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
Prohibition drove alcohol underground at U-M beginning in 1920. But apparently not underground enough. A police raid in 1931 brought national attention to drinking on campus. Archived records at the Bentley show how U-M administrators responded—and what the fallout was like.
Eighteenth Amendment
The Whimsies was an anonymously published literary magazine that became massively popular on U-M’s campus in the early 1920s. But who was behind it?
campus publications
Helen Thompson Gaige’s passion for frogs, salamanders, lizards and more was unusual for a woman at the turn of the century. She defied gender stereotypes by becoming an expert in zoology and launching herself into globetrotting adventures to collect and study specimens. Her scientific legacy endures in the archive—and beyond.
science