible life only got more interesting.

DIRECTOR’S NOTES

1 A Reintroduction and New Reflections

ABRIDGED

2 Select Bentley Bites IN THE STACKS

24 Altitude Problems 26 Vote Gun 27 Vaulting Fences,

Chopping Wood, and Shocking Delicate Nerves 28 Cold War, Warm Welcome BENTLEY UNBOUND

30 Engineering a Phrase 31 I Must Not Stay

CORRECTIONS: In the last issue, our article about Moses Fleetwood Walker incorrectly stated that he was a U-M Law School graduate. Additionally, a caption in our story about Oscar Baker incorrectly identified him as the first African American to attend U-M Law School (Baker was likely the 45th). We regret the errors.

(ON THE COVER) MUSEUM OF ZOOLOGY RECORDS, BOX 4; (THIS PAGE) U-M NEWS AND INFORMATION SERVICES PHOTOGRAPHS

FA L L 2 0 2 3

A poster announces the U-M symphony band concert in Minsk, Russia, in 1961. See the full story on p. 28.

DIRECTOR’S NOTES

A Reintroduction and New Reflections

SCOTT SODERBERG

EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, something seemingly mundane comes across my desk that inspires me to reflect on the bigger picture. June 27, 2023, was one of those days.

I learned that a researcher was using the Kathleen Russell papers. I immediately had a hunch that I was more than familiar with this collection, and, upon brief investigation, my hunch was confirmed; I had processed this collection of a local LGBTQIA+ activist in 2009. What followed was a moment of reflection on my re-introduction to a Bentley that was both different than the one I left in 2011, while also being strikingly similar in many significant ways.

As I’ve adjusted to a new university, a new library, and a new set of faces, the core ways in which the Bentley has remained familiar were comforting, and, upon reflection, also what I believe will set the Bentley up for success as the Library charts its future. These similarities are a set of values and priorities that include: a commitment

to access for all; an ethos of service to the University and the state of Michigan; and a dedicated staff that cares about the Bentley and its future.

In all the work of the Bentley, whether we are paging boxes for onsite researchers, writing articles for and producing this magazine, or ensuring our facilities meet staff and patron needs, the commitment to access shines through. We want you to know what we have and how to find it, and to have a welcoming and comfortable experience using the collections. Behind the scenes, we work to make new materials available for research, both on-site and online, and to make sure that materials are preserved so that generations of researchers will be able to use them.

The Bentley collects in two areas: the history of the state of Michigan and the history of the University of Michigan. Every day, we work to identify and acquire collections that patrons will use to create new knowledge, research their

Alexis Antracoli Director, Bentley Historical Library

family histories, and teach students about the histories of the University and the state of Michigan. At the Judith and Stanley Frankel Detroit Observatory, student docents create walking tours and programs highlighting the history of the University, and welcome visitors to engage with and learn about the University’s first research facility.

Across the Library, staff demonstrate an impressive commitment to the Bentley and its success. They seek professional development opportunities, publish research findings, and support each other in achieving their goals. They are excited to work together to chart the course for the next chapter in the Bentley Historical Library’s story by creating an ambitious and innovative vision for the Library’s future. As that future evolves, I look forward to sharing it with you in the pages of this magazine.

Alexis Antracoli Director

BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU 1

ABRIDGED

abridg 26 “And here is the now-historic stroke of the pen, which marked the end of the strike.”

A news announcer narrating a film of Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy signing an agreement that marked the end of the 1937 labor strike in General Motors factories. Murphy had been instrumental facilitating negotiations between General Motors and the United Auto Workers. Eighteen films have recently been digitized as part of the Frank Murphy collection and are now available in the Bentley’s Digital Media Library.

Number of years Lewis Burnett Kellum was director of the U-M Museum of Paleontology. His fossil-friendly collection has recently been updated.

3 Number of U-M alumni honored on the Michigan football field in 1971 after their successful Apollo 15 mission.

They were astronauts David Scott, Alfred Worden, and James Irwin.

$1.00 WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT THEODORE ROOSEVELT JIMMY CARTER BILL CLINTON Four of the 13 presidents who have visited the U-M campus and whose visits are chronicled on the U-M Presidential Campus Tour website: myumi.ch/9PJer 2 BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU

Price of Sunday dinner at Willit’s in Ann Arbor in 1923. The restaurant advertised the “smartest service in the city,” according to The Michigan Daily.

BRAVE THE WILD RIVER The title of a new book by Melissa Sevigny about Elzada Clover, a botanist who was one of the first to catalog plant life along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. Clover’s collection resides at the Bentley and contains her journals, motion pictures of the trip, photographs, plant list, and drawings of plant habitats.

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: THEN AND NOW 1845

1845

Now

Now

One academic building Three campuses (U-M Ann Arbor, U-M Dearborn, U-M Flint)

52 students, all white men More than 50,000 students from diverse backgrounds

1845

One degree offered (Bachelor of Arts)

Now

280 degree programs

ged On Track to Win U-M track and field star Tania Longe swept nearly every competition she joined on Ferry Field, including the 100-meter hurdles, in 1997.

She went on to be a four-time All-Big Ten first team honoree, a nine-time Big Ten Champion, and a two-time All American. She’s also in the U-M Women’s Track and Field Hall of Fame.

Photographs of many of her achievements are archived through the Robert Kalmbach photo collection.

ABRIDGED

COL L E C T ION S

Cornelius Henderson was one of only two African American students in his engineering class, and one of the earliest African Americans to earn a U-M engineering degree in 1911. He was also instrumental to the 1927–1929 creation of the Ambassador Bridge to Canada: at the time it was built, the longest suspension bridge in the world. Learn more on the Bentley’s African American Student Project website: myumi.ch/5W9Dy

POP QUIZ Can you identify the street in this 1908 postcard of Ann Arbor?

Answer: If you guessed Huron Street, you’re right! In the background is Cook House, an early Ann Arbor hotel that later became the Allenel.

94 MUSICIANS 71 CONCERTS 30 CITIES 15 WEEKS 30,000+ MILES TRAVELED 140,000 CONCERTGOERS Numbers from the 1961 U-M Symphony Band tour to the Soviet Union. Read the full story on page 28.

BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU 3

A student’s senior film project revisited the long-buried history of McCarthyism at U-M. More than 70 years later, the brave fight for academic freedom lives on through the legacy of Mathematics Professor Chandler Davis.

By Sarah Derouin

The Red Scare Comes to U-M

Academics were not immune in the hunt, and Davis found himself in the crosshairs.

Davis didn’t name names. He refused to say if he was or had ever been a member of the Communist Party. He would not confirm or deny authorship of an anti-HUAC pamphlet that was distributed on campus—the very accusation that caught the committee’s attention in the first place.

It was a calculated risk, and it backfired.

For his refusal to answer HUAC’s questions, Davis was the first person in Michigan to be cited for contempt of Congress.

He was sent to jail for six months.

Professionally, Davis also felt the consequences of standing for academic freedom.

His actions were decidedly rebuffed by U-M leadership. Instead of defending the young researcher for his principles, U-M fired him, leaving the promising and well-liked academic without a professional home.

Although the experience was life-changing for Davis, U-M buried this shameful period and quietly moved on. More than three decades later, Adam Kulakow, a senior student filmmaker, heard of the Red Scare at U-M and followed the story.

His research in the Bentley Library archives and interviews with Davis and other faculty brought that fearsome time in history back into the light. Kulakow’s 1989 documentary, Keeping in Mind: The McCarthy Era at the University of Michigan, revealed the trials and fallout of McCarthyism at U-M in the ’50s. His film resurfaced a troubling time in U-M’s history, showcasing how academic freedom could be lost and buried. Decades later, the fight against tyranny and persecution is a topic that continues to resonate.

In a Michigan courtroom in 1954, Representative Kit Clardy was indignant. As the head of a House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearing, a frustrated Clardy had just asked U-M Mathematics Professor Chandler Davis if he was acquainted with Harlan Hatcher, the President of the University of Michigan.

