Detroitland: A Collection of Movers, Shakers, Lost Souls, and History Makers from Detroit's Past by Richard Bak (review)

Book Reviews Richard Bak. Detroitland: A Collection of Movers, Shakers, Lost Souls, and History Makers from Detroit’s Past. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011. Pp. 368. Index. Photographs. Paper, $24.95. The subtitle aptly describes Richard Bak’s most recent work to potential readers. Detroitland is meant for those who relish the colorful vignettes that abound in Detroit’s past and who appreciate the value of popular history. This collection of 27 chapters draws on material Bak has previously published. Here the sections stand alone, without organizing themes or a chronological framework, unencumbered by footnotes or bibliographies, and illustrated by well-chosen, black-andwhite photographs. A few essays are glimpses into the fascinating preautomotive city. “A Fair to Remember” reports on the often-overlooked Detroit International Exposition and Fair of 1889, relating the sights around town as well as at the fairground exhibits. “Hot Wheels” covers the bicycling craze of the 1890s, when enthusiasts ranged from the “smart set,” who built a clubhouse; to the police department’s “scorcher squad,” that pedaled after crooks; to the women cyclists who gave up their corsets for biking apparel. “Oh! What a Pal Was Sophie,” presents the irresistible Sophie Lyons (b. 1848), who moved to Detroit to use the skills she initially learned as part of a ring of female thieves in New York. Her story includes a depiction of the Detroit House of Correction during the 1880s, an environment “more humane and supportive” than any Sophie had ever known. Eventually, by taking advantage of the turnof -the century boom in real estate, the four-times-married Sophie became a one-woman welfare agency/philanthropist and evangelist reformer. Sophie is one of the most likeable and most unlikely characters in the book, and in telling her story Bak notes that because Canada had no extradition treaty with the United States, Detroit was a haven for confidence men—and at least one confidence woman. Typically, Bak contextualizes each chapter’s central figure, thus revising several well-worn topics. “The Lone Ranger Rides Again” introduces people and places connected with radio broadcasting in its early decades; “Lucky to Have Lindy” focuses on the local life and connections of Detroit-born Charles Lindbergh, whose mother was descended from prominent Detroit families; and “the Flip Side” revisits 124 The Michigan Historical Review many Motown artists, adding tidbits about the songs and singers, as well as a list of Motown’s top 63 hits between 1961 and 1971. Bak draws on his earlier book about Turkey Stearns and the Detroit Stars for “Black Diamonds,” an essay on Detroit’s first black baseball team and the Negro Leagues. What may have been Joe Louis’s first professional fight (1931-1932) is discussed in the story of Johnny Miler, “The Man Who Licked Joe Louis.” Politicians are as prevalent as sports figures in Bak’s narratives. Included are the little-known “Mysterious Daniel West,” a Detroit Democrat elected to the statehouse in the 1960s, who turned out to have an assumed identity and a fake resume; Frank Murphy, “the Saint,” who spent his political life working on behalf of ordinary citizens and for whom Detroit’s Murphy Hall of Justice is appropriately named; and Hazen Pingree, “The People’s Mayor,” who was both an idealist and a pragmatic reformer. Bak often uses asides and period adjectives to evoke the times he is writing about. For example, the “tony” Woodward Avenue Baptist Church Pingree attended speaks to Detroit’s class-based religious institutions at the turn of the twentieth century. Various chapters in Detroitland discuss bizarre murders during the Jazz Age, the unsolved disappearance of a second-grader in the 1950s, crime and the Purple Gang, the Black Legion in the 1930s, the 1943 race riot, and a terrible weeklong heat wave in the summer of 1936. These tales and more share space with a sketch about the architect Albert Kahn and the author’s father, Eddie Bak, who was a member of Roosevelt’s “tree army,” the Civilian Conservation Corps. In the preface the Detroit-born author notes that each article is a separate story “to be enjoyed (hopefully) on its own.” Detroitland achieves that goal. Paradoxically, the book...