Tag Archives: essay

“A Boy of 1812″

Things were never really what you might call cordial between the New World and Britain during the early 1800s. There was the whole mess between the United Kingdom, Ireland, and France in 1803. And European countries were focused on keeping control of the native people as well as the America settlers as the expansion in the United States was underway. Treaties and Acts and Decrees were issued one after another between Britain and the U.S., while Britain was during these years distracted by the whirlwind of hostility France was dishing out. In fact, between 1803 and 1812, political relations never really felt settled or peaceful between the U.S., Britain, and France to the people living in these countries....

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Tamarack Archive , , , , Updated: March 4, 2016

“Children of the Cloud and Frost”

It’s often difficult to believe that some of the Tamarack publications are from the 19th century. The writing, refined and thoughtful, could have been written today. That period of time usually brings images of horse drawn carriages, oil lamps, and mustachioed male students in Bowler hats. And the women? Oh, they were at home, cinched into their corsets, raising children or reading or dusting or staying off bicycles....

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Tamarack Archive , , , , , Updated: November 23, 2015

The Future of Warfare

When the 1918 edition of the Tamarack was published in June of that year, the first few pages held more advertising than content.  Slowly over time, ads had gone from simple product mentions at the end of each issues to full page graphics at the beginning.  It was obvious the Tamarack’s days were numbered.  Even the tone of the content had changed.  The early literary volumes filled with poetry and prose were now offering a more somber tone, concentrating more...

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Tamarack Archive , , , , , , , , Updated: June 18, 2015

Items of College History: The Picnic of the Acolytes

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....

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Tamarack Archive , , , , Updated: February 5, 2015

The Merry Christmas Time

There are only three small entries in the Black Abolitionist Archive associated with Christmas, so I chose this one. While this holiday was important to an enslaved people learning about the celebration of this Christmas story from the periphery of the Christian families who enslaved them, the way they celebrated this holiday was different. The celebration of any special occasion then was on Church, prayer, thankfulness, and finding joy where they could....

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Black Abolitionist Archive , , , , , , , , , Updated: December 11, 2014

Changing Seasons

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....

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Tamarack Archive , , , , , , , , Updated: March 13, 2014

The Future of the Moving Pictures

You may have surmised by now that my current favorite archive is the Tamarack. What a wonderful find this collection is! Opening these dusty pages is like finding hidden treasure. These young student writers, likely only published in this one tome, were the reporting witnesses to an age that valued insight and “letters” (or writing well) over technological witticism....

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Tamarack Archive , , , , Updated: February 20, 2014

The Existence of God

Since questions regarding life were first asked, thinkers have been seeking to prove the existence of God. Through the ages, various arguments have been put forth on this subject, from Plato and Thomas Acquinas to modern scholars. In the late 1800s, this question was taken on by the students at the University of Detroit. The result was a prize Catechetical Essay published in the July, 1898 edition of the Tamarack....

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Tamarack Archive , , , , Updated: January 7, 2014