Despite the pair having obviously met many times, Davis refused to answer.

The Fight for Freedom

Indeed, for 26 questions, Davis was mute to HUAC’s questions, invoking the First Amendment, which protects Americans’ freedom of speech and assembly. Many others who came before HUAC in the 1950s pled the Fifth Amendment, an approach used to protect against self-incrimination.

Davis, however, took a principled political stand—he maintained that a person’s political beliefs were not criminal and that the actions of HUAC were wrong.

Davis’s hearing took place in the midst of the “Red Scare,” a time when fears about the spread of Communism were stoked by U.S. government officials and society at large. U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy led the investigations into suspected citizens, and hysteria reigned. As McCarthyism spread, Americans’ freedoms were jeopardized, stoked by hearsay and intimidation. Many federal employees, known leftists, and even those in the film industry stood in front of HUAC, under suspicion of being a “Red.”

6 BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU

Chandler Davis came from a long line of leftists and agitators. Born in New York, his parents were well-educated, social justice activists, and members of the Communist Party (CPUSA). His father, Horace Davis, was a descendant of Boston abolitionists and feminists. During his life, Horace was an economics professor, steelworker, and journalist who had his own run-ins with HUAC. Chandler, who was called a “red diaper baby,” came by his political beliefs naturally.

As a young adult, Davis joined the CPUSA, but soon withdrew in order to participate in Navy officer’s training during WWII. After the war, he obtained his undergraduate and doctorate degrees from Harvard and rejoined the CPUSA. While in school, he met and

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

(Previous page) After three U-M faculty members invoked their constitutional right not to answer questions in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, U-M President Harlan

Hatcher suspended them, making front-page news in The Michigan Daily. Editorials and ads in support of the suspended faculty appeared in the Daily, including a letter

from two of its own editors (this page, left), and an ad against McCarthyism by the Labor Youth League (this page, right).

married his wife, Natalie Zemon Davis.

In 1950, Davis was on the job market and almost took a faculty position at UCLA. However, the establishment of the California Loyalty Oath, which required faculty members to sign a pledge that they were not members of the Communist Party, was a deal-breaker.

Instead, Davis and Zemon headed to Ann Arbor, where he became a mathematics professor and she continued her graduate studies.

The Davises’ political beliefs and affiliations continued through the early days at U-M, even as the government increased its pressure to uncover any suspected Communists. In 1952, Zemon and her friend and U-M colleague Elizabeth Douvan wrote a pamphlet called “Operation Mind.” The political publication broke down the HUAC attacks and called for protests on U-M’s campus.

Although the authors of the pamphlet remained anonymous, the FBI tracked down the print shop where it was duplicated. It so happened that Davis was the one who had signed the invoice for the prints. A subpoena soon followed.

Davis was one of three U-M professors who fell victim to the Red Hysteria and the juggernaut power of HUAC. In the end, tenured pharmacology professor Mark Nickerson and tenure-track biologist Clement Markert also faced HUAC trials.

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Hatcher’s Navigation While seeing three U-M professors on trial was a shock to many, then-President Hatcher knew it could have been much worse. In the Keeping in Mind documentary, both Hatcher and Vice President Marvin Niehuss said there were 15–20 faculty members who were originally on HUAC’s suspect list.

“The McCarthy hysteria and the extremes to which they were going had become entirely apparent,” said Hatcher. “They were very destructive and the question was how to preserve the integrity of our institutions in the face of that threat.”

Hatcher called the FBI’s list unjust and outrageous, but he felt that he had no choice but to face the issue head-on. He asked Niehuss to travel to Washington to argue for the accused and to whittle down the names.

In Hatcher’s words, “as a result of our efforts, we were able to clear . . . and remove from any public display all but three members of our faculty.”

Kulakow said the public frenzy and government pressure were instrumental in how Hatcher had to navigate the HUAC faculty hearings. Hatcher received many letters from alumni across the nation, condemning the political protests by students on campus, and praising the efforts to put “Commies” in their place.

His responses to these letters, which can be seen at the Bentley, are measured and often contained a comment about living through a troubled time.

Kulakow said he wanted to have Hatcher’s voice in the film and he was somewhat surprised when Hatcher agreed. “I felt like it was important for him to talk about the pressures that a university was under at the time,” he said, adding that Hatcher frequently referenced the period as a “unique time and place.”

“I don’t think he understood Chandler Davis—I think there was a big generation gap there,” said Kulakow, adding that a young, opinionated, and principled person like Davis put Hatcher in a tough position. “He came from an institutional loyalty point of view. And in his world, I think that was the biggest consideration.”

In the film, Davis said he was frustrated with his inability to get through to Hatcher about the position he was taking with the investigations. “He tried hard to make his case and really got nowhere with him,” Kulakow said.

A Brave Defense The most common defense for those facing HUAC was to plead the Fifth Amendment, citing the right to not self-incriminate.

Taking the First Amendment was a risky approach, said Nickerson in Keeping the Mind. He said that with three children, he couldn’t take the chance that Davis took. For him, taking the Fifth “gave me more leverage with the University committee . . . it was the one that was safe as far as being able to support my family.”

In the end, Nickerson invoked both the First Amendment and the Fifth in his Clardy hearings.

Markert also took the Fifth, refusing to answer questions. “I didn’t want to talk about anything substantive before the Clardy committee because, in my view, the government is mine, it represents me. It has no right to ask me anything about my political opinions or activities.”

In contrast, Davis cited the First Amendment during the Clardy hearings. Ironically, he hoped his approach would lead to an indictment, as he planned to challenge the constitutionality of McCarthyism. “The motivation was my resolution to face the Red Hunt as squarely as possible,” wrote Davis in “The Purge,” an essay included in the 1988 book A Century of Mathematics in America (American Mathematical Society).

The McCarthy HUAC hearings were used to identify suspected Communists in the U.S., but personal punishments were handled by the employers. Most of the accused were fired and carried a black mark, hurting their chances for new jobs. After the Clardy hearings, Davis, Markert, and Nickerson faced U-M faculty committees to decide if they would keep their positions.

While Markert and Nickerson fully cooperated with the faculty committees, answering their colleagues’ questions, Davis refused.

He saw the academic committee as a continuation of HUAC and believed they were “not interested in thoughts on free speech.”

Davis faced three university committee hearings, two of which recommended dismissal.

Davis and Nickerson were both fired, while Markert’s job was spared after a suspension. In the documentary, Hatcher said Markert was the only one who spoke “properly” during the faculty questioning. “It was such a contrast . . . between Mr. Markert and these other two who were defiant and not forthcoming and not honest and forthright.”

BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU 9

Davis’s brave plan to argue against the plague of McCarthyism was not to be. The U.S. Supreme Court refused (in a vote of 6–2) to hear his case. Davis ended up serving six months in prison.

Davis and Nickerson both struggled to get jobs after their firing.

After leaving prison, Davis’s recommendation letters used covert wording to hint that he was tied to Communism, for example that he was “concerned with social problems.” This naturally slowed his job hunt. He eventually found a position at the University of Toronto, where he spent his tenure. Nickerson also ended up in Canada, working at McGill University. Both considered themselves political refugees.

(Left to right) An archived letter shows support for President Hatcher; a confident reply indicates Hatcher may have felt

he alleviated a bigger crisis by suspending three faculty instead of the 15–20 faculty on the FBI’s initial list.

Revisiting Old Wounds For decades, U-M’s run-in with McCarthyism was buried and almost forgotten. But in the late 1980s, a celebration of the Rackham Graduate School opened old wounds.

“Part of the celebration of the Rackham anniversary was a symposium in which David Hollinger, then on the history faculty at U-M, gave a paper titled ‘Academic Culture at Michigan, 1938–1988,’” said Gary Krenz, director of the Judy & Stanley Frankel Detroit Observatory. “This became a very influential paper here at U-M, and I believe his discussion of Davis, Markert, and Nickerson in that paper was the first time in many years that the matter of their mistreatment had been raised here.”

