Grand Rapids Historical Society lectures/programs are held the second Thursday of the month. All programs are co-sponsored by the Gerald R. Ford Museum and are held at the museum, 303 Pearl St NW, at 7:00 p.m. Each program is followed by a reception with light refreshments. Historical Society programs are free and open to the public, with the exception of the May Meeting/Banquet which is open to members and their guest. Free parking at the museum.

Tour of Oak Hill Cemetery

Tom Dilley and Jennifer Morrison

The grandest of the historic cemeteries of Grand Rapids, Oak Hill Cemetery has been in existence for more than 150 years. Here are buried many of the most important players in the history of the city, and here are many of the most interesting and elaborate monuments to those people. Please join us for a walking tour of the southern half of this historic cemetery, and learn about its history and occupants, as well as the art and architecture of this wonderful, historic place.

Note: In case of severe weather, the rain date is Sunday, September 19 at 10:00 am

Cancellation will be announced on Grand Rapids Historical Society’s Facebook page.

Carved by an unknown sculptor in 1872, heads on either side of the main door to St. James Church appear to be the earliest public art pieces still in existence in Grand Rapids, other than grave markers. In the ensuing years the Grand Rapids landscape has been populated with the permanent and temporary placement of numerous works of art. The Metz tiles c.1912, now affixed to two public buildings, became transient when the building they were designed to enhance met the wrecking ball. Sculpture Off The Pedestal, a temporary exhibit of 13 monumental pieces, was sponsored by the Women’s Committee of the Grand Rapids Art Museum in 1973. Lorrie’s Button, the winner of the playground sculptural design competition for festival ’76, is on display in Ah-Nab-Awen Park. Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park sponsored playful bronzes by Tom Otterness throughout downtown for three months in 2006. The tradition of art for all to see continues with the 2nd annual ArtPrize competition.

Gina will ask the question, if we don’t notice public art, does it enhance our lives? She will show pieces that are throughout the area that may have gone unnoticed by the casual passer by. She is hopeful that by the end of the presentation you will state a resounding yes, art accessible to all does make a difference.

The Grand Rapids, Grand Haven, and Muskegon Railway was built to carry passengers and freight to and from Chicago via Goodrich line steamboats as well as to transport goods and people between Grand Rapids, Grand Haven, and Muskegon. The “Lake Line” electric interurban provided service to resorts on Spring Lake, Mona Lake and Lake Michigan beaches. The company built the Pomona pavilion at Fruitport as well as a pavilion on Lake Michigan adjacent what is now Grand Haven Sate Park.

Ten years after the founding of Bay View in 1875 as a Methodist resort near Petoskey, the camp meeting merged with the burgeoning chautauqua movement and became a national gathering place for intellectual luminaries and the discussion of exciting new ideas. Local boats and trains carried 75,000 people there each month, ensuring that Bay View became a crystallizing site for early reform movements. Were women on those trains? Certainly, and some from Grand Rapids. Until recently, however, the presence at Bay View of nearly 200 nationally significant women speakers and their enormous audiences has been virtually ignored or reported with gross inaccuracy.

Documenting their presence and understanding why the nineteenth-century women’s movement valued this stop in northern Michigan sent historian Mary Jane Doerr back to primary sources. Before she could determine the scope and importance of Bay View in the national women’s movement, she had to prove earlier mistakes and track layer upon layer of earlier inaccurate assumptions based

on erroneous conclusions.

Finally, the significance of women as key players in the history of Bay View as well as the role of Bay View in the emerging women’s movement have been clarified. Doerr’s efforts illustrate once again that engaged local historians play an important role in ferreting out data for their professional colleagues to work into still larger scenarios.

For over thirty years Mary Jane Doerr has served as a free-lance journalist reviewing opera in Detroit and covering Bay View news for the News-Review in Petoskey. The daughter of Jane Park Doerr, who spearheaded the Bay View Historic Landmark movement, and the inheritor of a family Bay View tradition since 1911, Doerr was especially well prepared to write the first comprehensive social history of the Association. Her new book, Bay View, An American Idea, both situates Bay View in the main currents of nineteenth-century movements and distinguishes its unique contributions—adding in those of women for the first time.

Historically, museums are centers of education and study. Early on, museums were dubbed "the University of the Common Man". Today, the Grand Rapids Public Museum is second largest in the State of Michigan with more than a quarter-million artifacts, specimens and documents in its care.

In 1997 the Museum, County and City collaborated to undertake the development of a facility that could provide for the long-term storage, preservation & public access to the public collections held in trust for the community. The site selected was the former home of the Public Museum on Jefferson Avenue.

The recently revised master plan for the complex now fully incorporates the Museum's strategic plans to become a significant partner with local school districts, colleges & universities and other cultural and educational institutions by establishing the 54 Jefferson "old museum" facility as the Museum's potential future "learning laboratory". Current plans are to make this the place where the Public Museum's vast collections that have been hidden from public view when not on display at the Museum's downtown Van Andel Museum Center will be routinely shared in new and innovative ways. This hometown architectural gem and the Museum's stored collections have both been identified and recognized as valuable but underutilized

resources in our community.

