The more things change, the more they remain the same. Much about life–the way Americans dress, the types of jobs available to them, their methods of travel, the ways they communicate–has changed since 1900, and yet so much remains the same. People have a fundamental desire to visit with old friends, meet new ones, let . . .
This category is used for posts that talk more about the people, services, and operation of the archives as a department.
Living in the Upper Peninsula has always, to some degree, required Yoopers to know how to make their own fun. When the snow falls to the tune of two or three hundred inches annually, a person either learns to love winter or how to pack up and move. Likewise, the resident of a small town . . .
Flashback Friday takes us back to this weekend in 1958. From the Daily Mining Gazette: “Go Ahead, cry in your beer, but the fact of the matter is, Copper Country cars are at least visible beneath their snowy burden. Houghton boasted a paltry 69 inches this morning, hardly enough to fill your galoshes as the . . .
In honor of the upcoming holiday season, Flashback Friday reminds us that not all meals are traditional. This image, of Sigma Rho students cooking lunch underground at Copper Falls Mine in the 1950s, shows us that we can still smile and be safe as we share a meal. While safely gathering may have a new . . .
In 1916, Calumet & Hecla celebrated its semicentennial in grand fashion. The company normally abhorred any stoppage in work not demanded by market conditions, making its decision to halt work for the July 15 festival particularly remarkable. That day, star-spangled banners fluttered on buildings and bandstands throughout Calumet, and workers–male and female alike–marched through the . . .
Perhaps there is no surer sign of Halloween than pumpkins carved with ghostly and grinning faces, lit up with candles and perched on porches and in darkened windows. People have been making jack-o’-lanterns during the late fall season for centuries. Seasonal vegetables like large turnips and potatoes were used in the early lanterns where the . . .
Good times seem that they will never end. When Calumet & Hecla was in its prime, the future seemed to promise unalloyed brilliance. The company was the richest in a district that produced 12 to 16 percent of the world’s copper between 1880 and 1910. The company “ruled its region,” historian Larry Lankton wrote, “with . . .
The date of this photograph is unknown, but it was donated to the archives on this date in 1985. Flashback Friday takes us back to the days of the neighborhood market. This building is a reminder of the era before Big Box Stores and warehouse size supermarkets. This building was the original Campioni’s Market in . . .
On October 7, archivists around the country will take to Twitter to respond to questions tweeted with the hashtag #AskAnArchivist. Staff of the Michigan Tech Archives encourage everyone to take this opportunity to engage with us via Twitter or Facebook to ask questions about the archival profession, collections at Michigan Tech and local history generally. . . .
Charles Kauppi belonged on the water. He hailed from Kuivaniemi, a parish of Finland with a lengthy stretch of coastline on the Gulf of Bothnia. A river cut the parish in two, flowing past a small, rural settlement that bore the Kauppi name. Perhaps his draw to the water was evident at an early age; . . .