Around the same time Hollinger’s paper was getting some attention, an article in The Michigan Daily was published, arguing for a name change for the Hatcher Library. Kulakow said the article caught his eye, especially hearing about Hatcher’s activities

HARLAN HATCHER PAPERS

during the McCarthy Era. As an honors English major at U-M, Kulakow was required to do a senior project.

Curiosity piqued, he decided to make his documentary about U-M and the Red Scare.

He immersed himself in historical records at the Bentley Library, sifting through subpoenas, University resolutions, correspondence with University officials, and old Michigan Daily publications.

“David Hollinger was very supportive of this project early on, and he had some relationships with people who knew Davis, Markert, and Nickerson and people who were there involved in the history,” Kulakow said.

In addition, Kulakow got phone numbers for the three men and started making calls. To his surprise, “each of them was totally open to talking to me—it wasn’t even difficult.” Kulakow and his small film crew interviewed Davis, Markert, and Nickerson at their homes, spending hours with the men and their families. “Each of them was incredibly gracious, they were life-changing people.”

The documentary screening was held in Ann Arbor in April 1989, and Davis, Markert, and Nickerson all attended the event.

“That was the first time the three of them had all come back together since the ’50s,” Kulakow recalled.

It was a packed house. “The crowd was raucous. There was a moment in the film when Clement Markert was talking about his time with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade [his military service during the Spanish Civil War] and he said, ‘Well, you know, naming names—I would never do that.

They could have put me up against the wall and shot me,’ and the crowd absolutely went crazy,” said Kulakow.

“I don't think, as young people, we'd ever heard someone speak with such deep conviction, who had laid so much on the line for free speech and for decency. That was incredible and it was full of those moments,” he said.

Apologies and Non-Apologies After the April 1989 showing of Kulakow’s documentary, there was an outcry for justice and making amends. The U-M chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) sprang into action, contacting University officials to encourage the University of Michigan Regents to make amends to Davis, Markert, and Nickerson.

AAUP sent a proposal to the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs (SACUA) in October 1989. In turn, SACUA petitioned the Regents to issue an apology and take some tangible action. The request was ignored. As a result of the failure to make amends, the Senate Assembly passed a resolution that recognized “the failure of the University community to protect the values of intellectual freedom.” They also established the Davis, Markert, Nickerson (DMN) Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom to celebrate the brave actions of the three faculty, and the Academic Freedom Lecture Fund (AFLF).

“AFLF and SACUA on more than one occasion over the years endeavored to elicit a formal apology by the University, but nothing ever came of it,” said Krenz. “But in 2005, the Regents approved the Davis, Markert, Nickerson Visiting Professorship in Academic and Intellectual Freedom, submitted by the provost and dean of Rackham. Was that effectively an apology? I don't really think anyone saw it as such at the time.” To date, no one has ever been appointed to the professorship.

The first Academic and Intellectual Freedom lecture was in February 1991; all three professors attended and participated in a panel discussion afterward. Today, the DMN Lecture still features an annual speaker, and lectures are open to the public.

Lessons of Yesterday Resonate Today The interviews, followed by the intensive process of filmmaking, made a deep impression on Kulakow that lingered for decades. “I started to talk like them, I heard their voices so much,” he said. “I still feel very close to them.”

He stayed in contact with the three men throughout the years, emailing frequently and seeing them at the DMN lectures. After graduating from U-M, Kulakow taught film, literature, and writing at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, then went on to UCLA Film School—two opportunities that he says resulted from making the U-M documentary. Kulakow is still making documentary films, screenwriting, and producing, working on projects all over the world.

The gravity of their experiences lingers and is as powerful as it was when he first made the film in 1989. “I remember speaking with Davis at the 25th anniversary of the lecture,” recalled Kulakow. “I got very emotional because I can’t believe that the University hasn’t honorarily reinstated them. I cannot believe it.

Especially given that we celebrate what they did today. I remember saying to the audience at the lecture, ‘Why isn’t there a statute to these three?’”

All three men are now deceased: Nickerson died March 12, 1998, followed by Markert on October 1, 1999. Chandler Davis died on September 24, 2022.

Kulakow wanted to make sure their story, their experience, was never lost. All the interviews (including those that didn’t make it into the film), documents, and film notes are archived at the Bentley Historical Library. “The Bentley was important to the project,” Kulakow said. “They were wonderful, just so supportive. It was such a thrill to give [materials] back to them and be a part of the archives.”

BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU 11

Sarah E.

In 1945, Sarah Elizabeth Ray was denied passage on a steamboat on the Detroit River because she was Black. She fought the injustice, and her case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. For decades, Sarah’s trailblazing civil rights role was nearly forgotten, as was her work later in life as a community activist.

But thanks to the work of historians, researchers, archivists, and members of her

Ray

THE UNSINKABLE

family, her legacy is being preserved— including through a new collection coming to the Bentley Historical Library.

By Lara Zielin

On a bright summer day in 1945, Sarah E. Ray was ready to celebrate.

As part of her work at the Detroit Ordnance District, she and a handful of other women had successfully completed extra training, and this was their graduation day.

To mark the occasion, the group decided to A L L T H E WAY TO T H E S U P R E M E CO U RT board a Bob-Lo boat, one of two large pasAfter being forced off the Bob-Lo boat, got to work contacting the National senger steamboats that Sarah Association for the Advancement of Colregularly ferried cusored People (NAACP) for help with her According to the Michigan Civil tomers down the Detroit case.

Rights Act, it was illegal to discriminate River to Bob-Lo Island. in public conveyances—such as buses or There, passengers could boats—on the basis of race. Sarah knew that what had happened to her was illegal; enjoy an amusement she just needed help proving it.

The NAACP took Sarah’s case to court. park with rides, food, At every level, the courts ruled in her favor, and games. but the Bob-Lo Boat Excursion Company appealed, arguing that because the boats were going to Canada, the Michigan Civil

14 BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU

Rights Act didn’t apply to them.

Eventually, the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund chief counsel working on behalf of Sarah was a young, energetic lawyer named Thurgood Marshall. The grandson of an enslaved person, Marshall was building a name for himself as a tireless fighter against racial discrimination.

In 1948, the Supreme Court ruled against the Bob-Lo Excursion Company.

The court said the company “will be required in operating its ships as ‘public conveyances’ to accept as passengers persons of the Negro race.”

Five years later, Marshall would be back in front of the Supreme Court arguing the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case, which ended the “separate but equal” policy in schools. Scholars argue that Sarah’s case paved the way for these larger, national victories.

“Her win was an indication that the U.S. Supreme Court had an appetite for cases like Sarah’s,” says author, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, and former attorney Desiree Cooper. “The NAACP had a strategy that was long and slow, but it worked. Thurgood Marshall could bring a big case like Brown v. Board to the Court after smaller cases like Sarah’s had paved the way.”

Cooper acknowledges that often, in this process, the early pioneers like Sarah pay a high price. “We tend to think that change happens seismically, and what we don’t quite get is that it’s a chipping, chipping until change happens. And the people who chip, quite often when they start, are very alone and do it at great personal risk.”

Cooper was a reporter for the Detroit Free Press when she met Sarah in February 2006. She got a tip about the story and went to Sarah’s east-side Detroit home to interview her.

“The house was falling down, and there were abandoned houses on the street,” says Cooper. “Inside was orderly but very cold, and Sarah was bundled up. Because of her arthritis, she had a hard time getting around. She said, ‘I would offer you tea, but it’s too hard for me to get into the kitchen.’”

Cooper says that it was difficult seeing Sarah in this state. “It was very clear to me she was a forgotten person,” Cooper says.

“But she was very present in her mind. She

(PREVIOUS SPREAD) DETROIT PUBLISHING CO./ALAMY; (OPPOSITE PAGE) COURTESY OF KOURTNEY THOMPSON

O

Sarah got her ticket and boarded the Bob-Lo boat with her group, but she didn’t make it very far.

