Detroit River Stories Podcast
A student-produced podcast series featuring interviews with local residents about their relationships with the Detroit River.
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Lives of Leisure and Labor on the Detroit River
An interactive essay exploring the experiences of those who built, maintained, and traveled on Detroit River steamboats at the turn of the 20th century, with special attention to key events in local labor and racial history and the ways they reflected shifting social and political attitudes of the time.
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Underground Railroad Research Guide
A compilation of regional history resources focused on struggles for freedom in the Detroit River borderland including a selected bibliography, annotated lists of digital and physical archives, miniature biographies of local freedom seekers and abolitionists, and suggested angles for future research.
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Myth, Memory, and Michigan’s Underground Railroad
An exploration of the ways the history of anti-slavery resistance along the Detroit River has been remembered and occasionally distorted since the end of the 19th century.
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Digital Mapping Project
An interactive collection of historical and digital maps allowing you to explore the Detroit River Corridor through time.
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Interpretive Signage for Historic Fort Wayne
Site installations and online content, including a timeline, in support of a new interpretive plan for Historic Fort Wayne, with topics including environmental history, profiles of local civilian employees, migration and ethnic histories of southwest Detroit, Fort Wayne’s connection to the Underground Railroad, and little known Indigenous and colonial-era histories.
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Great Lakes Way @ Trenton
A Storymap project imagining possible futures for disused industrial sites along the Detroit River in Trenton, featuring historical contexts, interviews, and captivating site renderings. The project was created by students in a DRSL-linked Public Design Corps studio class at UM’s Taubman College.
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Establishing Site and Regional Imprints of Wyandot Cultural History in Southeast Michigan.
A cultural site planning project for the Six Points site in Gibraltar, MI developed by graduate students in U-M’s School for Environment and Sustainability in partnership with the Wyandot of Anderdon Nation.
Home Archival Guide
An introduction to the practice of home preservation developed as part of the 100 Years 100 Stories project at the Detroit Historical Society.
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Neighborhoods: Where Detroit Lives
An oral history project devoted to collecting and preserving local stories, including those of historic riverside neighborhoods like Black Bottom, Corktown, and Delray.
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Detroit River Region Timeline
A working prototype for a robust visual and interactive resource for exploring the environments, institutions, and actors that have shaped the Detroit River corridor over the past millennium. As it continues to expand, this tool will serve as an archive and a pedagogical resource in service of the Detroit River Story Lab’s long-term goal to assemble and curate an archive of resources in support of local organizations’ efforts to reconnect local communities with the river and its stories. By presenting the histories of the Detroit River corridor as those of a coherent, interconnected region, the timeline allows users to explore connections between the river’s past and future, provides an accessible resource for local students to learn about the places they live, and supports local organizations in amplifying marginalized voices the river’s long and storied history.
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Wahnabezee and the River Park Question
A [hi]story-telling workshop that showcased oral histories, archival materials, and student projects on the past, present, and future of Belle Isle.
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Congressional Resolution
A formal commemoration of the International Underground Railroad Memorial Monument, noting the creation of the new Resistance on the River curriculum, and urging the river’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site, H.Res.739, 117th Congress.
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River Heritage Resource Map
An interactive digital map that catalogues approximately 100 public heritage sites, public spaces, and trails along the Detroit River corridor, providing a visual argument in support of regional heritage development efforts relating to the Underground Railroad and other historical events.
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Heritage Designation Primer
A resource guide providing an overview of state, national, and international heritage designation opportunities and protocols.
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UNESCO World Heritage Site Inventory
A database of existing and proposed World Heritage Sites in the US and Canada, with locations, descriptions, and designation criteria.
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UNESCO Designation Gap Study
A comprehensive overview of progress made over the past fifteen years towards eventual UNESCO World Heritage Site designation for the Detroit River, identifying specific sites warranting further research and suggesting possible next steps.
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The Detroit River and the University of Michigan
An illustrated history of the many-layered connections between U-M and the region’s defining waterway dating back to the university’s founding in the early 19th century, just a few blocks from the river’s edge.
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