A Bicentennial Year in Review: Eli's top 100 of the Ann Arbor 200
by eli
I can't believe I'm saying this in 2025... but Welcome to my Blog! To have one official place to link to when I want to post more than can fit on social media channels, we're bringing back the AADL Director's Blog, where I'll post about great stuff happening at the library, and keep our patrons updated on what's going on with library buildings, initiatives, and services. You can find older posts made to the Director's Blog as part of Library News.
It's official; Ann Arbor's Bicentennial Year is behind us, and with it the largest content production project AADL has ever attempted, even bigger than our gigantic Summer Game.
Hopefully you've been following along all year as we released documentaries, essays, features, music, art, poetry, newly-digitized documents, walking tours, exhibits, and much more. If not, that's ok; the plan is for it to all be around for the rest of time!
I am just so incredibly proud of the AADL Archives Team for the astounding amount of work they produced this year for the community. Every single one of these 200 releases is engaging, creative, informative, authoritative, and brings the history of our community to life in new and exciting ways. Thank you as well to all of the artists, filmmakers, musicians, poets, researchers, photographers, writers, actors, and mimes who contributed to this project.
But 200 things, that's a lot of things! It's easy to miss things that you might be super interested in. So as the year wound up, I started pulling together a list of my favorite projects from our bicentennial year.... and by the time we got to December 31st, my list had 100 projects on it. That is... also a lot of things. Ope!
Congratulations to our Archives Team for making through this very busy year: Amy Cantú, Darla Welshons, Elizabeth Smith, Heidi Morse, Katrina Anbender, Carolyn Countegan, and Archives Manager Andrew MacLaren, who had this bananas idea 4+ years ago. We know we've done justice to the work the Ann Arbor Public Library did in 1974 to honor the Sesquicentennial; and to our successors who will be celebrating Ann Arbor's Semiquincentennial in 2074... consider the gauntlet thrown!
So, here's my sorted list of my 100 favorite projects of Ann Arbor 200. I hope you'll take a look over the whole project; it was a challenge keeping this list to just 100 amazing bits of local history. Enjoy, and thanks for using your library!
Documentaries & Films
Yes, this is all 25 video projects we released this year. We do plan to put these on DVD for the circulating collection. You can also expect us to keep producing projects like these... just not 25 in a single year!
#010: There Went The Neighborhood: The Closing of Jones School
#013: Theater for All: Here Comes Wild Swan!
#020: The Ann Arbor Ozone Homecoming Parade
#050: Keith & Martin / Martin & Keith: Elegy for the \aut\BAR
#054: Branching Narratives: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of the Tappan Oak
#060: A Historic Tour of Hertler Brothers and Downtown Home & Garden
#107: Toast of the Town: The Story of Angelo’s
#131: Local Movement: Five Decades of Dance in Ann Arbor
#136: 50 Years of Celebration: The Dance for Mother Earth Powwow
#143: A Day at the Dairy: Ann Arbor’s Washtenaw Dairy
#149: Setting the Pace: Ann Arbor’s Running History
#154: The Loop of Pain: Ann Arbor’s Semi-official Mountain Bike Trails
#158: Craig Walsh: Monuments: Documenting the Wheeler Park Installation
#160: DeLong’s
#164: Lumpen Hippie Light Show
#170: I Remember When (Bicentennial Remix)
#173: Right to Read: The Ann Arbor King Case
#177: The French Dukes: Rhythm, Roots, and Legacy
#180: The Old Neighborhood Reunion
#187: Iyengar in Ann Arbor: An American Yoga Story
#191: A Walk Through the Ann Arbor Farmers Market
#194: Room for Change: Ann Arbor’s Fair Housing Protests in the 1960s
#195: Last Summer: Recording of Premiere Performance
#196: Relentless Warrior: Al Wheeler - Ann Arbor’s First Black Mayor
#198: Echoes of Techno: Electronic Music in Ann Arbor
Music & Sound
From climate data-based synthesis to a new track from Ann Arbor's own Athletic Mic League, here are 8 projects to keep your ears busy for months to come!
#043: Scoring the Archive
#097: “This is the Town That Was”, A Musical History of Ann Arbor, December 16th 1974
#125: Summer Echoes: An Original Composition Created from Climate Data
#150: Condemned to a Soulless Wealth: An Original Composition based on LBJ’s Great Society Speech
#159: Last Known Address: Original EP from Timothy Monger
#179: Made History: A New Track by Athletic Mic League
#181: Fifth Wall: A Soundtrack for the Michigan Theater
#183: WCBN Local Music Show Archive
Art & Poetry
In 2023, we issued a call for contributors, inviting local artists and writers to pitch projects to be a part of Ann Arbor 200. Some of the most unique and engaging works came from responses to this open call.
