On May 12, 1926, a seventeen year old German boarded the SS Stuttgart, a passenger ship in the port city of Bremen, Germany. His name was Max Karl Aupperle and he had journeyed to Bremen from his hometown of Schorndorf, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, leaving behind his friends and family. He and his fellow travelers spent 10 days on the SS Stuttgart, as it made its way from Europe to New York City’s Harbor. On May 22, 1926, he disembarked at Ellis Island and started his new life as a German-American.

Germany, 1908-1926

Max Karl Aupperle was born June 21, 1908 in Schorndorf, Germany near Stuttgart, the first child of Karl & Pauline (Weik) Aupperle. His father was a tailor. In his later years, Max had childhood memories of playing with buttons in Karl’s shop, and being interested in the sewing machine. As the eldest son, Max followed in his father's tailoring footsteps and learned much of the trade from Karl. He completed 10th grade, an apprenticeship with another tailor, and trade school, before leaving Germany in 1926. On his passenger manifest from Bremen to New York City, Max’s occupation was listed as “dressmaker”. 

New York, 1926-1936

Max had an aunt (Pauline's sister) living in Philadelphia when he arrived in the US, but decided on Syracuse, New York as his new home. He had a German friend living in Syracuse and was able to quickly find work in dry cleaning and tailoring. He also began to learn English. In 1929 he joined the Custom Tailors and Designers Association (CTDA), which he credited for much of his lifelong success. The CTDA, founded for sharing ideas and techniques for design, pattern making, fitting, cutting, and tailoring, still exists today as the oldest continuously operating trade organization in the United States. His parents and siblings (Frieda, Maria, Walter, & Samuel) soon joined him in Syracuse. By 1930, the Aupperles were all living in the same home on South Avenue, with Karl and Max working as tailors. Frieda & Maria were both listed in the Syracuse city directory as "tailoress", so clearly Max wasn't the only child that inherited Karl's skills.

In 1930 Max attended the American Mitchell Designing School of New York City and completed a course in men’s garment design. In 1931 he moved west of Syracuse to Batavia, where he took a job in the tailoring shop of John G. Poultridge. On November 11, 1933 Max married Hedwig Haas, a fellow German immigrant who had also lived in Schorndorf. Hedwig had been working domestic jobs around Syracuse, including a stint as a live-in maid for Howard Chester Will, the wealthy vice president of the Will and Baumer Candle Company. By 1934, Max had opened his own tailoring business in Batavia. Their first child, Eric Max Aupperle, was born April 14, 1935.

Ann Arbor, 1936-2003

According to Max, it was a salesman who told him about a job opening at Wild Mens Shop in Ann Arbor. In 1936 he took a boat from Buffalo to Detroit, secured the position in Ann Arbor, and began supervising five people in a busy tailoring department. The Wild family were also Germans from near Stuttgart. Their store was located at 311 South State Street, between North University and Liberty. By the time Max joined them, the Wild family had been running their Ann Arbor clothing business for nearly 50 years.

By 1938, Max's parents and his brother Walter had also made the move to Ann Arbor. His father, Karl, joined him working as a tailor at Wild & Co. Walter found work at Metzger's German restaurant as a cook. His sister Frieda returned to Germany, while Samuel and Maria remained in New York.

In his free time, Max joined the Ann Arbor Civic Orchestra, known to us today as the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. A skilled violinist, he quickly became a popular member. In both 1939 and 1940, Max won a merit award for being the most valuable player in the orchestra. As many musicians went off to World War II, he worked to keep the remaining group together. In 1941, Max served as president of the Ann Arbor Civic Orchestra. In addition to his orchestra work, Max also assisted with the war efforts by sewing army tents at Fox Tent and Awning in Ann Arbor.

On June 2, 1941, Max & Hedwig welcomed their daughter Charlotte into the world. Their third daughter Gertrude, "Trudy", would arrive on November 12, 1945. 1945 was also the year the Aupperle family purchased a cottage on Base Lake outside of Ann Arbor, which would become a destination for their growing family to rest and relax.

1946 was a life-changing year for Max Aupperle. As men returned home from World War II in droves, the supply of clothing at Wild Men's Shop was quickly being depleted. Max was friends with the director of the adult education program in the Ann Arbor Public Schools, and asked him if sewing pupils from his classes could work at Wild's. At the time, however, there was no one teaching sewing and tailoring classes, and Max was offered the job on the spot. Taking the position in education meant he would have to quit his role in the Ann Arbor Civic Orchestra, which made it a difficult decision. In the end, he accepted the role of sewing and tailoring instructor and taught his first class in February 1946.

