Digital archives are a valuable resource. Digitized items are more accessible to researchers than non-digitized materials, and digitized documents and images can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection. Using this resources helps students and researches save time and reduce or eliminate the need to visit the library and/or spend time pouring through hard copy originals....
Shortly after the declaration of World War I, University of Detroit students began marching drills in the playing field next to the Jefferson Street campus. These would later become more serious as an officer from the Thirty-First Michigan National Guard was obtained to guide these drills. Without really realizing it, students, who had previously held hopes for careers in business, finance, and engineering were being groomed for war....
If you love history, or even if you just want to know more about the university, the University Histories collection in our digital archives offers a great resource. This archive leads visitors on a journey through time from the humble initial foundation work of dedicated men and women, to the distinguished center of education UDM is today....
One of the best resources for information about the history of this university lies in the yellowing pages of the Tamarack. Through the words of the students then, it’s easy for readers to put themselves into that year and that space, and feel the slow pace of that time. The academic atmosphere of those hallowed university halls comes into sharper focus as visitors to the Tamarack archive linger with each issue....
Long before the world became a blurry line of activity speeding towards the future, Detroit College was a seemingly gentle place filled with the hum of academic learning in the classical sense. Students, dressed in business attire, dutifully sat in stark classrooms memorizing dates and names and theories at wooden desks lined up properly in front of filled blackboards and pacing professors. After class, the halls were likely filled with chuckles and guffaws at jokes that have become tired and boring in the century since. It’s easy to imagine these students walking to their classroom buildings through the bustling streets of the economic boom of downtown Detroit in the late 1800s. They were the future of Detroit, rowdy and driven, and it was these students who would pen the prose and poetry that would be bound and published in the Tamarack, a student publication that appeared between 1890 and 1923....
This first publication of the Tamarack came after 20 years of discussion about whether or not to start a college newspaper, or so the editor tells his readers in his “Salutatory” introduction (shown below). The college itself had only been around that long. And during those first 20 years Detroit College was alone, the only Catholic college in Michigan. Having its own newspaper was important not only to ensure its place among institutions of higher learning, but as an expression of pride in its knowledgeable and talented student body. And now, at long last, here it was fresh and humble....
The very first Tamarack (volume 1, number 1) was published in April 1897. That spring must surely have begun in a similar fashion to the way it begins today: hopeful, bursting with flowers, sunshine, and the unspoken promise of a fresh start. The students who haunted the hallowed halls of Detroit College back then must have welcomed the end of winter with as much enthusiasm as today’s students. Spring meant a release from negotiating the icy streets, the snowy treks to campus, the unyielding freezing temperatures, and the general mess of winter. Back then without the advantages of current cold temperature attire, it must have taken a lot of determination just to get to class. And how wonderful it must have been to at last know the sun would grace those final days of classes before the end of the semester....
Looking for an interesting way to spend your time this weekend? Here’s a suggestion: travel digitally through the history of Detroit and the University of Detroit Mercy (UDM)! Both the city and the university offer a diverse and interesting past just waiting to be shared. Since the end of the 19th century, each has reflected the changes in the other. The successes and growth of both Detroit and UDM are reflections of the people who live, work, and dream here. Be part of something vital by checking this out....
On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers made history with the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Six years before that in 1897, William Ryan (class of 1902) was writing about his adventure in flight in the Detroit College Tamarack....
The University of Detroit Mercy Libraries/Instructional Design Studio is proud to announce that our newest archive, the Tamarack collection, is now available. Beginning in 1897, these publications are considered the first issues of what in 1923 would be absorbed by the Varsity Newspaper that started its publication in 1918....
