Dr. Pearl Kendrick (1890-1980) and Dr. Grace Eldering (1900-1988)
In 1932 a severe outbreak of whooping cough struck Grand Rapids. Pearl Kendrick, director of the Michigan Department of Health laboratory there and her colleague Grace . . . — — Map (db m103712) HM
Known as the “Mother” of Michigan State Parks system. Genevieve Gillette is remembered as one of the state’s most effective conservation lobbyists. In 1920, she was the only woman in the first landscape architecture class to graduate . . . — — Map (db m103684) HM
Born in Canada to parents who had once been enslaved in Kentucky, Elijah McCoy studied engineering in Scotland. He settled in Ypsilanti after the Civil War, intending to work as a mechanical engineer. Although discrimination limited him to the . . . — — Map (db m103724) HM
Ernie Harwell is the only member of the American sports media in the Guinness Book of Records. Where he is named baseball’s most enduring announcer. Harwell, the only announcer to broadcast over a span of seven decades, became the first active . . . — — Map (db m103718) HM
Considered “The First Lady of the Press,” former White House Bureau Chief Helen Thomas is a trailblazer who broke through barriers for women reporters. Thomas worked for United Press International for more than 55 years covering every president . . . — — Map (db m104168) HM
Henry Ford transformed America by creating “a motor car for the great multitude.” Always interested in tinkering with machinery than in working on his parents’ Dearborn farm. Ford gravitated toward the young auto industry in the 1890’s. . . . — — Map (db m104169) HM
Daniel’s career took off when he won a 1982 OBIE Award for his performance in the one-man Off-Broadway play “Johnny Got His Gun,” Known for his varied movie roles, he is also a director, playwright and entrepreneur.
Remaining Michigan based, in . . . — — Map (db m103720) HM
Joe Louis learned to box as a teenager at Detroit’s Brewster Recreation Center. With power in both hands and great strength, Louis quickly rose through the amateur ranks and turned pro in 1934. He won the world heavyweight title in 1937 at the . . . — — Map (db m103682) HM
Jonas Salk developed the first successful polio vaccine. Poliomyelitis, also known as infantile paralysis, was a feared disease that could cause paralysis or death.
Salk began his career at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, . . . — — Map (db m214595) HM
Educated first in Odawa (Ottawa) skills and traditions, Andrew J. Blackbird struggled to find the resources to Euro-American schools. He eventually studied at Ypsilanti State Normal School. His command of English enabled him to work as an . . . — — Map (db m103710) HM
Danny Thomas’s first audiences on Detroit radio knew him as Amos Jacobs, the anglicized form of his Lebanese birth name. His CBS radio show in the late 1940s made him nationally known, but he is best known as a television producer and star, and . . . — — Map (db m103978) HM
Rosa Parks became an icon of the modern Civil Rights movement for refusing to give up her Montgomery, Alabama, bus seat to a white passenger in December 1955. That defiant act fueled the movement that ended legal segregation in America. Because . . . — — Map (db m104194) HM
In the early 1960’s, he was “Little Stevie Wonder,” a Motown prodigy enrolled at the Michigan School for the Blind. As a young adult, the Saginaw native began writing songs and producing records independently. He said, “When creating music, you . . . — — Map (db m103931) HM
As a boy in Port Huron, Thomas Edison spent hours in the laboratory he created in his parents basement. A technological genius, his passion for inventing devices that met practical needs led to more than 1,000 patents and laboratories that helped . . . — — Map (db m103716) HM
Walter Reuther was a skilled die maker in Ford auto plants. Following a family heritage of labor and political activism, he joined the young United Auto Workers (UAW) in 1936 and quickly emerged as a leader. He gained national attention in May 1937 . . . — — Map (db m103708) HM
Unlike most automotive pioneers, Flint’s William Durant was not an inventor. Co-owner of the nation’s largest horse-drawn carriage company, he was a super salesman who saw the sales and marketing potential of the automobile.
Impressed with a . . . — — Map (db m182346) HM
