Welcome to the 1930s

What did people do before there were TVs, the Internet, and MP3 players? We will use music, food, and more to recreate the 1930s and set the stage for our Soul of a People series of programs. Providing the music will be Ray Kamalay, Detroit native and noted singer and guitarist who has concentrated on the music of the 1930s.

Writing Your Own Story: Learning to Read and Write

This is a 4-part writing workshop with Dr. Alice Horning of Oakland University's Department of Writing and Rhetoric. These sessions will explore the role of reading and writing (literacy) in various aspects of our daily life. Writing opportunities will be discussed in each session.

Part 1: Learning to Read and Write
Participants will talk about what they recall about learning to read and write in school and out of school.

Part 2: Literacy In Our Personal Lives
Participants wil explore the current roles of reading and writing in their personal lives

Part 3: Literacy at Work
Participants will consider the importance of literacy in the workplace. Where and how do reading and writing make a difference at work?

Part 4: Literacy In the Future
Participants will discuss the positive and negative impact of technology on literacy. Are devices like Kindle going to encourage or destroy reading?

Soul of a People: The Film

Come view The Soul of a People: Writing America's Story, a major new documentary on the Federal Writers' project. Our scholar, Professor Greg Sumner of the University of Detroit Mercy, will lead the discussion. The film is a collaborative work of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Library Association, Spark Media, and Smithsonian HD.

Self-Publishing

A local attorney, Leonard Charla, has self-published his own works and now teaches others the ins and outs of self-publishing.

The New Deal: A Debate

Was FDR's enormous public works program a boom for the country or a bust? Come hear Detroit journalist and professor Jack Lessenberry and Hillsdale College professor Burton Folsom debate this very question.

Watch this program online

Looking Back at Michigan and Birmingham in the 1930s

Professor Greg Sumner will use the Federal Writers' Project volume, Michigan: A Guide to the Wolverine State, to describe the state of our state during the Great Depression. Bill McElhone, Director of Birmingham's Historical Museum, will give us a snapshot of Birmingham at the same time.

Let's Talk About It

Join Professor Greg Sumner for a reading, viewing and discussion of John Cheever's short stories, "O Truth and Beauty" and "The Five-Forty-Eight." (Cheever was one of the many writers who was part of the Federal Writers' Project and went on to later success.) The evenings will start with a 60-minutes film of the story followed by a discussion of both the film and the written story.

Storyteller Concert featuring Corinne Stavish

Enjoy a very special afternoon with an award-winning storyteller as she looks at Michigan's own story of the 1930s. Nationally acclaimed storyteller and historian Corinne Stavish weaves her magic spell of words in this time-honored oral tradition.

Let's Talk About It

Tuesday, December 1st at 6:30pm
Registration Required

Oral Histories of the Great Depression

Employees of the Federal Writers' Project interviewed ordinary Americans and wrote oral histories. These histories are a snapshot of American life at that time. Join Professor Greg Sumner for a discussion of several of these histories.