In July of 1949, the Aupperle family was featured in the Ann Arbor News. Frieda (Aupperle) Haerer, Max's sister, moved from Germany back to the United States with her three children. A photo of them arriving at Willow Run Airport, and reuniting with their extended family, was published in the paper. Frieda and her children moved in with her parents, Karl and Pauline. Her husband, Hugo, had died in World War II.

Max kept a busy schedule, working full time at Wild's store, and teaching his adult education courses multiple nights a week. In 1954, he was elected to a three year term on the board of directors of the Custom Tailors and Designers Association (CTDA). His children attended the Ann Arbor Public Schools and Hedwig, his wife, was busy in many community organizations. In 1957 his father Karl died at the age of 73. Pauline, his mother, died in 1963 at the age of 81. They were buried together in Ann Arbor's Forest Hill Cemetery.

1964 brought more change to Max's life when Wild & Company updated their business model and discontinued their tailoring department. Mass-produced clothing was cheap and readily available, and the tailoring industry was in decline. In response, Max brought much of the equipment from Wild's store into his basement at 716 Oakland Avenue and started his own private tailoring business. In the beginning, he had a staff of four. He retained clients from Wild & Company, and named his new venture Ann Arbor Apparel Studio. Over the years Max outfitted many well known men and women in Ann Arbor, including the University of Michigan's William D. Revelli, Alexander Ruthven, and Bo Schembechler.

In May 1970, Max was named an outstanding teacher of adults by the Adult Education Association of Michigan. He was presented with a citation declaring he "gained the admiration and respect of thousands of adults who have taken his courses. It is a common experience to find his classes large and enrollments closed early in the registration periods. Always deeply interested in each student, he has demonstrated unusually successful teaching techniques in imparting clothing knowledge and skills to adults of varying backgrounds and abilities...". Since his first class in February 1946, Max had continuously taught three or four evening classes during each term. The final continuing education class he instructed was in May 1978. He had been a teacher for 32 years, educating over 2,000 students.

In November 1983, Max and Hedwig celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by taking a trip to Alaska. They also had a dinner party at Barton Hills Country Club, hosted by their children and grandchildren. In 1997, Max was installed in the Custom Tailors and Designers Association (CTDA) Hall of Fame, and accepted a lifetime achievement award for his contribution to the trade. Hedwig died in 1998, followed by Max in 2003. He was 94 years old. They now rest together in Ann Arbor's Washtenong Memorial Park Mausoleum. Many pieces of Max's work may still be viewed in museums, including The Aupperle Collection at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design in North Carolina.

Morning Suit, ca. 1920s, Max Aupperle (1908–2003), German-American, Hand and machine sewn wool, 39" center back jacket length, The Aupperle Collection, 2015.030.001a-c, Gregg Museum of Art & Design

The first years of Michigan’s statehood, starting in 1837, were full of wild speculation, inflated currency, counterfeits, and fraud. Poorly capitalized local banks, soon nicknamed “wildcats,” printed money without the ability, or sometimes intention, of ever allowing users to exchange it for proper specie – coins of gold or silver. Paper bills permeated the new state and beyond, but it was anyone's guess whether each individual bank was truly able to honor their redemptions.

Just two months into statehood Michigan passed its General Banking Law on March 15, 1837, which introduced “free banking.” Prior to its passing, a total of nine banks existed in Michigan. Each had been authorized by a separate act of the state legislature. In the first year of free banking that number doubled to 18. Two months after that, there were an estimated total of 40. By September of 1839, only nine remained. These two years of outrageous growth and rapid crash live in infamy.

Free banking allowed citizens to form banks without state or federal approval for the issuance of currency. Any group of twelve landowners could apply to county officials and stock in the association would be opened for subscription. In order for the bank to commence operations the stock had to reach $50,000. Ten percent of each share was supposed to be paid in specie upfront, and thirty percent of the entire capital stock was to be paid in “like funds.” The president and directors of the bank were required to provide a safety deposit to the auditor general of the state. This deposit, meant to be used to pay off any future debts, could include bonds and mortgages on real estate or bonds executed by resident landowners of the state, meaning personally secured bonds. This was where the law really went awry.

Real estate appraisals are fickle, based on market valuations that continuously change. This was especially true in an era of rapid Westward expansion which was predicated on the inflation of land value. As for personal bonds, a simple guarantee from an individual has clear flaws. To base a bank’s security on these estimates and promises was courting trouble. 

Scio Sway

According to “History of Washtenaw County,” published in 1881, the genesis for the General Banking Law can be traced to back to right here in Washtenaw. 