The Museum's curatorial & interpretation staff invite you to join them on the evening of February 10th inside the "old museum" building to hear more about the Museum's current plans and to get input and ideas that can be used to help shape the final plans for the facility.

A post-program optional behind-the-scenes walking tour through the Museum's collection storage areas will be offered for anyone who is interested.

Among the many nationalities that settled in Grand Rapids, the Dutch were well represented. Underrepresented is the history of the Dutch women. Many immigrant women are subordinated in the records as wives and daughters; but in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, among the 10,640 immigrants from the province of Groningen alone were 791 single women, unmarried or widowed. Who were these women and what work did they engage in? Born in the Netherlands herself, Sheeres has been able to search Dutch sources about the plight of women and their occupations in the Netherlands and to follow them to Grand Rapids. What were conditions like for them in their new homeland? Finally, Sheeres will reflect on how first-generation immigrant Dutch women contributed to their new community as well as what hindered them from engaging fully in the American culture.

Janet Sjaarda Sheeres has been president of the Association for the Advancement of Dutch American Studies, chair of the Christian Reformed Church Historical Committee, and is the associate editor of Origins, the historical magazine of Calvin College’s Heritage Hall Archives. Besides publishing dozens of articles, Sheeres has presented talks dozens more times on Dutch historical and genealogical topics. Her book Son of Secession: Douwe J. Vander Werp rescues a founding father of the Michigan Dutch community from obscurity. Sheeres' presentation on March 10th will do the same for thousands of ordinary Dutch women.

Antietam National Battlefield Park Ranger and former

Grand Rapids resident, Mannie Gentile, brings historical perspective, his daily familiarity with the ground, his sense of humor, and something new in the field of Civil War historiography - a degree of humility, to his analysis of the Battle of Antietam.

The September 17, 1962 Battle of Antietam is characterized by several things including great carnage, great confusion, and great pronouncements by historians on how the battle "should have" been fought.

Mannie tells the story of the battle of Antietam with an eye to the great influence terrain, circumstance, and simple human frailty had in what has become forever

known as "America's bloodiest day".

The collections of the Grand Rapids Public Library have been acquired and developed for over 100 years, and everyday new pieces come to light that sheds light on the story of our city and region. Tim will share some of these materials, and the stories behind them, to give light to the varied and myriad pieces that make of the Grand Rapids Public Library and Special Collections Department and the city of Grand Rapids. Attendees will learn about one of the largest political rallies in Grand Rapid's History; hear how a patron heard his great-grandfather for the first time; find the oldest map of Grand Rapids; read letters from the California Gold Rush; and see the original drawings of Willie Wood from WOOD-TV!

This program will walk participants through the Roosevelt Park Neighborhood Association's experience of creating a neighborhood museum. They will talk about what sparked the idea in the first place; how the project was funded; how they conducted the research; the process for developing the displays; and how they created their database. The Neighborhood Museum is the only one of its kind in Grand Rapids, and hopefully other neighborhoods will create their own.

Come celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment, granting women full voting rights, at the movies! Don't worry about treats or tickets. They're on the Greater Grand Rapids Women's History Council. On Thursday, August 26, Equality Day, the GGRWHC will sponsor a special showing of Iron-Jawed Angels, a 2004 HBO account of the late suffrage movement. After the showing, Calvin College historian, Kristin Du Mez, will help us sort out factual history from dramatic Hollywood.

Before the show starts, we'll gather at 7:00 pm in the reception area outside of Loosemore Auditorium (Grand Valley State University's DeVos Center, downtown Grand Rapids). Mill around with "suffragists" and view historical displays about the later years of the suffrage movement in our own Grand Rapids. See you at the movies! And if you're wondering--the theater (136 DEV) has comfortable cushioned seats and a big screen for your viewing pleasure!

Women are not often remembered as professional baseball players or as part of the American wartime experience, yet an upcoming event aims to change that oversight. Grand Valley State University and the West Michigan Whitecaps have teamed up to present "Women In Baseball," Saturday, August 28, with events before, during, and after the 7 p.m. Whitecaps vs. Loons game at Fifth Third Ballpark, 4500 West River Drive. Former team members from the Grand Rapids Chicks--Dolly Konwinski, Rosemary Stevenson, and Marilyn Jenkins--will be in attendance and honored at the event. The Chicks played throughout the Midwest between 1945 and 1954 as part of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The league was started by Chicago Cubs' owner Philip K. Wrigley in 1943, when World War II depleted male teams.

Come and join the Greater Grand Rapids Women's History Council as we learn how to preserve our local history. We will learn how to conduct oral interviews with ordinary people who lived and experienced the history that we can only hear or read about. GGRWHC is sponsoring this event with the Grand Rapids Public Museum and the West Michigan Quilters' Guild. The workshop presenter is Dr. James R. Smither, from Grand Vally State University history department.

Realizing the larger story of World War I largely overlooked the time he and his cohorts spent in Russia, Godfrey Anderson decided to write his memoir so that succeeding generations would know and learn from his experience. The resulting manuscript follows a young man from West Michigan as he leaves home, learns about army life, and struggles to survive in a frozen wasteland half way around the world.

Grand Rapids Public Library

Main Branch

Ryerson Auditorium, Level 3

7:00 pm