Historic Photos of Detroit [Hardcover]

Mary J Wallace (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

What results is an amazing compilation of images. This richly illustrated coffee-table book offers a glimpse into a mostly lost world. --The Walkerville Times

Historic Photos of Detroit offered enlightening insights into the Motor City as it rose from an outpost on the frontier to an automobile and military manufacturing powerhouse to the first stages of racial tensions that affect the city to the present time. The photos are all black and white, and they end in the 1960s, before things took a serious slide. You do get to feeling wistful when you realize that old photos of Detroit and Chicago look so similar, and yet today the cities have drifted apart. All in all, the book provided a lot of food for thought and conversation. It will occupy a visible place in our home as a potent history lesson. --mikeandhallie.blogspot.com

Mary J. Wallace's Historic Photos of Detroit is a great collection of images spanning from the 1860's to the 1960's. As a native Detroiter, whose father was born, raised and worked in Detroit most of his life, I found myself intensely studying each of the photos. The photos from the 1940's on were of particular interest as I would search the photo's for familiar landmarks and imagine what it may have been like to be my father playing and working on those very streets and wondering if he or other family members might have even been in a few pictures. At 205 pages with hundreds of historic photos, this book is the perfect addition to any native Detroiters personal collection and is sure to bring back memories of days gone by...kudos to Mary J. Wallace and Turner Publishing! --haphazardrandomness.blogspot

Times are hard in Detroit right now: the big three automakers are struggling to survive, all of them in need of a bailout from the federal government to keep from going bankrupt. Our former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was forced to resign in September and is currently serving a four month jail sentence. The Detroit Lions are 0 and 9. This city has seen better days, no doubt about it. But when, exactly? I found the answer in Historic Photos of Detroit, a book compiled by Mary J. Wallace and published by Turner Publishing Company. In looking back at the city that Detroit once was, I can't help but think ahead to the city it is now and will become in the years ahead.

--jvalka.blogspot

Product Details

• Hardcover: 205 pages
• Publisher: Turner; aFirst Edition First Printing edition (January 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596523123
• ISBN-13: 978-1596523128
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 9.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #435,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DETROIT AT ITS GRANDEST!, April 9, 2007

By 

Tim Janson (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Historic Photos of Detroit (Hardcover)

I've always thought that it is very important to know the history of one's local area and have always loved to read books about regional history. One of the very best one's I've come across in sometime is "Historic Photos of Detroit" from Turner Publishing Co. Detroit was one of the most important early colonies due to its strategic location along Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair and was founded as a fort by French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac in 1701.

The book covers four periods of Detroit history, 1860 - 1899, 1900 - 1919, 1920 - 1941, and 1942 - 1969. The photos date as far back as the 1860's, less than thirty years after Michigan became the 26th state. What first surprised me is just how busy and bustling Detroit was nearly 150 years ago. We tend to think of the 1860's in terms of the dusty old west but Detroit already had numerous multi-story buildings built including the massive Old Russell House Hotel on Woodward Ave. It's fascinating to just sit back and flip pages to "building watch" all of the types of businesses that were in operation back in the mid to late 1800's...Grocers, dry goods, shoes & boots, carpets, drug stores, furniture...in other words, it really wasn't much different than today. People are out and about on the town, working, shopping, or just enjoying a walk.

These photos also serve as an important archive since most of these buildings are long gone today. For example there is the Old Federal Building, looking like a gothic French cathedral that was torn down in 1932. It's educational as well...even living my entire life in the Detroit area I never knew that Detroit once used street cars. Besides the architecture of the era one should also pay attention to the fashion of the day. Women stroll along the streets in their finest clothes: tailored dresses and their Sunday best hats, highlighting an era that was certainly more refined and cultured.

Even in 1910 the Detroit Auto Show was one of the city's most important events. A beautiful photo shows off the brand new models, accented by bright lights, at the old Wayne Gardens. The photos range from the humorous of three boys holding on to the side of a car for dear life on a flooded West Grand Blvd. in 1925, to the tragic destruction of the riots in 1967. One wonderful photo that will surely warm the hearts of all Detroiters is Santa Claus waving to a crowd of thousands at the end of Detroit's annual Thanksgiving Day parade. For many residents of SE Michigan, a trip downtown to watch the parade and look at the Christmas displays in the old J.L. Hudson's department store windows was an annual rite of winter.

It's a beautiful book from cover-to-cover highlighted by brilliant photography. I would have loved to had seen a photo or two of the old Olympia stadium but no Detroiter will be disappointed with this book. Hats off to author Mary J. Wallace for a wonderful job of research.

Reviewed by Tim Janson

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Almost 200 pictures of Detroit from 1860 through 1969, March 28, 2007

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Historic Photos of Detroit (Hardcover)

I was born in Detroit in the 1950s before my family moved to Wayne, Michigan in 1958. We moved back for a year in 1962 and I attended third grade at Bow Elementary School. It was a thriving city with streets full of cared for homes with neat lawns. After decades of decline, it appears that Detroit is making a comeback and I find that encouraging. Nevertheless, Detroit has hundreds of years of rich history. This book covers a bit more than a century of that history through nearly two hundred beautifully presented photographs.

One of the traps we fall into regarding photographs is that we tend to gravitate towards a small set of vivid photographs that become the standard for presenting the images of this event or that place or these people. This book is fresh and refreshing because it uses terrific images that are much less well known images of Detroit and its people. The author, Mary J. Wallace has made her selections from the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University and from the Burton Collection of the Detroit Public Library. She has worked as an audiovisual archivist at the Walter P. Reuther Library for several years and her familiarity with the material shows in the selections she has made.

Wallace has divided the photos into four chronological groups. The first runs from 1860 to 1899 (from the Civil War until the arrival of the automobile), from 1900 to 1919 (the birth of the auto industry through the end of World War I), from 1920 to 1941 (the early boom of the auto industry through the Depression), and from 1942 - 1969 (from World War II through the 1967 riots and the aftermath).

What I most appreciate is the balance she shows in showing us images of the development in architecture with the photos of real people at work, in their fashions, and some historical events. Even when she picks the historical events, she selects an image that gives us a different perspective on the event. We all know the images of the fight of the Battle of the Overpass at the Rouge Plant. Not many of us have seen the image she shows us here of the peaceful demonstration before the struggle began.

The author has supplied about a page of text at the beginning of each section as well as captions for each picture, but wisely lets the images do most of the speaking. The credits for the photos are given in a list at the back. These are images that are worth lingering over. They are full of captivating details that will show themselves as you spend time looking into the pictures for things beyond the obvious main object of the photograph.

If you have any interest in Detroit and its history, this is a fabulous book to own and refer to often. It is printed on great paper and bound handsomely.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! Great book, January 29, 2009

By 

Joyce A. Hiegel "50's girl" (Detroit suburb) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Historic Photos of Detroit (Hardcover)

This book is terrific. The pictures are incredible. Just like I remembered Detroit. I bought this book for my 90 yr old father and my 87 year old father in law and they enjoyed looking at the "old days" so much.