“In the year 1835 Samuel W. Foster and John Holden, of Scio, Washtenaw county, applied to the Bank of Michigan in Detroit, for a loan of money to buy wheat to stock their mill. The bank could not accommodate them but referred them to a broker doing business in the basement of the bank building, where they found money if they would submit to a “shave.” On their return home they conceived the plan on which the “wild-cat” banks were gotten up. Foster showed the plan, and a petition to the Legislature for the law under which the banks were created, to the writer. The bill passed with but few dissenting votes… The basis of the banks was a small per cent of the capital in specie and the redemption of the bills to be secured by mortgages in real estate.”

As this story demonstrates, there was a true need for more banks and the state legislature’s speed of approving them was not adequate to meet that demand. Businessmen like Foster and Holden desired loans to support and grow their business. The new law attempted to find a solution to aid in the nascent state’s growth, it just also introduced a plethora of new complications.

Local Liabilities

Ann Arbor’s first bank, The Bank of Washtenaw, was chartered by the state legislature before the onset of free banking. Citizens submitted a petition to the legislature and were approved in 1834. The bank opened in 1835 in the “old Chapin home” on the corner of Fourth Ave and Ann St. with capital stock of $100,000. It closed nine years later in 1846. Like many banks of the era, it had insufficient security for the amount of paper money circulated.

Under the looser free banking law of 1837 three banks opened in Ann Arbor: Citizens Bank of Michigan, Millers Bank of Washtenaw, and Bank of Ann Arbor (no relation to the one we know today). Partially organized under the General Banking Law was the Exchange Bank in Ann Arbor. Later, chartered by the state legislature in 1849, came the Government Stock Bank, which could be found in the same building that had been vacated by the Bank of Washtenaw. The intent of each of these banks is not fully known, but not all were duplicitous. The Millers’ Bank of Washtenaw was known to have been "conducted fairly, and paid all its indebtedness."

Tales & Tails

There are two main theories for the origin of the term “wildcat banking,” but there is little doubt that its use began as a means of describing these new Michigan banks. 

It was in banks' best interest to issue paper currency at will, and against their interests to actually honor its exchange for specie. In order to discourage this, banks purportedly located themselves in remote areas surrounded by wilderness, forcing people to make arduous journeys to convert their cash into precious metal. One supposed obstacle the would-be redeemers encountered was actual wildcats - bobcats, mountain lion, lynx - hence the nickname.

Another popular alternative story tells of bills including wildcats as part of the imagery printed on them. Remaining Michigan tender from this period doesn’t offer many examples to corroborate this theory, but the historic bills still in existence fall short of covering every denomination and bank.

The Schemes

Setting up banks in distant locales was far from the only trick played by swindlers. By the end of the law’s first year, it was clear that something needed to be done to reign in the excess of new, insecure currency. Each bank in the state was to be visited at least once every three months by one of the three bank commissioners appointed on December 30, 1837. They were tasked with checking that banks held proper reserves of specie, usually held in specie boxes. Elaborate ruses were set up to evade these rules.

“A little specie was made to go a great way in flooding the country with worthless paper,” recounted the Ann Arbor Argus a half century later. Rather than holding an entire box of coins as a reserve, crafty bankers would fill them with scrap iron to approximate their weight and include a thinner layer of specie on top to give the appearance of completeness. 

Bankers would work in cahoots to keep up this charade and others. When a commissioner visited, bankers were said to inquire where he would be traveling to next. Once they received an answer they would quickly send the same box of recently verified specie (or, perhaps, fake specie) ahead to the next bank. The most dramatic tales recount the evidence arriving just in the nick of time, being “handed in at the back door of the banking house while an examination was in progress.”

Fraud was taken even further with the invention of fake towns. These fabricated village’s (less than real) real estate holdings were used as security for a bank’s establishment. The Courier lists the example of “Lowell, an imaginary place on the Huron river.” From The Argus, “In Washtenaw county there were towns called Boston, Saratoga, Windham and Sharon, and the plats of them are on record in the register’s office.” However, some of those may have been more real than others. Saratoga was planned by Gardner Lillibridge, who dreamed of creating a town inspired by Saratoga Springs, New York after believing that a mineral water springs was found near Portage Lake. His plans didn't pan out, but appear to have been earnestly erroneous. Sharon Township is still in existence today. Despite evidence of their actuality, their valuations were undoubtedly inflated due to the Westward land speculation bubble, or perhaps they employed the common tactic of creating plat plans that overstated a village's development. "Splendid maps showing contemplated railroads, hotels, mills and large public parks were shown to the would-be investor. High-sounding names were given to the streets and avenues, and the most glowing inducements held out to the stranger, who could not find these mythical places even with a guide and map," according to the Argus.