She was told that she wasn’t allowed on the boat due to the color of her skin. Sarah refused to disembark until her teacher said, “She’ll go quietly.” Sarah was escorted off the ship, angry and humiliated.

When the Bob-Lo ticketing booth gave her a refund, she hurled the money directly at the ship. She would not be bought.

Sarah’s story could have ended there, but she was determined to seek justice for the discrimination she’d endured. What happened next helped change the course of civil rights history— as important a legacy as Rosa Parks refusing to take a different seat on the bus or Ruby Bridges walking into an all-white school in New Orleans.

Except Sarah’s story never made it to the history books. Or at least not until recently.

Now, thanks to the work of historians, researchers, and her family, Sarah’s incredible story is becoming better known. Bentley archivists have been working on Sarah’s story as well, ensuring that her materials will be safeguarded in the archive and that her transformational legacy is widely shared.

The Bob-Lo Excursion Company would try to sink Sarah, but she would be the one who would triumph on the Detroit River— and beyond.

(Opening spread)

An undated postcard of the Detroit waterfront features BobLo boats and signage.

(This page)

Sarah Ray’s newly donated materials include this collage of newspaper clippings about her civil rights battle with the BobLo Excursion Company.

told me the story [of being on the boat in 1945] the same way she told it in her testimony early on, and the thing I walked away with is that she was still really pissed off about what happened.”

Cooper wrote an article for the Detroit Free Press about Sarah’s story and her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement.

Not long after its publication in 2006, Sarah died at age 88. Her house fell into disrepair and her legacy seemed like it would be lost forever.

That is, until a filmmaker started working on a documentary that would change everything.

A N O L D - FAS H I O N E D T RA I L B L AZ E R

(Clockwise from top) Sarah was a grassroots community organizer in Detroit, often collaborating with local leaders and law enforcement; Sarah with Harry Belafonte, a social

justice advocate; Sarah and her second husband, Rafael Haskell, a Jewish labor activist; Sarah with Father Robert Zerafa, co-chair of a local campaign, in March 1971.

COURTESY OF KOURTNEY THOMPSON

In 2015, Aaron Schillinger was in the process of creating a documentary about the two Bob-Lo steamships—the Columbia and the St. Claire—called Bob-Lo Boats: A Detroit Ferry Tale. A New York University film graduate, Schillinger was doing research when he stumbled on the book Summer Dreams by Patrick Livingston, which briefly mentioned Sarah’s story.

When he went to dig further into the story, he hit numerous dead ends.

“I couldn’t find any photos, and there was almost nothing online when I first started looking,” he says. He decided to include Sarah’s story in his documentary,

but ultimately had to depict her using stop-motion animation because of the dearth of materials available.

Then, he located Cooper’s 2006 story in the Free Press.

He flew down to Virginia to interview Cooper for the documentary, learning more about Sarah’s role in the Detroit community in the 1960s. After the 1967 Detroit rebellion, Sarah and her second husband, a Jewish labor activist named Rafael Haskell, bought a building that could serve their local community and poor people.

They called it Action House.

Through Action House, Sarah fought

ancestry websites, her name is sometimes Raye. You really have to dig hard in order to link up what name she was using and what she was doing.”

As Schillinger and Cooper built their body of work around Sarah, they also discovered that her Detroit home was slated for demolition. “The Land Bank owned the property, and we were able to coordinate with the mayor’s office to get it off the demolition list,” says Schillinger. But finding someone who could save it became part of their work, too.

“I was in disbelief when I went into the house and I could just pick up a piece of paper with Lizz Haskell’s name on it,” says Schillinger. He describes photos, letters, poetry, art, and personal possessions rotting inside the abandoned structure. “That led us to think about how we could extract these materials, and how could we find a place to serve as a repository for them to be preserved.”

Together, Schillinger and Cooper created the Sarah E. Ray Project to frame Sarah’s story, share her history, find help for her house and materials, and collect more information. They were even able to get the National Trust for Historic Preservation to name Sarah’s former home one of America's “11 Most Endangered Historic Sites” in 2021.

In the process, they also tracked down a living relative of Sarah: her great grandnephew, Kourtney Thompson.

When the Bob-Lo ticketing booth gave her a refund, she hurled the money directly at the ship. She would not be bought. for social justice and created recreational activities for neighborhood youth.

She was a fierce believer in integration when, post-uprising, the idea was losing popularity.

“While she was a trailblazer, she was also oddly old fashioned,” says Cooper. “At that time, integration wasn’t the watch word, it was Black nationalism, and here she is talking about integration and she is married to a white man.”

Sarah aligned herself with activists and popular social justice advocates like Harry Belafonte. She wrote letters to and networked with local Detroit leaders.

Cooper and Schillinger uncovered much about Sarah’s life before and after the Bob-Lo boat incident, yet there was still so much they didn’t know.

Part of the challenge was that Sarah E. Ray had numerous name changes over time. Born Elizabeth Cole in 1921, she married her first husband, Frank Ray, in 1936 and came to Detroit during the Great Migration as Sarah Elizabeth Ray. In the 1940s, she dropped “Sarah” and started going by her middle name, Elizabeth.

When she married Rafael Haskell, she started going by Elizabeth Haskell or often Lizz Haskell.

“That made tracing her history so much harder,” says Cooper. “Her name was fumbled all the way around because, even on

TA K E N A BAC K Thompson remembers visiting his “Aunt Lizz” and having holiday meals with her when he was young. And he remembers that she was a fierce advocate for reading and education, helping inspire him to attend U-M and become the first member of his family to go to college. After graduating in 1990, he spent his career in Detroit as a social studies and physical education teacher.

Even so, he had no idea that Aunt Lizz was Sarah E. Ray and that she had been instrumental in desegregating the Bob-Lo boats. “Before she died, I had started handling some of her affairs, and we came across [Desiree Cooper’s] article. I was taken aback by it, the comparison with

Rosa Parks—we just didn’t know.”

Thompson collected materials from Sarah’s Detroit home as well as what he could find in his own family materials. Through Cooper and Schillinger, Thompson was then connected to Michelle McClellan, the Johanna Meijer Magoon Principal Archivist at the Bentley Library about archiving Sarah’s papers.

“I instantly understood the value of this collection and the importance of Sarah in showing the key roles that women of color have played in national civil rights history,” says McClellan. “I wanted Kourtney to know that when this collection came to the Bentley, we would be protecting it, preserving it, and making it available for people to see. Donating the material to the Bentley is an extension of the process of rediscovering Sarah’s life and contributions.”

Thompson says that he knew the Bentley was the right place for his great-aunt’s papers. “I was a U-M man, I played baseball there, and I’m proud of its reputation. If anyone is going to have possession of these artifacts from someone who made this society better, U-M is the place.”

A CO M P L ET E P E R S O N After Sarah was cremated, Thompson took her ashes to the Canadian side of Belle Isle—a small island on the Detroit River between the city of Detroit and Canada.

“She wanted to be free on that river, to ride the boat, and she can do that now after her death,” says Thompson. “Wherever that river may go, she can go, she can do it as a free soul.”

Thompson says that his great-aunt’s legacy goes beyond just the Bob-Lo boats.

“She was the woman who brought the lawsuit, yes, but she was more than that. She was someone who was well connected, who was well read, who served her community, who fought for human rights. She was making change in her community where it mattered most.

“That’s what I would like to have remembered—the fact that she was a complete person. She wanted what everyone wants: dignity, recognition, respect, and the opportunity to live freely. That’s what we all want in the end, to go places where we feel respected, safe, and cared for.”

BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU 17

Q

18 BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU

QUALIFY Forty-nine years befor e wo m e n w vote in the ere granted United State the right to s, Nannette ballot in De Gardner w troit, makin ould cast h g women’s lessly for w er history. By omen’s righ fi g h ts ti , n s g h dations of p e would beg tireower in the in to shake th U e n ited States, founvote would a n d h e r co n give the su troversial ffrage mov ement a no table victor y.

By Amy Prob

st

AS A

Indeed, Gardner’s vote in the ballot box that day was a harbinger of things to come. Newspapers throughout the states reported the incident. Had she broken the law? Who let her get away with it?

