From the Detroit Historical Society archives: this photo is of the dedication ceremony of the current DHM building in 1951.
Photo courtesy of Detroit Historical Society.
Last year marked the Detroit Historical Society’s 100th anniversary of preserving and sharing the stories of Detroit. Coming out of the pandemic, the Society is dedicated to celebrating its long tenure as the keeper of the city’s history.
“It’s really exciting, and as a historical organization we do a very good job of chronicling other stories but now it’s one of those situations where a cobbler’s kids go barefoot sort of thing,” said Jeremy Dimick, director of collections and curatorial at the Detroit Historical Society.
“We’ve never really reflectively looked back at our own history, and I think it’s like that with historical situations across the board. Now coming on 100 years, it’s a nice opportunity to do some looking back and diving into what we’ve been quietly squirreling away to tell our own story.”
The Detroit Historical Society is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that is committed to preserving local history so that present and future generations of metro Detroit residents can have a better understanding of the people, places, and occasions that influenced our lives. The Society oversees the Detroit Historical Museum and Dossin Great Lakes Museum.
The 100 Year History of the Detroit Historical Society
In 1921, several prominent Detroiters founded the Detroit Historical Society, initially as a fundraising and support group for the Burton Historical Collection. The group ventured out into the community to collect objects such letters and maps for the archives and soon realized there was an opportunity to preserve the three-dimensional object they were given as part of the city’s history.
In 1928, the Detroit Historical Museum was formed and initially located on the 23rd floor of Barlum Tower (now Cadillac Tower) and was advertised as “the highest museum in the world.” At the time, the museum was a simple display of objects with no curatorial interpretation or theme.
As the collection grew in the 1930s, the Society began participating in one-off exhibits and trade shows to reach a larger audience. After moving into an acquired house on Wayne State University’s campus for a brief stay, the Society began looking for dedicated space and settled into the modern building of today in 1951. In 1961, the Dossin Great Lakes Museum was founded to capture the maritime stories that attracted the city’s earliest community along the Detroit River.
From 1951 to 2006, the city of Detroit assumed control of the collection and operations of the museum while the Society played a supportive role in fundraising and hosting lectures.
In 2006, the Society partnered with the city of Detroit as the city was struggling financially, to sign a memorandum of understanding stating that while the city would retain the collection, the Society would operate the museum.
The Detroit Historical Museum captures the stories of Detroiters in a significant collection of more than 250,000 artifacts and documents, shared through award-winning exhibitions, programs, tours, publications and online content.
Some of the earliest artifacts preserved at the museum are wooden water main pipes from the city’s first water system. Dimick said the Society receives calls from construction projects that are still digging up these early engineering systems under the city.
Dimick said some of the standout moments over the ten decades include the Society’s first two lectures in the 1920s. The first lecture was about French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founding the site that became Detroit in 1701 and the second was on Detroit’s part in the Underground Railroad.
“A lot of our own institutional history of Black Detroiters come from records of exhibits done after we partnered with the Black Historic Sites Committee, founded in 1970. [They] initially focused on placing historical markers across the city, but then became involved in exhibit content development as well,” said Dimick.
“They hosted events like Jazz on the Streets of Old Detroit, developed exhibits like the history of WGPR – the city’s first black-owned radio station, exhibits about the 100th anniversary of the Detroit Stars Negro National League Baseball team as well as support of the current Standing on the Shoulders of Giants program and the long running African American Family Day,” added Dimick.
In honor of the centennial anniversary, the Detroit Historical Society, in partnership with LGBT Detroit and Vibes with the Tribes, unveiled a special collection, “100 Years 100 Stories.” This is a series of workshops about at-home preservation and historical gathering of family heirlooms and historical documents. The goal of this unique outreach initiative is to preserve the often-overlooked histories of Detroit’s Midtown district.
Currently, DHS is working to digitize the museum’s collection of 250,000 three-dimensional artifacts to allow for accessibility of their archival material. The initiative is funded by a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services and will be made available on the website for public access.
“Looking back 100 years, the 1920s was a real boom time for the city as it was very new, as a built environment that is. I think one of the main reasons the Historical Society started in the ‘20s is that there is an attitude about the city that it’s brand new and nobody here has roots and the founders wanted to prove that a place like Detroit has as much history as cities on the east coast and has existed for a while.
“Maybe it’s history repeating itself with a lot of people nationally think Detroit’s story is starting again in the 2020s, even though for those of us that are here and experiencing it that it’s not true and we’ve always been here. Going forward histories are more personal and not just a collection of biographies of great men. It’s spreading out and continues to be led by everyone’s story,” said Dimick.
On April 29 the Detroit Historical Society is hosting its “100th Anniversary Celebration – Celebrating Detroit through the Decades” to celebrate the milestone with the community. For ticket information, visit detroithistorical.org.
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