Counterfeiting was also commonplace in the free banking period. Each bank issued their own unique paper money and with the speed at which banks were being created verification was challenging. Bills were typically only one sided, occasionally including an advertisement on the other side.

Bills' imagery was selected by banks to convey confidence or a sense of community. A list of common motifs included Greek and Roman deities, personifications of values like liberty or justice, famous men (American or not), animals, industrial works including buildings and vehicles, scenery of famous cities, and more.

Printing was outsourced to larger operations, usually on the East Coast. This consolidation meant that motifs were reused, and their repetition facilitated even easier counterfeiting. An example appears in the October 4, 1854 issue of the Detroit Daily Free Press:

“A palpable Fraud. One of the most palpable frauds in banking that ever came under our observation was pointed to us a day or two since. It consists in the fact that the five dollar notes on the Government State Bank AT LAFAYETTE, INDIANA, and the notes of the same denomination on the Government Stock Bank AT ANN ARBOR MICHIGAN, ARE PRINTED UPON THE SAME PLATE, the name of the town and State being changed. The object of this fraud undoubtedly is to give currency in Michigan to the notes of the Indiana bank, the casual observer being likely to readily receive them on the supposition that they are the issue of the Government Stock Bank AT ANN ARBOR; and he would not find out his mistake until he should offer them at bank for deposit, when he would be charged two or three per cent discount on every dollar of them.”

Felch vs. Free Banking

Only four state legislators voted against the original 1837 banking law. Most famous among them was Alpheus Felch of Monroe. His steadfastness contributed to his selection as one of the first three bank commissioners tasked with tamping down wildcat banks in 1838 and 1839. His keen ability to sniff out schemes became legend. No padded specie boxes would get past him when he demanded they be emptied on the floor in order to expose the worthless junk they held. When asked where he would be traveling next, Felch was said to give one location and travel to another, preventing the relay of the same specie from bank to bank.

These stories of Felch’s fortitude against fraud largely stem from his own telling of events, but the proof of his character may be discerned from his career's continual rise. He went on to become a Supreme Court Justice for Michigan, Governor, U.S. Senator, and was appointed by President Franklin Pierce to settle land-claims at the end of the Mexican-American War. Afterward, he returned to Michigan and settled in Ann Arbor in 1856 where he lived until his death in 1896 at the age of 91. He is buried at Forest Hill Cemetery.

His name is enshrined in Ann Arbor with both Felch Street and Felch Park, located in front of the Power Center on the University of Michigan's campus.

End of an Era

Despite wildcat banks emergence from free banking, free banking itself was practiced in other states, including New York and Georgia, without as catastrophic of effects. Reckless Western real estate valuation and the Panic of 1837 both factored into Michigan’s disaster. As a result of the Panic, specie payments were suspended in May of 1837, allowing banks throughout the country to operate without specie redemption at full value. Michigan undoubtedly erred in their policy, but its ill effects were exacerbated by events taking place across America.

The General Banking Law was suspended in 1838 and ultimately declared unconstitutional in 1845 during Felch's tenure on the Michigan Supreme Court, the rambunctious wildcat period a brief, but costly, two years. Estimates of how much money was lost are difficult to calculate since records were commonly inaccurate due to negligence, purposeful or otherwise. Still, those in possession of Michigan notes during the time were estimated to have lost 60 percent of their face value. Greater free banking came to an end in 1865 when the federal government intentionally taxed state bank's notes out of use in favor of national banks.

Use of the term "wildcat" is experiencing a resurgence, being applied to a modern form of banking where currency is "printed" without effective collateral, causing men to once again go to bed rich and wake up penniless: cryptocurrency.

As part of Ann Arbor 200, this zine was created for Record Store Day 2024 to commemorate music and record stores from Ann Arbor's past. Materials used in the zine are listed below. Find out more about Ann Arbor's record and music stores in AADL's archival collections. 