Would it happen again? And why had Gardner succeeded, when so many other women had been fighting for decades to vote?

THE CORNERSTONE OF AN ARGUMENT Born Nannette Ellingwood on October 27, 1828, Gardner was raised in an abolitionist family in New Hampshire. She grew up alongside the Underground Railroad, helping those fleeing slavery reach Canada. At age 26, she married Miles T. Gardner, a wealthy seedsman and nursery owner, which put her in a position to devote more means and time to both abolition and suffrage.

When Miles died in 1867, he left Gardner with two children, Sarah and Miles Jr., and a great deal of land and business to manage—and pay taxes on. This would become the cornerstone of her successful argument for the vote.

The U.S. Constitution guaranteed equal rights for all citizens, with all persons being equal. But determining who qualified as “citizens” and “persons” was left to each state. And in 1871, the states were largely in agreement that a citizen was a taxpaying landowner, which excluded women.

But, as a widowed taxpayer, Nannette argued that the Constitution’s right to vote applied to her, too.

In March 1871, Gardner and Catharine Stebbins, a lifelong activist and close friend, hopped a carriage to City Hall in Detroit and completed applications to have their names added to the voter rolls in their respective wards. This was a required first step, as only registered voters received ballots to deposit on election day.

When the all-male board of inspectors for the Ninth Ward learned that a woman had registered her name to vote, a motion was made to have Gardner’s name immediately erased from the registry. Stebbins’s registration received the same motion. Both Gardner and Stebbins scheduled erasure hearings in their respective wards.

ON Handfuls of men gathered to watch, some mumbling under their breath.

They’d never seen a woman vote like a man. Reactions ranged from amusement to fear that the Women’s Suffrage Movement would turn the country on its head.

20 BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU

THE HEARINGS At their hearings, both women contended that, according to the language of the First and 14th Amendments, they qualified as actual persons—citizens and inhabitants of the country—and therefore had right to a vote. Unfortunately, the newly adopted 14th Amendment included troubling language for women, introducing the word “male” into the Constitution to qualify both “inhabitant” and “citizen.”

Gardner and Stebbins represented themselves at their hearings, as opposed to hiring a male attorney to argue their case. They argued with eloquence and approached their respective boards as equals.

Stebbins’s motion was denied on the basis that she had a husband who could

(Previous spread) Nannette Gardner with her son, Miles Jr., who would have been around eight years old when she cast her historic vote in 1871.

(This spread) Newspaper articles documented Gardner’s vote, including her own editorial clarifying details that the papers got wrong.

NANNETTE B. GARDNER PAPERS

a rainy April morning in 1871, Nannette Gardner headed to the voting precinct in Detroit’s Ninth Ward to vote in an election—some 49 years before the 19th Amendment would grant her that right. Gardner was about to make history, becoming one of the first women to cast a ballot in the state of Michigan.

vote on behalf of her interests, and the board of registration redacted her name from the ward’s voter roll.

Gardner’s hearing went differently, thanks in equal part to her well-reasoned logic, affable demeanor, and a man named Peter Hill. Having been widowed, Gardner explained, she was now paying taxes without representation. Enrolling officer Hill agreed with her.

The board voted down the motion to remove her name from the rolls, 12–6.

Outraged and undeterred, the six overruled men made a second motion, this time asking their fellow board members to reconsider, come to their senses, and please erase Gardner’s name once and for all. This second motion was “laid on the table,” meaning it wasn’t even considered for debate. This meant Gardner was officially registered to vote.

THE VOTE Gardner’s daughter, Sarah, was 12 years old in 1871 when her mother voted for the first time. She kept a journal that is preserved at the Bentley Historical Library, and in it she describes the spring day that changed Michigan history.

“April 3: This morning ma went to the polls in the 9th Ward and voted. Mr. Smith, Mr. Stebbins . . . and myself went first. The carriage returned and took ma, Mrs. Stebbins, Mrs. Starring and Millie. After ma had deposited her vote she presented Mr. Hill a beautiful bouquet which was placed on the table near the ballot box.”

The bouquet for Hill included a banner of goldtrimmed white satin, on which was inscribed: “To Peter Hill, Alderman of the Ninth Ward, Detroit. By recognizing civil liberty and equality for woman, he has placed the last and brightest jewel on the brow of Michigan.”

Just a few days after the vote, Sarah’s journal also notes the arrival of an important visitor:

“Friday, April 16: Mrs. Anthony came back yesterday and will remain here until tomorrow. She said that she could not rest contented until she had slept under the roof of the house of the first woman that had voted under the 14th and 1st Amendments.”

Gardner’s vote made headlines in papers throughout United States, and Gardner herself wrote letters to the press about her experience and opinions.

“It is difficult for me to appreciate that so simple an event as a woman expressing a choice among a few candidates for office should have caused such a commotion and made me ‘suddenly famous,’” she wrote to the Detroit Post on June 3, 1871. “Tens of thousands of vicious, ignorant, and worthless men do the same

22 BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU

(Clockwise from top) A hand-written note in Gardner’s collection summarizes highlights from her life.

Gardner, photographed in 1871, argued she was a widow paying taxes without representation and should be allowed to vote.

Newspapers reported on the Detroit aldermen’s divided decision to give Gardner a ballot.

NANNETTE B. GARDNER PAPERS

“Friday, April 14: Susan B. Anthony stopped by here last night on her way to St. Clair and is coming back tomorrow.”

Hill was also honored by the Detroit Equal-Suffrage Association with a resolution upon his passing in 1893.

A note handwritten by Gardner details the resolution as “honoring with reverence and love” the memory of Hill and his humanity “to receive and record the vote of a Woman-citizen under the 14th Amendment.”

After an 1874 election, Gardner also wrote a public card of thanks “to the gentlemanly policemen” who’d served at the Ninth Ward. Presumably, they’d kept order, even when Gardner once again cast her controversial ballot. “Every policeman, without exception, was quiet, vigilant, considerate and respectful.”

MICHIGAN AND BEYOND

thing yearly without a word of comment.

“When woman’s power becomes effective, the keystone of that arch that now sustains the wily politician’s structure will be knocked from its resting-place, and the whole will tumble into a pile of splendid fragments.”

She also wrote to the Detroit Tribune to correct that paper’s flowery account of her vote. “I regret that the truth spoils the pretty stories that appeared in your paper,” she said. “As it was raining at the time I visited the polls, the dripping of my umbrella was the ‘tear in her eye’ that was probably seen. ‘The smile on her lip’ was naturally true. To become enfranchised would cause almost any woman to smile.”

In addition to newspapers, she also corresponded with women from around the country. Marie Rowland, Woman’s Club President in New Jersey, read of the vote in the New York World and immediately penned a letter to Gardner. “Will you be so gracious as to write me and tell me if that account is true or simply a newspaper hoax?” she asked. “If it is true that your vote was legally tendered and accepted it is a most important fact to the women of the country.” Today, Rowland’s letter is archived in Gardner’s collection.

HONORING THE HELPERS Gardner recognized Alderman Peter Hill for the role he played in her initial vote, and for his decency and pivotal role in women’s suffrage. After Gardner voted again in 1872, she wrote that Hill deserved the honor of “being the first officer of registration who has given suffrage to woman. . . . And in taking the lead in this grand movement, Mr. Hill will become a mountain among his peers for being the first to act as Woman’s Emancipator.”

Gardner continued to fight for women’s rights, developing friendships along the way with Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth.

In her collection is a lecture poster with bold headlines of “Woman Suffrage!” and “Political & Moral Reforms.” The lecturer was George B. Smith, a widower dedicated to Gardner’s same causes.

Sarah’s journal documents that the lecture was not the last they’d see of Smith: “Wednesday, June 14: Mr. Smith got us a beautiful double petunia at the market.”

Gardner and Smith fell in love and married in February 1873 in his hometown of Granville, Ohio, then settled in Detroit. Sadly, Smith died the following year.