#041: Song of the Editor: Poems and Other Miscellany in the Signal of Liberty
#064: W.E. Upjohn Peony Garden: Original Letterpress Print
#100: Summer Game 2024 Map Annotated
#114: Parker Mill County Park through the Seasons
#135: Ann Arbor Signs: Original Prints
#140: Celebration and Recognition: A Woven Portrait of Local Female Leaders
#152: Natural Ann Arbor: A Map
#155: A Huron River Séance: Psychogeographic Performances by the River
#162: Black History Bicentennial Mural
#167: Recreated Postcards
#171: Beauty’s in the Eye of the Tree-Holder: A People’s Catalog of Ann Arbor’s Trees
#174: Four Poems
#176: Ceramic Leaves and Leaflets from Native Tree Species
#178: Was Here / Now Gone - Poem and film
#184: Lost Ann Arbor: New Paintings
#193: Original Poems Inspired by Robert Hayden
Local Business
There is a ton of Local Business content in the Ann Arbor 200, including interviews, documentaries, and advertising ephemera; these are just a few of my favorites.
#028: Metzger’s
#052: Seva
#070: Weber’s
#079: Angelo’s
#108: Treasure Mart
#117: NYPD
#161: Pilar’s
Digitization Projects
Several of the Ann Arbor 200 were huge projects in their own right; releases of newly-digitized or compiled materials now a permanent part of our online Local History collection. It's quite apt that the project began with the release of the full run of the Observer so far, and ended with just a taste of Wystan Stevens' enormous slide collection, which will continue to grow for years to come.
#002: The Ann Arbor Observer
#021: The Huron Valley Ad-Visor
#118: Ann Arbor Yearbooks 1885-2000
#120: Andrea Fulton Concert Photo Collection
#145: 200 Years of A2Votes
#147: Advertising Ephemera from Ann Arbor’s Past
#157: Art Fare Magazine: 1973-1979
#200: The Wystan Stevens Collection
Features
Ok, here's where I really struggled to be selective. So many of the Ann Arbor 200 were features about forgotten, unknown, or under-appreciated tales from our history. This certainly isn't all of them, but they were all highlights to me!
#007: Ann Arbor Takes Flight
#011: Looking for Love in Ann Arbor
#014: Ann Arbor’s Lost Poet: Charles Henry Shoeman
#024: A Full Dance Card: Ann Arbor’s Chequamegon Band & Orchestra
#030: Let’s Go Skating: Ann Arbor’s Ivory Palace Rollerdrome, 1938-1951
#044: The Art & Life of Virginia Hendrickson Irvin
#047: Old Wild Cat Times: Frauds, Fake Towns, and Counterfeits in the era of Free Banking
#053: E.J. Knowlton’s Portable, Pliable, Patented Baths
#056: Prentiss Ware: Optimism in the Face of Adversity
#062: Emma E. Bower: A Woman With Her Own Ideas
#065: In Memory of Ann Arbor’s Student Army/Navy Training Corps
#074: Titus “Potato” Bronson: Ann Arbor’s Pioneering Potato Man
#078: Clifford Bryant’s Namesake: Bryant Elementary School
#080: Lionel “Mike” Ames: Michigan’s Premier Female Impersonator
#087: Sophia Pierce: Columnist & Clairvoyant
#092: The Steel Magnolias: Ann Arbor’s First Women’s Hockey Team
#095: Sammy Ross: Ann Arbor’s Early Auto Racing Ace
#103: James Babcock: Ann Arbor’s Most Eligible Bachelor
#109: Bobby and the Old Professor: Adventures in Science, 1938-1949
#122: Ann Arbor Gymkhana: 30 Years of Trampolines, Spaceball, & Fitness
#132: From Ann Arbor to Normandy: 2nd Lieutenant Jack Weese
#188: The Instructors of the Army Japanese Language School
#189: A History of Mime in Ann Arbor
#190: Percy “Mr. Bones” Danforth
Essays & Stories
I'm so thankful that these writers chose to tell these stories as part of the Ann Arbor 200:
#165: There Was Only One Ollie McLaughlin
#172: Korean Restaurants Made Me Feel Less Alone
#185: Borders in the Community
#192: Wonderful Town
Exhibits
Some of these are online-only exhibits where you can slide across the image to compare then and now, and some were mounted and installed in the 2nd floor Archives Gallery at the Downtown Library. But they're all part of aadl.org now for posterity:
#005: Recapturing Ann Arbor: Then & Now Images
#023: Dance, Music, Art & Community: 50 Years of the Dance for Mother Earth Powwow
#046: For the Record: a Zine for Record Store Day
#059: Aerial Updates: Ann Arbor from Above, Then & Now
#139: Ann Arbor News Photographs In Color
#142: The Observer Observed: Online Exhibit and Interview Collection
#182: The Washtenaw County Courthouses in LEGO
Video games:
Dr. Alvin Wood Chase was quite an unusual guy, and these three retro games, playable in your browser or on mobile, give you an interesting take on his interesting life.
#199: Dr. Chase: A Trio of new Throwback Video Games about an Ann Arbor Legend
Thanks again to everyone who was a part of this enormous project. Rest assured that we'll be continuing to produce unusual takes on local history, and you can expect many of these pieces to show up on Social Media, in the Summer Game badges, and maybe even the Summer Game Shop for years to come!
Happy Birthday, Ann Arbor! Now... let's do something else for a while. =)
Blog Post
Subjects
Director's Blog