Front Cover

Irvin, Virginia Hendrickson. Self Portrait. ca. 1940. Watercolor on ivory in gilded wood frame. 23⁄8 × 17⁄8 in. (6 × 4.8 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Virginia Gray Hendrickson was born in Chicago on October 9, 1904, the third daughter of Forman and Edith (Gray) Hendrickson. Her father died of cerebral malaria in 1910, and her family relocated to Ann Arbor, where she would spend the majority of her life. Virginia lived a life of privilege, with live-in servants and grand homes. Her father had been the president of his own Chicago business, the F. S. Hendrickson Lumber Company, and her mother was descended from Detroit's wealthy Fisher family. In her earliest Ann Arbor years, she lived in the home of her grandparents, Charles and Arabella (Fisher) Gray, who also owned a home in the Methodist summer community of Bay View on Lake Michigan. She attended schools in Ann Arbor, as well as the exclusive Highland Hall in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania.

In her youth, Virginia displayed a natural aptitude for art.  Ann Arbor High School’s 1921 yearbook includes several of her illustrations. From 1922 through 1924, Virginia attended the Art Institute of Chicago and studied the sixteenth century painter Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543). She found inspiration in his miniature portraits and devoted herself to perfecting the technique, studying with miniaturist Elsie Dodge Pattee.

On December 28, 1923, The Ann Arbor Times News announced her engagement to Charles E. Irvin of Jackson, Michigan. The Jackson Citizen Patriot announced it as well, with the headline "Pretty Art Student Will Be Bride of Jackson Man". On August 16, 1924 Virginia & Charles were married at the Hendrickson family's summer home in Bay View. The service was conducted by Virginia's uncle, Dr. Arthur W. Stalker.

Virginia & Charles started their married life together in Chicago, where Charles worked as an economist, but soon found their way back to Ann Arbor. While he worked in business and real estate, Virginia continued to paint. She received steady commissions and exhibited her work all across the country and many European capitals. On January 6, 1933 Charles E. Irvin Jr., their only child, was born.

Irvin, Virginia Hendrickson. Charles E. Irvin Jr. ca. 1935. Watercolor on ivory in gold filigree case with brooch pin. Diam. 3⁄4 in. (1.9 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Virginia Hendrickson Irvin became a well-known name in the niche world of American portrait miniatures. Her finished pieces usually ranged in size from one inch in diameter to five by six inches. Her calling cards were engraved with "The miniature is to painting what the sonnet is to poetry: prescribed and limited, but the jewel in portraiture." Meticulous details were featured in all of her work, with all of the qualities of full-sized portraits condensed with intricate detail, some to the size of a pinhead.

Her technique involved polishing thin pieces of ivory with pumice powder so they would hold watercolor on their surface. Sketching the tiny portrait directly onto the ivory, in blue cobalt, was the next step. Using a magnifying glass, she would then paint on dabs of watercolor with small sable brushes. For the tiniest detailed work, her brushes could be as thin as an eyelash or two. Completing one of her miniature portraits usually took her about two to three weeks, with the eyes alone sometimes requiring an entire day's work. She liked to use photographs as reference material and painted many portraits of her close friends and family. Virginia chose to paint only during the day, feeling that artificial light was not conducive to distinguishing between subtle shades of color.

The work of Virginia Hendrickson Irvin was exhibited in many well known settings including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers, in London. She won countless awards and accolades for her paintings, including a 1954 Medal of Honor from the National Association of Women Artists. Her work may be found in the permanent collection of numerous museums. In 1943 Virginia was unanimously elected to membership in the Pennsylvania Society of Miniature Painters, becoming the sixty-ninth member of the Society, which was founded in 1901. In 1944, Virginia participated in the forty-fifth annual of the American Society of Miniature Painters at New York's Grand Central Galleries. She was awarded their highest honor, the Levantia White Boardman Memorial Medal for a portrait of her mother, Edith Gray Hendrickson.

Irvin, Virginia Hendrickson. Mrs. Forman S. Hendrickson. ca. 1944. Watercolor on ivory in ebonized and gold-painted wood frame. 3 5⁄8 × 4 3⁄8 in. (9.2 × 11.1 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Charles Irvin died in August 1956, leaving Virginia a widow. He was buried in Ann Arbor's St. Thomas Catholic Cemetery. At the time of his death he was a professor of real estate in the University of Michigan's School of Business Administration. The Irvin family lived in the Anberay apartments at 619 E. University. Charles Jr. still lived with them, and was a student at the University of Michigan law school. Virginia continued her career as an artist, while also working as a clerk at Ulrich's Bookstore, just a short walk from home. In 1958, Virginia won the National Association of Women Artists prize for her miniature painting "Reflection".

Irvin, Virginia Hendrickson. Reflection. ca. 1958. Watercolor on ivory in gilded carved wood and plaster frame. 3 3⁄8 × 4 1⁄8 in. (8.6 × 10.5 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

1967 was a notable year in Virginia's life as her only son, Charles Edgar Irvin Jr., was ordained as a catholic priest. She commemorated the occasion with a miniature portrait of him in his black clergy shirt and white collar. Father Charlie, as he was known, would go on to spend 54 years in the priesthood in and around Ann Arbor.