After Smith’s death, Gardner moved to Hillsdale, Michigan, for her children’s education, then to Alabaster, Michigan, where she had an interest in a lucrative plaster quarry with brother-in-law Benjamin Smith.

In 1881, her son, 19-year-old Miles Jr.—“a manly boy; modest, affable, and courteous”—died of “a wasting disease,” as reported in the Hillsdale Democrat.

Gardner and daughter Sarah eventually settled in Ann Arbor, building homes at 75 Washtenaw Avenue and 1221 Willard Street, sites of a Lutheran Church and parking structure today.

Gardner remained an influential personality in the suffrage movement throughout her life, remembered by peers Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Volume 3 of their History of Woman Suffrage.

Sarah, who would become an accomplished artist, created a bust in tribute of her 70-year-old mother, and a photo of the sculpture resides in Gardner’s collection.

Gardner died in 1900 at age 71. In 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified, granting women the right to vote.

Sources for this story include:

Bentley collections including the Nannette B. E. Gardner papers and the Nannette Brown Ellingwood Gardner photograph series. Henry Laste: Biographical sketch of Nannette E. G. Smith from the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

The 19th Amendment exhibit, National Archives and Records Administration (May 14, 2020). Catharine F. Stebbins: “The True Believer,” the 100 Signers Project. Mary Ellen Snodgrass: The Underground Railroad: An Encyclopedia of People, Places, and Operations (M.E. Sharp, 2008). Dana Elizabeth Weiner: Race and Rights: Fighting Slavery and Prejudice in the Old Northwest, 1830–1870 (Cornell University Press, 2013). Frank B. and Arthur M. Woodford: All Our Yesterdays: A Brief History of Detroit (Wayne State University Press, 1969). Carnegie Corporation of New York: Voting Rights: A Short History.

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I N T H E S TA C K S She was hailed as a World War II hero, but the primary sources surrounding Elsie MacGill reveal that her life and legacy were more complex and nuanced than the media would acknowledge.

By Madeleine Bradford

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inspiration.

She was the first woman to earn an aeronautical engineering master’s degree from U-M, in 1929. A polio survivor who learned to walk again using two canes, she was also a woman who became a chief engineer in a field full of men. She oversaw the manufacturing of so many Hurricane fighter planes in Canada during World War II that a comic was written about her, calling her the “Queen of the Hurricanes.”

When you open her alumni file at the Bentley Historical Library, it is full of newspaper clippings.

Reporters seized on her life as a heroic tale of success despite the odds.

But this was only part of the story.

(Clockwise from left) Bewildered newspaper reporters document their surprise at MacGill’s capabilities; artwork from the original WWII comic; MacGill’s archived wedding announcement.

ALUMNI INDEX FILE

Altitude Problems

NEWSPAPERS DESCRIBED ELIZABETH “ELSIE” MACGILL’S life as an

THE FIGUREHEAD As “Queen of the Hurricanes,” Elsie was sensationalized for the Canadian war effort.

War industries badly needed women to work. Newspapers were hungry for heroes like Rosie the Riveter, splashed across pages to boost morale.

Elsie neatly fit the bill.

“Hurrah for Elsie!” People cheered in the background of the “Queen of the Hurricanes” comic. Recovering from polio in one panel, her speech bubble read:

SHE OVERSAW THE MANUFACTURING OF SO MANY HURRICANE FIGHTER PLANES IN CANADA DURING WORLD WAR II THAT A COMIC WAS WRITTEN ABOUT HER, CALLING HER THE “QUEEN OF THE HURRICANES.”

“It’s good to be alive! Now I’m going to really start working!”

In reality, she told the Detroit News, her polio diagnosis had left her “despondent.” Most media glossed over the struggles she faced as someone who had trouble walking.

Being a figurehead, Elsie knew, also came with pressure to be perfect. She described it while discussing a Trainer plane that she helped design: “When you first start to work on it, the men around the shop refer to the job quite impersonally as The Trainer. Then, just a few days before test flights begin, it suddenly becomes your Trainer, and it is implied that if anything goes wrong you know who’s to blame.”

Despite her expertise and successes, reporters still asked Elsie if she could cook.

She joked that her cakes had “altitude” problems.

Elsie insisted that she had “never noticed discrimination, if any existed, against her presence in a man’s field,” according to the 1940 Toronto Star.

She still spent much of her time dealing with bewildered reporters who didn’t expect a chief engineer to be a woman using canes.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA

airplanes, perhaps due in part to resentment in the factory.

“Reporters couldn’t see anybody but Elsie,” one of the women working at the Canadian Car and Foundry remarked, according to New Brunswick Professor David Frank, in his article “The Canadian Worker on Film.”

Elsie also deflected the spotlight by repeatedly bringing up her supportive family in interviews.

“I’m so proud of them,” she insisted, showing off books that her mother and sister had written, turning interviews about her life into interviews about her family.

Elsie herself would eventually write a book titled My Mother, The Judge.

NOT A ONE-MAN JOB Another strategy Elsie employed for dealing with the press was to redirect the spotlight.

“You really shouldn’t say the Maple Leaf was my job,” she told the Toronto Telegram in 1940 about the Maple Leaf Trainer plane.

“Actually, it was the work of a number of people. Of course, if it had flopped, it would have been my responsibility.”

Elsie repeatedly insisted that “it isn’t a one-man job” to make

THE FIRING LINE

In 1943, Elsie married E.J. Soulsby, a former plant manager from the Canadian Car and Foundry (known as CanCar), where Elsie worked.

Then, quite suddenly, she wasn’t working at CanCar anymore.

Ann Soulsby, Elsie’s stepdaughter, later alleged that Elsie had been fired.

Given the stigma against working married women at the time, it’s possible her marriage may have been the reason.

However, in the marriage announcements in her alumni file, her war work is mentioned in each clipping; her job loss is not.

What these clippings do and don’t say underscores how media focus was still on Elsie’s heroic image, overshadowing the truth of her life.

AFTER THE WAR As men returned from war, and manufacturing needs decreased, women found themselves losing the jobs they had just gained.

Elsie’s reputation allowed her to visibly push for women’s rights, and she was appointed to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada, as well as joining several women’s organizations.

Her voice still wasn’t entirely heard.

In fact, she found herself having to file many of her personal suggestions alongside the commission’s report, rather than having them in the report itself. Her heroic reputation had been accepted onto the commission; her ideas about education, independence, and abortion were not.

Ultimately, no matter how hard she tried, Elsie couldn’t fully reshape her reputation; even today, when you search for Elsie MacGill’s name online, the title “Queen of the Hurricanes” follows closely behind.

The heroized version of her war work largely eclipses her later work in support of women’s rights, which is often mentioned secondarily, as well as shadowing her desire to share the spotlight with others.

More on Elsie’s life can be found in her alumni file, the Michigan Daily Digital Archives, and the Michigan Alumnus archives.

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I N T H E S TA C K S

COL L E C T ION S

I N T H E S TA C K S

Vote Gun

Patrick Charles’s new book, Vote Gun, explores the history of gun rights legislation in the United States and uses several Bentley collections. Charles sat down with Collections magazine to discuss how gun rights became such a divisive issue—and what it might take to resolve it.

By Lara Zielin

Your research traces the debate about gun laws in the United States as far back as the New York Sullivan Act of 1911. Can you explain that law and its impact?

The Sullivan Act was a gun control law that was passed in response to a wave of violence in New York in the early 1900s.

After its passage, the editors of several sporting magazines came together and started lambasting it, saying the law went too far.

There was deep concern that, if New York passed this law, that it would spread and be a norm throughout the country. Gun advocates united at this point, and this would be the driving force against gun control for the next 50 years.

Until the Gun Control Act of 1968, right? Can you speak about what was happening in the U.S. at the time, and what was different about this law?

After the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, politicians started taking stances about gun control, and there was widespread public support for it. Thomas Dodd, a representative from Connecticut, worked initially to restrict access to some forms of handguns and rifles, but the work was slow. Then, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968, followed quickly by Robert F. Kennedy in June of that same year. The Gun Control Act passed shortly thereafter.

