Monthly Archives: April 2014

Isabella Swan — ‘The Deep Roots’

By Joel Thurtell How often would I get a chance to write about a female historian who made a case based on evidence that slaves lived and worked in her Michigan community? Score one for women’s history. Score another for … Continue reading

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Tomatoes & Eggs III — Slavery on Grosse Ile: Colonel Brodhead’s ‘contraband’

By Joel Thurtell A weird thing happened in 2007 while I was covering Downriver for the Detroit Free Press. It was a time when the newspaper was courting suburban readers, and my job was to put my little journalist’s microscope … Continue reading

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Tomatoes & Eggs: A hole in my story

By Joel Thurtell Back in 2005, while writing suburban features for the Detroit Free Press, I combined my historical training with my journalism profession and filed a story that merged colonial history with the story of Michigan’s oldest continuously working, … Continue reading

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