Irvin, Virginia Hendrickson. Rev. Charles E. Irvin. ca. 1967. Watercolor on ivory in gilded wood frame. Diam. 3 in. (7.6 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

In 1970 the Ann Arbor News ran an article titled "Mrs. Irvin's Painting Trade One Of Few In Country". At the age of 65 she was still receiving commissions for her paintings and living alone at her 619 E. University apartment. In 1980 she was included in the book "Women Artists in America: Eighteenth Century to the Present (1790-1980)". Virginia Hendrickson Irvin lived independently in her apartment until her mid-80s. She died on her son's birthday, January 6, 1992 at the Gilbert Residence nursing home in Ypsilanti at the age of 87. She was buried in Ann Arbor's St. Thomas Catholic Cemetery, next to her husband Charles. Her son was one of the many priests who celebrated her funeral mass. In 1998, Charles E. Irvin Jr., aka Father Charlie, donated his mother's remaining paintings to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, along with a collection of biographical materials and newspaper clippings. He died in 2021 and joined his parents in St. Thomas Cemetery.

EXHIBIT STATEMENT

Scoring the Archive brings together undergraduate students at the University of Michigan and the Ann Arbor District Library through the creation of original electronic compositions designed to accompany photographs selected from the library’s archives. These new musical works are inspired by these images and aim to enhance the community’s experience of the local history they represent through an evocative, multimedia listening experience.

The April 2024 iteration of Scoring the Archive features students in Dr. Garrett Schumann’s Composition 222 courses at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. These students have worked with AADL staff since January to select the photographs that serve as their compositions’ subject matter. As with the first Scoring the Archive project, the music these students created represents an innovative reflection on Ann Arbor’s history, as captured by the images held in AADL’s archives. The new electronic compositions enliven the past through the lens of these student composers’ points of view and the digital tools they employed. Scoring the Archives also serves as a uniquely intergenerational work that puts Ann Arbor’s current residents in dialog with decades-old events, places, and people from the local area and nearby regions.

The compositions’ format makes this music maximally accessible, providing people in the AADL community, and beyond, with an opportunity to connect more deeply to these images and their meanings. We hope these compositions inspire you to engage with Ann Arbor’s history in new ways as we all commemorate the city’s bicentennial in 2024.

— Dr. Garrett Sanders Schumann

THE PHOTOGRAPHS

Select any image below to hear the accompanying composition.

What’s in a Name?

On April 28, 1841, Ann Arbor welcomed its first anti-slavery newspaper, the Signal of Liberty. The Signal’s first issue recapped the sixth annual meeting of the Michigan State Anti-Slavery Society and welcomed new subscribers and advertisers. The paper’s predecessors, the Jackson-based American Freeman (1839) and Michigan Freeman (1839-1841), had folded due to financial difficulties. Theodore Foster and Rev. Guy Beckley took on the challenge of printing the society’s newspaper. 

They chose a new name, Signal of Liberty, to remind readers of the cause of freedom that united them. Antislavery societies were forming across the United States and its territories in the 1830s and ‘40s, encouraging others to join in their mission to end slavery. Many newspapers took up the abolitionist cause, and some (including the Signal) promoted the affiliated Liberty Party. The Signal of Liberty (1841-1848) became Michigan’s flagship anti-slavery newspaper. 

An anonymous poem printed in January 1842 likened the Signal of Liberty to a lighthouse beacon that would save “countless souls” from “tempestuous winds and raging waves.” The lighthouse acted as a metaphor for the newspaper’s mission to free enslaved people from the “greedy grasp” of slaveholders: “Built on the eternal rocks… With light as radiant as the polar star… So shines our ‘Signal.’” Another “signal” with potent symbolism referenced in the poem is the “polar star,” also known as the North Star. The North Star helped former slaves navigate their escape to freedom in the northern U.S. and Canada. 

Ann Arbor’s First Presbyterian Church was the site of the founding of the Michigan State Anti-Slavery Society in 1836. When the Society’s executive committee took over publication of the newspaper several years later, Ann Arbor was a logical choice for a home base. Theodore Foster had editorial experience and Rev. Beckley was a Methodist preacher from a successful Ann Arbor business family. At the Signal of Liberty’s peak, they drew over 1,200 subscribers from Michigan, including 300 from Washtenaw County.

