Archives on the Radio

I've noted before that our staff has written some local history articles for

Lansing's City Pulse newspaper. These have prompted a couple local
radio interviews.

This Friday, April 13th, archivist Robert Garrett will be on the Jack Ebling Show from about
6:20 - 6:30. The show can be heard on Lansing A.M. Radio Station 1320
(Call letters WILS). The subject is Lansing's African-American
neighborhoods. The interview was prompted by this City Pulse article.

(I don't know if you can pick it up outside of Lansing.)

Last October, Bob did a radio interview on the history of trolleys in
Lansing. Since then, Lansing has adopted a modern "trolley" line between Lansing and East Lansing.

The interview was for the City Pulse's radio show (broadcast on the MSU
student station.). You can now access that interview online. If you
fast-forward about-third of the way in (after the interview with Lansing
Mayor Virg Bernero), then you can hear Bob. You'll need Quicktime or
something equivalent to access it. With that in mind, here's the link.

Patents Search.

I realize it is hard to keep up with Google's new beta products, but I thought I would share this in case you haven't seen it. Google Patents is a simplified patent search either by keyword or by patent number. I give a workshop on researching the history of residential homes and businesses and I try to mention the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office site (uspto.gov). However, the Google site is easier to use.

I have found the patent search useful when I have stumbled across gadgets in our attic, garage and basement. At our latest house, there is a music box screwed to base of our entry door. It was quite a mystery until I took it apart, found the patent number and ran it at uspto.gov. It turned out to be a children's furniture music box that could be screwed to a crib or rocking chair. The original owners were members of the U.S. Music Box Society, it was screwed to the front door because it played the tune "Bless this House." Mystery solved. Have a great day.

The LANSING CITY PULSE magazine published one of our staff's article on Lansing's
African-American neighborhoods this week. You can read that at the CITY PULSE website.

This is one in a series of Lansing history articles. You can link to others via
the Archives of Michigan homepage

"For, lo winter is past
The rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of the singing of birds is come,
And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land"
-Song of Solomon.

Each year, the announcer Ernie Harwell started the Tiger baseball season with this verse. It was a right of Spring--as is baseball itself. There probably isn't a better sport for archivists than baseball. Statistics, records, history. It's all right there. Here are a few updates provided by the Archives of Michigan staff:

First, there's our April Image of the Month. We spotlight the Detroit Tigers' 1945 season. Click here for this feature

If you enjoy our baseball images, then you might consider sending one as an E-Postcard. The E-Postcard page also provides links to current and past baseball Image of the Month pages. You can find all this here

I also have a note that's not baseball-related, but still very good news to some. We've updated our Naturalization Records Index page by adding indexes for Barry and Genesee Counties. Naturalization indexes are now available online for a total of thirty-one Michigan counties (An additional number are available in the Archives reading room.). You can access the online naturalization indexes here

All these features can also be accessed through the Archives of Michigan home page: www.michigan.gov/archivesofmi