Dive into the life of writer Betty Smith, who spent years in Ann Arbor with her first husband. During her time in Ann Arbor, she audited playwriting classes and learned from Kenneth Thorpe Rowe.
women at Michigan
In 1961, the Kennedy Ad-ministration 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?
Music
With the relatively recent deaths of former Congressman John D. Dingell, former Michigan Governor William G. Milliken, and, most recently, former United States Senator Carl Levin, we ask: what can the lives of remarkable public service and long-term political success and recognition teach us? Scholars will no doubt argue over this in coming years, and they will do so, in part, by visiting the Bentley archives.
Michigan politics
Trains crashing. People dying. Businesses struggling. The perils of keeping incorrect time in Detroit were significant, and the city desperately needed a solution. A visionary academic, a knowledge-loving businessman, and new technology to plot the stars would converge on a small hill at U-M, changing Detroit—and the campus—forever.
Detroit Observatory
A rash of UFO sightings across Michigan in the mid-1960s launched investigations by the highest levels of the U.S. government. Collections at the Bentley document several aspects of these widespread close encounters. Was it spaceships or swamp gas? The answer may depend on whose papers you peruse.
outer space