Things changed again in the 1970s. Can you speak about what happened when Richard Nixon was elected?

Once Nixon was in office, gun rights groups started to chip away at the 1968 bill under the premise that gun rights were a state matter and not a federal matter. There was also a new rash of cheaply produced handguns being sold en masse, like the Saturday Night Special. The federal government wanted to regulate these guns

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and, in principle, the National Rifle Association (NRA) supported it. But the far-right extremist groups said if you regulate one gun, you will regulate all guns, that it’s a slippery slope to complete disarmament. That argument is embedded in our gun rights debate to this day.

Is this when the NRA began to shift into a gun rights organization, versus a hunting/shooting organization?

Yes, around this time, the NRA did a series of studies, and they understood that their members wanted them to oppose gun control. They changed their approach based on fear of losing members, and I think that’s still true today. It’s the tail wagging the dog; they are beholden to what the general gun rights population thinks.

What collections did you use in your research at the Bentley?

The Bentley has collections from several politicians talking about gun laws and gun control going back to the Royal S. Copeland papers from the 1930s, when he was a senator in New York.

Philip A. Hart is another Michigan politician whose papers shed light on the issue, and there were also the Harold Glassen papers—he was a former president of the NRA. The breadth of the papers really gives a sense of what local politicians thought about an issue over decades.

What impact do you hope your book will have?

Certainly the book can help correct the myth of when and why gun rights formed. It can also refute the idea that gun control leads to a despondent government. I’m not a political scientist; my point is that you have to look at the history of the issue. The solution is neither to end guns nor to let them be wholly unregulated— it’s somewhere in the middle. There has to be a discourse, people have to come together and have that discussion, not engage in “what aboutism” instead of listening to each other.

Patrick J. Charles is senior historian and archivist for the United States Air Force. He is the author of Armed in America: A History of Gun Rights from Colonial Militias to Concealed Carry (2018). His research and writings have been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States, lower federal courts, and state supreme courts.

I N T H E S TA C K S

COL L E C T ION S

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN STUDENT PORTRAITS, HS92

Vaulting Fences, Chopping Wood, and Shocking Delicate Nerves One of U-M’s first female students defied gender norms and wrote a book about her experiences on campus.

By Madeleine Bradford

IN ONE PHOTO FROM the Student Portraits collection, Olive San Louie Anderson wears a suit, waistcoat, and bowtie. In another, she wears a frilled dress, trimmed with lace.

Olive, nicknamed Jo, was among the earliest women to attend the University of Michigan in 1871. Archived images of her gender expression help tell her story, as does her book, An American Girl and Her Four Years in a Boys’ College.

Writing under the pseudonym “Sola,” a rearrangement of her initials, Olive explores the life of “Wilhelmine Elliott,” also known as “Will,” in a thinly veiled description of Olive’s U-M experience.

In this book, while identifying as a woman, Will nevertheless navigates gender fluidly, defying the expectations of the time by cutting her hair short, wearing a

hunting suit, and announcing “I’ll never be happy in skirts.” Will faces judgment and social backlash, but clearly feels most comfortable in clothes that don’t fit the gender binary of the time.

Annotations in a Bentley copy of this book, printed from microfilm, show that Will is a stand-in for Olive. Considering her archived photographs, it seems possible that Olive herself enjoyed aspects of men’s fashion from that era, much as Will did.

Olive writes about Will finding women’s dresses cumbersome and hairstyles heavy enough to provoke “headaches.” In one scene, Will burns a corset while giving her friends a speech about dress reform. At the same time, Will is an advocate for women’s rights. She represents herself as masculine one moment, and feminine the next, often combining the two (described as both “boyish” and full of “girlishness,” in the same sentence). She vaults over fences, chops her own wood, and generally challenges what people expect.

“Aren’t you afraid of shocking his delicate nerves?” one of her friends asks, when Will announces she’ll go hunting with a young man she likes.

“Precisely what I want to do, for it must come sooner or later,” she responds.

In 1875, Olive was the only woman in her class invited to give a commencement speech. Will also gives a speech in her book, making a case for women to be allowed into fields “monopolized by men.” This speech may have stemmed from Olive’s own frustrations in her desire to pursue the medical profession.

In An American Girl, Will constantly faces people who tell her that women shouldn’t be doctors. Olive would likely have heard the same kind of gendered discouragement.

Olive herself never became a doctor; she worked for a time as a teacher, and a writer, before drowning in a swimming accident in 1886. Nevertheless, her book brings researchers a firsthand perspective of early women studying at universities, the complicated, frustrating world of gender expectations that they navigated, and historical self-expression outside of the gender binary. Several copies of Olive’s book are stored at the Bentley Historical Library, and online in the HathiTrust Digital Library.

I N T H E S TA C K S

Cold War, Warm Welcome

By Katie Vloet

THE TWO MEN MET FOR THE FIRST TIME with a bear hug. They did not speak the same language, so the local man pantomimed— somehow—that he was a performer and teacher of the trombone, euphonium, and trumpet. The visitor responded with arm gestures that indicated he’d been a violinist.

One can imagine their arms flailing and faces growing animated with their wordless storytelling. They went on to discuss the visitor’s symphony band and its instrumentation, performances, and repertoire, all without a shared spoken language.

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This was 1961 in the Soviet Union, and the local man was renowned conductor Natan Rakhlin of the Ukrainian Symphony. The visitor was William Revelli, the longtime director of the University of Michigan bands, who was conducting the Symphony Band in a series of concerts throughout the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the Near East.

“Harry Barnes, our representative from the U.S. Department of State, entered the room and stood amazed that two men who had never previously met, could carry on such an extensive conversation without knowing a single word of each other’s native language,” Revelli later recalled.

“Maestro [Rakhlin] attended three additional concerts and came to visit me following each performance. Our friendship for each other continued to grow, as did our ‘vocabulary’; great and far-reaching indeed is the language of music.”

That moment of shared humanity was exactly the kind of connection that led the State Department under the Kennedy administration to fund the 15-week trip, still the longest trip of its kind sponsored by the department. The tour occurred during the height of the Cold War, with the goal

of answering this question: Could young musicians really succeed as diplomats?

PLANES, TRAINS, AND CAMELS They sported bouffants and flat-tops, hornrimmed and brow-line glasses, trench coats, and head scarves. Of the 94 students who toured with the symphony band, many had never traveled internationally or sent airmail.

“I had never been on an airplane. And all of a sudden, we spent 15 weeks on airplanes, trains, buses, taxi cabs, camels— you name it,” trumpeter Dave Wolter recalled decades later.

Their first show was in Moscow. Before a crowd of 6,000, they concluded their twohour performance with a Russian classic, “Great Gate of Kiev” by Modest Mussorgsky.

Revelli and the band members waited for applause. They were greeted with silence.

At first, Revelli and many students thought they had done something wrong.

Some wondered if they had offended the very people they were in Moscow to engage in friendly, cross-cultural harmony. Then, a single Muscovite rose. He clapped once,

JANE OTTESON KING COLLECTION

In 1961, the Kennedy Administration sent the U-M Symphony Band to the Soviet Union in hopes of thawing relations between the two countries through the common language of music. Could young musicians succeed as diplomats?

(LEFT TO RIGHT) U-M SYMPHONY BAND 1961 TOUR COLLECTION; JANE OTTESON KING COLLECTION

I N T H E S TA C K S

COL L E C T ION S

followed by a single clap from many in the audience. They stamped their feet, clapped more, and were rewarded with five encores.

The unusual reception greeted them throughout the country. “11th day, Leningrad,” band member Loren Mayhew wrote in a diary that is now kept in the Bentley archives. “We performed our final concert in Leningrad tonight. We played the longest [concert] yet. Although we did not play any songs over, we played 8 encores, which accounts for the extra time. After the concert I talked to some people from the audience. The [S]oviet people are wonderful and if you mention the word ‘peace,’ they go wild in applause.”

