Hidden History of Detroit - Hardcover

Bragg, Amy Elliott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1540205916 ISBN 13: 9781540205919

Publisher: History Press Library Editions, 2011

Synopsis

Discover the Motor City before the motor: a muddy port town full of grog shops, horse races, haphazard cemeteries and enterprising bootstrappers from all over the world. Meet the argumentative French fugitive who founded the city, the tobacco magnate who haunts his shuttered factory, the gambler prankster millionaire who built a monument to himself, the governor who brought his scholarly library with him on canoe expeditions and the historians who helped create the story of Detroit as we know it: one of the oldest, rowdiest and most enigmatic cities in the Midwest.

About this title

About the Author:

A native Detroiter, Amy Elliott Bragg left home for a while to edit an arts and culture magazine in Milwaukee. She returned to Detroit in 2009 where she lives with her husband, freelances as a writer and editor, and works hard at old books.

Review:

Much like the talented Bak, who makes 20th century Detroit his wheelhouse, in Hidden History of Detroit, young author Amy Elliott Bragg draws on Detroit's other two centuries to spin engaging tales of a city undisturbed by horseless carriages but often just as chaotic. From Antoine Cadillac's arrival on these pastoral shores, it would seem Detroit has always been facing calamities of one sort or another: conflagrations, invasions, epidemics, disorders and drunkenness. But Bragg renders this rocky history in graceful prose with a warm, first-person touch that lovingly lingers over some of its most unusual characters, those both immortalized in statuary and street names or simply forgotten over the ages. You'll meet Clarence Burton, Jim Scott, Lewis Cass, Stevens T. Mason, Friend Palmer, Joseph Campau, Jean-Francois Hamtramck and a whole host of characters Bragg raises from the dead for a brief moment if only so we can miss them properly. --Detroit Metro-Times

About this edition

• Publisher: History Press Library Editions
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1540205916
• ISBN 13: 9781540205919
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 162