Category

Michigan Historical Center

• 07.30.09
  Who will be first to be innovative and re-inventive?
  Michigan Historical Center (0)

  A few posts back ("History is Now Officially Bunk") I suggested that if Gov. Granholm really wanted to establish a Michigan Center for Innovation and Reinvention at what is now the Michigan Historical Center, she should auction the building to the highest bidder, preferably a tax-paying bidder. What could be more innovative and re-inventive than that as a way to build a sustainable Michigan economy? I'd much prefer she'd just let the building continue to serve its current purpose, of course, but if we take her at her word about wanting innovation and reinvention in that ...
  
  
• 07.20.09
  History is now officially bunk
  Michigan Historical Center (1)

  For a university president to be dissing the study of the past in this way is just wrong. The tone is similar to the anti-intellectualism of Henry Ford when he said, "History is bunk." Here is the way Ford said it on one of the occasions when he said it: History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history that we make today. Compare that with the following from the MSU student newspaper : Proposed Monday by ...
  
  
• 07.16.09
  Destroyers of libraries
  Michigan Historical Center (0)

  Back in 1951 a misguided government worker set a fire in Michigan's State Office building. He thought a minor crime would keep him from being sent to military service in Korea.  The fire got out of hand and destroyed some of the state's archives. The arsonist was sent to Jackson Prison instead of Korea. In 1988 Michigan finally got a proper place to put its collections, in the Michigan Library and Historical Center. The building houses the state library, the state archives, and a museum. I've made use of all three. In the ...