Books Received

BOOKS RECEIVED Daniel R. Fountain. Michigan Gold and Silver: Mining in the Upper Peninsula. Duluth, MN: Lake Superior Port Cities, 2013. Pp. 243. Bibliography. Glossary. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Paper, $16.95. Fountain’s first work, Michigan Gold, Mining in the Upper Peninsula, came out in 1992 and, after conducting more research into silver mining, he has written this expanded work. Though copper and iron were certainly more abundant in the U.P., gold and silver mining also brought their own prospectors to the area. The first silver rush was in the 1860s with the discovery of silver lead near Marquette. Though dozens of mines were opened, none succeeded. The next rush, near Ontonagon in the 1870s, revealed some rich silver ore deposits, but these mines also failed. When gold was discovered many were hopeful, but by 1900 even those mines had closed. With rising gold prices in the 1930s some of the mines reopened and Fountain takes his history up to current times with the mines of the twenty-first century. Lots of photos, plus a good glossary and bibliography, make Michigan Gold and Silver a great find for anyone interesting in mining history or the U.P. Peter J. Hammer and Trevor W. Coleman. Crusader for Justice: Federal Judge Damon J. Keith. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2014. Index. Photographs. Sources. Cloth, $29.95. This encompassing biography tells the story of one of the nation’s most influential judges. Hammer and Coleman track Keith from his humble Detroit beginnings, through his college years and army service, to his difficulties as a young black lawyer. He became the first black attorney in Wayne County’s Friend of the Court office and was heavily involved in Detroit’s NAACP; he married the love of his life and raised a family of three daughters. His career and influence continued to grow as president of the Detroit Housing Commission and member of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission. He ran in influential and interesting circles, consulting with JFK, aiding Rosa Parks, and befriending Clarence Thomas. Though he was passed over for a federal judgeship several times, when he got one he made history with major decisions involving Pontiac and school integration, DTE and employee 140 The Michigan Historical Review discrimination, and even Richard Nixon over wiretapping. He was then appointed to the Circuit Court of Appeals, the second highest court in the nation, and his name now graces the law school at Wayne State University, The Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights. He forever changed the face of American law by holding others to the tenet of “Equal Justice Under the Law.” Robert Knapp. Mystery Man: Gangsters, Oil, and Murder in Michigan. Clare, MI: Cliophile Press, 2014. Pp. 236. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Paper, $17.00. The scene is May 14th 1938, the Doherty Hotel bar in Clare, Michigan. Carl ‘Jack’ Livingston—oil well lease agent and son of a wealthy Oklahoma oil family, former vaudevillian Hollywood actor, and failed Florida land speculator—will walk up to Isiah Leebove—owner of Mammoth Oil Company, former New York gangster lawyer, and crony of Detroit’s famed Purple Gang—and shoot him dead. Knapp takes the reader through this captivating story, ably delving into their lives and the surrounding turbulence of the times. It’s a tale of Jewish Russian immigrants, New York City’s Arthur Rothstein mob, shootings and kidnappings (even a connection to the famed Lindbergh baby case), Detroit’s Leland hotel and the Jewish-based Purple Gang, the nascent Michigan oil and gas scene, politics and greed, and it all ends up in a bustling little bar in central Michigan. Though all the surface signs point to Livingston being driven to the point of madness over his anger of Leebove’s swindling ways, Knapp offers the reader a tease at the end that also points to an even grittier gangster connection, but no spoilers here. Mystery Man is well written and well researched and gives one pause to reconsider the fascinating backgrounds of some of our seemingly sleepy mid-Michigan towns. Kenneth J. Schoon. Calumet Beginnings: Ancient Shorelines and Settlements at the South End of Lake Michigan. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2013...