PEACE, LOVE, AND UNDERSTANDING The band members were not immune to international politics during the trip. When they were in Cairo, for instance, they were quarantined due to demonstrations against the United States’ recent Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, recalled Bruce Galbraith, one of the band members who later organized a reunion trip in 2012.

(Opposite page) U-M Symphony Band members played packed shows from Moscow to Leningrad and beyond at the height of the Cold War.

(Above, left to right) Souvenirs from the tour included promotional flyers and posters; after performances, audience members often wanted to speak with the musicians.

The reunited band members were also honored at a halftime show during a 2011 Michigan football game. That’s when Kari Lindquist, then a saxophone player in the Marching Band, first learned of the trip. She is now a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina and is studying the trip as part of her research into tours of U.S. wind bands abroad during geopolitical conflicts in the 20th century. The U-M Symphony Band’s tour, she says, was only possible because of the Lacy-Zarubin Agreement of 1958 that allowed for cultural exchanges between the United States and Soviet Union.

Of note, says Lindquist, is the fact that women musicians were allowed to play on the trip—at a time when they were not permitted to perform in the Marching Band (that wouldn’t happen until 1972). The trip was a success for a variety of reasons, she says—not least of which were the casual interactions between musicians and audiences. “The young people were a big asset to what the State Department was trying to achieve,” she says.

The outcome of the trip can be measured in rounds of applause, or audience numbers. It can be assessed by this statement in the Congressional Record: “Their talent has carried a message that no words could have expressed,” or this review by a conductor in the Soviet press: “First to say about the band: it has a perfect sound. . . . No wonder our keen audience showed so much attention and gave a warm welcome to these messengers of goodwill from the American people.”

It could also be measured in smaller moments, the kind of diplomacy that is only achieved when one human being meets another.

On February 27, 1961, Mayhew—the diarist referenced previously—wrote of meeting a Soviet French hornist at a hotel in Leningrad. They used Mayhew’s English-Russian dictionary to communicate.

Fifty years later, Bentley archivist Olga Virakhovskaya would accompany some band members on a reunion trip to Russia, which had been organized and led by 1961 band member Galbraith. She thought she could try to contact the person Mayhew had met, whom he had identified as “Valledy Tvanov.”

The name seemed off to Virakhovskaya, who is originally from St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad). With the information she had, though, she searched for him. She also signed on to the Russian version of Facebook and informed people that members of the band were returning for a visit in 2012.

In St. Petersburg, Mayhew was able to see Valery Ivanov, the real name of the French horn player he’d met decades before. They hugged. Ivanov brought with him a signed piece of sheet music Mayhew had given him in 1961. On his lapel, he wore a University of Michigan pin.

Sources for the article include:

Symphony Band 1961 Tour collection, 1960-2023; Russian Tour Revisited: collected memories, letters, notes and diaries, 2008; Loren Mayhew diary, 1961; Jane Otteson King records, 1961; “A Talk with Paul Ganson and Dave Wolter,” circa 2011 (recording); William Revelli, “Reflections on a Musical Adventure,” parts I and II, SAGE Publications, 1961; “Revelli: The Long Note,” U-M Heritage Project, by Kim Clarke.

BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU 29

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

The etymology of “the real McCoy” may lead back to an engineer and inventor from Michigan.

By Madeleine Bradford

“THE REAL MCCOY” is a phrase that you may have heard. It’s synonymous with “the real thing,” or the genuine article. But did you know that this phrase might have its origins in the name of Michigander Elijah McCoy? McCoy’s family escaped slavery, fleeing from Kentucky to Canada, where his father found work as a soldier. McCoy was born in Ontario on May 2, 1844.

At the age of 15, he was sent to Edinburgh, Scotland, for a five-year apprenticeship in a lucrative career: mechanical engineering.

After receiving his certification, McCoy traveled to the United States for work.

However, he soon found that no one would hire a Black engineer. The best position he could find was as a railroad fireman.

Contrary to the name, railroad firemen didn’t put fires out—they kept them going.

McCoy worked on the Michigan Central Railroad in cramped, hot conditions, feeding the fires that heated steam engine boilers. Shoving fuel endlessly into the firebox, he had a chance to see the internal mechanisms of trains up close.

According to the Michigan Historical Records Survey microfilm, his job also “compelled him to go out on the running board while the train drifted, to apply oil in the cups on the steam chest.”

Patent drawing for McCoy’s automated steam-engine lubricator, patented in 1872.

30 BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU

The running board was an extremely narrow step along the side of the train, to which McCoy clung, as he inched his way along toward the steam chest, while the train slowed to a stop. It couldn’t move again until the cups were oiled.

Oiling the locomotives was so demanding and dangerous, McCoy likely started thinking about ways he could get around this process. It was also an engineering problem—exactly the kind of thing that McCoy had spent five years of his life studying.

On July 24, 1872, at the age of 28, McCoy filed his patent application for an Automatic Steam Chest Locomotive Lubricator. Working while the train ran, it allowed locomotives to move faster and more efficiently, without stopping for oil.

It was the first of at least 57 patents throughout his life.

“Engineers at first objected” to his invention, according to the microfilm, because it had been invented by a Black man. Soon, however, it became clear that the practical usefulness of the invention couldn’t be ignored.

“Railroad officials installed it on their locomotives under the direct supervision of Mr. McCoy himself, while the engineers took their instructions from him,” the Michigan Historical Records Survey reports.

“From 1872 down to 1915, all railroad locomotives in the U.S. and foreign countries were equipped” with his inventions.

The widespread use of McCoy lubricators on trains—as well as railroad engineers requesting it by name—led to speculation that this could be the source of the phrase “the real McCoy.” McCoy died in 1929 and is buried in Detroit Memorial Park. In 2001, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and, in 2012, the Detroit Patent and Trademark Office was named in his honor.

U.S. PATENT 129,843 (CREATIVE COMMONS)

Engineering a Phrase

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

COL L E C T ION S

“Spirit writing” gained popularity after the Civil War. Several examples can be found in the Williams family papers.

WILLIAMS FAMILY PAPERS

I Must Not Stay Spiritualism and “spirit writing” was a way for families to cope with grief and pain in the 19th century.

By Lara Zielin

THE SCRAWLED LETTERS LOOK LIKE they could have been written by a child: Emma I must not stay Schuyler is coming goodnight Benny Emma is Emma Williams. Schuyler was her older brother who died suddenly in 1866 while a student at the University of Michigan.

This message was written to Emma by a medium, or spiritualist.

It’s probable that this message was penned not long after Schuyler’s death, in the early 1870s.

This archived note is part of the Williams family papers, and the collection is full of “spiritualist writings” that look similar to those pictured here. Alfred Lorenzo (A.L.) Williams was the primary

spiritualist in the Williams family, embracing the idea that loved ones could communicate after death.

Spiritualism burgeoned during and after the Civil War as grieving families sought closure and comfort. Spiritualist newspapers proved popular, circulating the idea that the deceased could communicate and even offer advice to the living.

A.L. may have sought these letters—and the mediums who wrote them—to cope with the loss of first wife, Sarah Ann Beardslee Williams, in 1839, just four years after they were married. He remarried in 1841 but lost both his daughter Sarah and his son Benjamin in 1859, followed by his son Schuyler in 1866.

Over the course of his life, A.L. established successful trading outposts, helped settle the town of Owosso, Michigan, developed railroads, and served as county treasurer. The spiritual letters he and his family collected contain comforting words that may have helped them forge ahead despite their grief.

“Reward is in the spirit world,” reads one letter. “Tell my children and husband that I am very happy.”

BENTLEY.UMICH.EDU 31

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THE (LIKELY) REAL MCCOY Elijah McCoy was an engineer who worked on the Michigan Central Railroad in hot, miserable, and dangerous conditions. He invented a device that would make his job safer and help trains run more efficiently without stopping for oil. The invention, one of many in his lifetime, was so successful that it may have become the origin of a phrase still in use today. Read the full story on p. 30.