In this new addition to the Images of America series, Richard Bak takes us on a visual journey through Detroit's golden era, encompassing the first three decades of the twentieth century. It was during this time that the City of Detroit experienced its most rapid physical growth and underwent an unprecedented pace of social and technological change. Detroit: 1900-1930 contains nearly 190 illustrations, including studio portraits, snapshots, postcards, songsheet covers, and period advertisements. Collectively, these images evoke a past that is often too easily forgotten as older Detroiters pass away. As you thumb through the pages of this book, you will encounter such influential people as Henry Ford and other automotive pioneers who helped to "put the world on wheels." Experience daily life as it was lived at the time of the First World War, and discover the major role Detroit played in this historic conflict. This volume highlights the wave of immigration that occurred here at the turn of the century, when roughly half of the city's population hailed from other countries. Also featured are various scenes from the "Roaring Twenties," the ill-fated experiment in Prohibition, and the effect of the Great Depression on the city's economy.

This text focuses on the working people who, in the first three decades of the 20th century, made Detroit into one of the world's great industrial cities. Telling their stories through photographs with captions explaining its content and context, it examines the world as they lived and changed it.

As the roaring twenties came to an end and a new decade dawned, the United States found itself locked in the grips of the Great Depression. The City of Detroit was no exception as industry laid off workers and bread lines formed across the city. Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy let the country in supporting state and federal welfare programs to help people through the economic crisis. By the middle of the 1930s, Detroit began picking itself up out of the economic mud and was soon flexing its industrial muscle as manufacturing, led by the auto industry, put the Motor City back into shape. As the decade ended and war approached, the city was ready to take its place on the world stage. The country reeled from the shock of the attack on Pearl Harbor and had to shift its industrial might from civilian use to the war effort. Nowhere was that more evident than in Detroit. Its huge manufacturing capabilities, when turned to the making of the implements of war, earned the city a new nickname. The Motor City became to the Arsenal of Democracy and began to evolve once more. The influx of workers from the Deep South to the war industry added yet another facet to the city's society and culture. As the Second World War came to a close and production re-tooled for the return to civilian life, an economic boom swept through Detroit. The city celebrated its 25oth birthday in 1951, prompting an outpouring of funds to build with. Major additions were made to the Art Institute, the Detroit Historical Museum, and the riverfront.

On July 24, 1701, Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac stood in the heart of the wilderness on a bluff overlooking the Detroit River and claimed this frontier in the name of Louis XIV; thus began the story of Detroit, a city marked by pioneering spirits, industrial acumen, and uncommon durability. Over the course of its 300-year history, Detroit has been sculpted into a city unique in the American experience by its extraordinary mixture of diverse cultures: American Indian, French, British, American colonial, and a variety of immigrant newcomers. Detroit: A Motor City History documents the major events that shaped this once-small French fur-trading outpost across three centuries of conflict and prosperity. Through informative text and a variety of imagery, readers experience firsthand the struggles of the nascent village against raiding Indian tribes and the incessant political and military tug of war between the colonial French and English, and then American interests. Like many other major cities across the United States, Detroit played a pivotal role in establishing the country's economic and industrial power in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, serving as a center for its well-known civilian and military mass-production resources. This visual history provides insight into Detroit's rapid evolution from a hamlet into a metropolis against a backdrop of important community and national affairs: the decimating fire of 1805, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, and both world wars.

As the roaring twenties came to an end and a new decade dawned, the United States found itself locked in the grips of the Great Depression. The City of Detroit was no exception as industry laid off workers and bread lines formed across the city. Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy led the country in supporting state and federal welfare programs to help people through the economic crisis. By the middle of the 1930s, Detroit began picking itself up out of the economic mud and was soon flexing its industrial muscle as manufacturing, led by the auto industry, put the Motor City back into shape. As the decade ended and war approached, the city was ready to take its place on the world stage. The country reeled from the shock of the attack on Pearl Harbor and had to shift its industrial might from civilian use to the war effort. Nowhere was that more evident than in Detroit. Its huge manufacturing capabilities, when turned to the making of the implements of war, earned the city a new nickname. The Motor City became to the Arsenal of Democracy and began to evolve once more. The influx of workers from the Deep South to the war industry added yet another facet to the city's society and culture. As the Second World War came to a close and production re-tooled for the return to civilian life, an economic boom swept through Detroit. The city celebrated its 25oth birthday in 1951, prompting an outpouring of funds to build with. Major additions were made to the Art Institute, the Detroit Historical Museum, and the riverfront.

In this rare and unprecedented collection, discover Detroit as it once was, with the people and industries that flourished in this community prior to the twentieth century. With over 230 photographs, Detroit 1860-1899 encompasses a visual history of the city before the birth of the automobile industry. Join Mr. Poremba on a trip down memory lane to the beginnings of the "Motor City." Witness its growth and change, and its lasting contributions to our nation's history. Detroit 1860-1899 will be enjoyed by young and old, resident and visitor alike.

“Engaging” stories of what the Motor City was like before the invention of the motor, with photos and illustrations (Detroit Metro-Times). Long before it became the twentieth-century automotive capital, Detroit was a muddy port town full of grog shops, horse races, haphazard cemeteries, and enterprising bootstrappers from all over the world. In this lively book you’ll discover the city’s forgotten history and meet a variety of unforgettable characters—the argumentative French fugitive who founded the city; the tobacco magnate who haunts his shuttered factory; the gambler prankster millionaire who built a monument to himself; the governor who brought his scholarly library with him on canoe expeditions; and the historians who helped create the story of Detroit as we know it: one of the oldest, rowdiest, and most enigmatic cities in the Midwest.