Foster and Beckley set up their printing equipment on the second floor of Beckley’s brother’s mercantile shop on the Huron block of Broadway in Ann Arbor. They established strong relationships with local residents and businessmen, including Caleb Ormsby of the Ann Arbor Paper Mill and William R. Perry, owner of a bookstore in Lower Town. To learn more about how they printed the newspaper on an iron handpress, check out AADL’s 2019 blog series “Paper, Ink, and Pi: Printing the Signal of Liberty.” To learn more about how they decided what to print in their paper on any given week, read on!

The Editor’s Dilemma

On May 27, 1844, the Signal of Liberty reprinted a fictional account of one man’s visit to a country newspaper office. The visitor encounters an editor “surrounded by a heap of crabbed manuscript” from correspondents and aspiring contributors. He is struggling to decide what to print in his weekly paper:

Indeed, he has but four pages in his paper; a part of those four pages must be taken up with advertisements and notices; indeed, he must have a modicum of editorial for his readers; indeed, they must needs read of what is going on in Congress, off there in Europe and in Asia, and down here in the legislature...indeed, the poet hath quite a corner, all his own; indeed, I must extract good pieces from other papers...and, indeed, I have a host of other kind correspondents besides thyself.

From breaking news to advertisements, poetry, and gossip columns, newspaper editors chose content that best represented the interests of the paper and its readers. Signal of Liberty editors Theodore Foster and Guy Beckley probably hoped this story would educate their subscribers on the labor involved in editing a paper, remind them to pay their dues, and make them laugh, too. Even an antislavery paper needed lighter material to balance out the standard political fare. The story’s narrator signs off with a hasty retreat from the printer’s office, which is overflowing with badly written correspondence from ungrateful subscribers: “Printer,” he says, “I bid thee, and thy sorrows, farewell.”

The story about the printer’s woes is borrowed from the Ohio Observer, a Presbyterian weekly, but could just as well have described the Signal of Liberty’s editorial process. An interesting aspect of 19th-century newspaper printing is the large amount of content that editors borrowed from other newspapers. They called these sources “exchange papers” or “exchanges.”

Clip! Clip! Clip!

The Signal of Liberty traded material with many other like-minded newspapers, especially abolitionist and Liberty party papers. The Signal’s first issue instructed fellow editors to send their exchanges to Ann Arbor rather than the Michigan Freeman’s prior location, Jackson. It was important to receive them in order to get the current national news and more content for the Signal’s next issues. Poems, short fiction, humorous anecdotes, and other “evergreen” or non-trending content could be reprinted weeks or even months later. 

One such poem traveled to Ann Arbor following a circuitous route from St. Louis, Missouri. The “Song of the Editor” ran in the Signal of Liberty on April 14, 1845. First published in January 1845 by a Missouri-based weekly paper called the St. Louis Reveille, it traveled via regular exchange routes to Virginia and then up the eastern seaboard to Boston’s The Liberator. Edited by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, The Liberator was one of the Signal of Liberty’s regular exchange papers. Six weeks after the Boston paper published the poem, the Signal reprinted it.

The poem follows the morning tasks of an editor who is hastily “clipping” and “pasting” content from exchange papers:

Clip! Clip! Clip!—
No ‘cabbaging’ shears his hands doth hold,
But those with which the current gold
By lawful right he’ll clip,—
The ‘Devil’ is gone, but he will not fail
Of a prompt return with the ‘morning mail’—
A basket full of ‘exchanges’—
And then the editor opens and skims—
Accidents—deaths—discoveries—whims—
As over the world he ranges!
 

When the editor’s assistant, also known as a “Devil,” brings him a basket of exchanges, the editor eagerly skims their pages for material to reprint in this week’s issue. He pastes them into “copy” for his compositors, who are ready to begin setting type:

Paste! Paste! Paste!
With camel’s hair brush and a broken cup,
He gathers the scatter’d paragraphs up,
And sticks them on in haste:
The ‘Devil’ appears with a grin and a bow—
‘Please, sir, they’re waitin’ for ‘copy’ now...’
 

The “Song of the Editor” was a parody of Thomas Hood’s 1843 labor protest poem “The Song of the Shirt.” Hood’s poem called attention to the poor working conditions of female laborers in the garment industry: “Stitch! Stitch! Stitch! / In poverty, hunger, and dirt…” The parody picked up Hood’s catchy repetitions and applied them to the editor’s business: “Clip! Clip! Clip!... Paste! Paste! Paste!”

As literary historian Ellen Gruber Garvey explains, reprinting was not stealing, but a lawful practice that helped spread news across the country. The United States Postal Service even waived the postage on newspapers exchanged between editors. For abolitionist or Liberty Party papers such as the Signal of Liberty, reprinting helped present readers across the nation with a unified message. The low-cost practice was a core aspect of a 19th-century editor’s job.

The Poet’s Corner

Poetry was a popular medium for 19th-century writers. Poems clipped from newspapers were shared in letters and scrapbooks and read aloud by families, schoolchildren, and members of social and political clubs. As the frazzled newspaper editor in the story above noted, “the poet hath quite a corner, all his own.” But how did the Signal of Liberty’s editors choose which poems to print?

The majority of the Signal’s non-advertising content was political in nature, and its poetry column was no exception. Usually printed on the first or fourth page, the poem of the week provided another way for readers to relate to the antislavery cause.

Typically, Foster and Beckley chose popular poems that appeared in their exchange papers, like “Song of the Editor.” Many of these were abolitionist poems describing the plight of the slave, the cruelty of slaveholders, and the ideals of freedom and liberty. Well-known authors included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, and John Pierpont. But the Signal also featured verses contributed by local authors.

A poem published on February 24, 1845 in the correspondents’ section pressures the editors for more original poems by local writers rather than reprintings by more famous poets:

'Tis true, that you may cull with care,
And gather much that's good and rare;
But, if from other sheets you borrow,
What’s theirs to-day, is yours to-morrow;
So you, behind must slowly tread,
While they are flying on ahead.
 

As this poet notes, borrowed verses will always be old news. Why not publish original content from the Signal’s own subscribers? In fact, dozens of poems that were published in the Signal were by local authors–including this one:

So modest are we, in most cases
Your readers know us, but by guesses–
The initials of our name we give,
The town, or village where we live;
These signs you know, but few can tell,
And none, but those, who know us well.
 

The author signs off with only a town name and date: “Salem, Feb. 10th, 1845.” Close attention to similar signatures throughout the Signal’s print run give clues to the identity of this poet. Those who “knew her well” might have identified the verses of Elizabeth Ross Spence of Salem Township, just eight miles north of Ann Arbor.

Several poems appearing in the poetry column follow the same pattern: before the title appears an authentication of originality–“For the Signal of Liberty”–and the signature reads “Salem, [Date].” An elegy written for a deceased infant on September 19, 1842, “Rest, Sweet Babe, in Softest Slumber” provides the telling clue. As the note above the poem explains, “The following lines were composed by Mrs. Spence, and sung at the burial of a child of Enoch and Emma Hamilton, at Salem, Aug 1842.”

“Mrs. Spence” is Elizabeth Ross Spence, the wife of Adam Spence. She was born in Scotland around 1797 and she moved from Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland to Salem, Michigan in 1831 with her husband and young son. They established a farmstead and were founding members of the Congregational Church of Salem in 1839. Elizabeth Ross Spence, a poet and singer, was likely one of the women of the Salem Choir who “organized a Ladies Antislavery and Benevolent Association for the town of Salem” during an antislavery meeting held in a barn in Salem on May 19, 1846. 

The elegies she wrote for members of her church demonstrate the care that she showed for her friends and neighbors as well as the antislavery cause. Her son Adam Spence, perhaps inspired by his parents’ abolitionist ideals, became a principal at Fisk University. The 1870 Census lists Elizabeth Ross Spence as living in Ann Arbor, age 73. Although the full extent of Elizabeth Ross Spence’s writing has not been documented, the Fisk University Archives has much of her correspondence and two books of her poems: Hymns and Songs, 1858-1878 and Poems 1876-1880. More investigation is needed, but perhaps some of her contributions to the Signal of Liberty appear in these pages. 

Spence’s tongue-in-cheek rebuke to Foster and Beckley for borrowing “from other sheets” suggest that the Signal overlooked her talent, but in fact they published at least seven of her poems between 1841 and 1845.

• “The Oppressed,” Aug. 25, 1841
• “Hope for the Slave,” June 6, 1842
• “Rest, Sweet Babe, in Softest Slumber,” Sept. 19, 1842
• “Our Country,” October 17, 1842
• “Lines,” Feb. 20, 1843
• “Reply To ‘Chapter For Correspondents,’” February 24, 1845
• “Liberty Song,” April 21, 1845

Whether or not the editors themselves knew her true identity remains unclear. Nevertheless, of the hundreds of poems they chose to “clip” and “paste” into the pages of the Signal of Liberty, Spence’s verses emerge as a striking example of local talent.

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Read  “Paper, Ink, and Pi: Printing the Signal of Liberty.”