Ypsi Stories

Ypsilanti District Library
  • 5.0 (6)
  • HISTORY
  • UPDATED BIMONTHLY
Ypsi Stories

Ypsi Stories is a podcast about the history of Ypsilanti, told in story form by historians, academics, community members, and local experts.

  1. AUG 28

    Episode 25: The Parkridge Community Center and the Fight for Racial Equality

    The Parkridge Community Center on Harriet Street opened in December 1945 as a recreation center for Southside residents. It was funded through a World War II program that built recreation centers for war workers and their families. But, the story of how the Parkridge Community Center came to be located on Harriet Street as a segregated facility for African American families has been mostly forgotten. In this podcast, historian Lee Azus recounts the struggle by residents of the Southside to build an interracial community center on what was called the "buffer strip" between white and black Ypsilanti near Michigan Avenue. Their story illustrates their vision and its limits as it came up against the power and the purse-strings of Federal bureaucracies and the Ypsilanti City Council. For more information about this and other episodes of Ypsi Stories, including photos and bibliographies, check out ⁠⁠ypsilibrary.org/ypsistories If you don’t want to miss any future episodes, you can always subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, AntennaPod, Escapepod, or wherever you find your podcasts!⁠ To keep up to date on this podcast, as well as all the great things the Ypsilanti District Library is doing, you can follow the library on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, and of course, you can always check out our webpage at ⁠⁠ypsilibrary.org.

    35 min

  2. JUN 5

    Episode 24: Undertaking the Subject of Death in 19th Century Ypsilanti

    For all of us there comes a day which is the end of the line, but how we are dispatched changes with the times. It would be unusual for a person in Ypsilanti today to die in a boiler explosion or to be run over by a train, but such events were common in the nineteenth century. Nobody in either time period would likely be crucified or fall on their sword as might have happened in the first century Roman Empire; everything has its time and its place. In this episode we'll have a conversation with historian and circulation clerk emeritus Jerome Drummond about the culture and institutions related to death and dying in 19th Century Ypsilanti. For more information about this and other episodes of Ypsi Stories, including photos and bibliographies, check out ⁠⁠ypsilibrary.org/ypsistories If you don’t want to miss any future episodes, you can always subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, AntennaPod, Escapepod, or wherever you find your podcasts!⁠ To keep up to date on this podcast, as well as all the great things the Ypsilanti District Library is doing, you can follow the library on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, and of course, you can always check out our webpage at ⁠⁠ypsilibrary.org

    1 hr

  3. MAY 6

    Episode 23: The Ypsi Farmers & Gardeners Oral History Project

    The Ypsi Farmers & Gardeners Oral History Project (YFGOHP) is a new YDL digital archive sharing the stories of Ypsilanti’s Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and/or working class food growers. Based on community input, the project started by collecting oral histories from elders and including portrait photographs of each farmer or gardener. The initial interviews were completed in October and November 2023 with more planned to start with farmers and gardeners of all ages in 2024. In this episode, we have the opportunity to have a discussion with three of the coordinators of this local oral history project to learn more about it:  Dr. Finn Bell, Omer Jean Winborn, and Briana Hurt. YDL librarian Madelynne Rivenbark, our engineeress, also contributes. During this episode we will also feature clips of the oral histories themselves, as well as follow up questions. The full oral histories from this project, as well as other oral histories and historical materials are located at history.ypsilibrary.org  For more information about this and other episodes of Ypsi Stories, including photos and bibliographies, check out ⁠⁠ypsilibrary.org/ypsistories If you don’t want to miss any future episodes, you can always subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, AntennaPod, gPodder, or wherever you find your podcasts!⁠ To keep up to date on this podcast, as well as all the great things the Ypsilanti District Library is doing, you can follow the library on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, and of course, you can always check out our webpage at ⁠⁠ypsilibrary.org

    1h 19m

  4. MAR 6

    Episode 22: President Roosevelt visits the Willow Run Bomber Plant

    In the months that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941, the United States began the transition from a peace economy to a war economy. Production of household items such as refrigerators and cars had to change to tanks, trucks, guns, and planes. It was not an easy transition. Eight months later, President Roosevelt in Washington was receiving reports on the failure of the production war. Everything was behind schedule, including the production of B 24 Liberator bombers at the Willow Run Bomber Plant, built by the Ford Motor Company just outside of Ypsilanti. President Roosevent decided that he wanted to go see for himself what was happening. In today’s episode, we learn about President Roosevelt’s secret visit to Ypsilanti in 1942, from local historian, James Mann. For more information about this and other episodes of Ypsi Stories, including photos and bibliographies, check out ⁠⁠ypsilibrary.org/ypsistories⁠ If you don’t want to miss any future episodes, you can always subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts! To keep up to date on this podcast, as well as all the great things the Ypsilanti District Library is doing, you can follow the library on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, and of course, you can always check out our webpage at ⁠⁠ypsilibrary.org

    18 min

  5. 10/20/2023

    Episode 21: On the State of Medicine in 19th Century Ypsilanti

    The 19th century in Ypsilanti, as elsewhere, was on the doorstep of the remarkable medical advances of the twentieth century. People who came down with even a minor illness could be dead in hours. Was that a cough or a death-rattle? The doctor might know or might not, and what was in his bag might help you or the undertaker. In this episode, historian and clerk emeritus Jerome Drummond will discuss the reasons we should definitely be happy to see a doctor in the twenty-first century. For more information about this and other episodes of Ypsi Stories, including photos and bibliographies, check out ⁠⁠ypsilibrary.org/ypsistories⁠ If you don’t want to miss any future episodes, you can always subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts! To keep up to date on this podcast, as well as all the great things the Ypsilanti District Library is doing, you can follow the library on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, and of course, you can always check out our webpage at ⁠⁠ypsilibrary.org

    48 min

  6. 07/21/2023

    Episode 20: Fighting for LGBTQ Rights in Ypsilanti - A Double Retrospective

    From 1997 through 2002, the LGBTQ community in Ypsilanti fought for their rights in the form of a Non Discrimination Ordinance for the City of Ypsilanti. The result of this struggle was one of the first Non Discrimination Ordinances in Michigan, with protections for LGBTQ Ypsilantians. Seventeen years later, in 2019, Ypsilanti teenager Miriam Berman Stidd interviewed Non Discrimination Ordinance campaign veterans, and Normal Park neighbors, Lisa Bashert, Beth Bashert, and Lisa Zuber, for a podcast episode project for her Communications class at Washtenaw International High School. Four years later than that, in 2023, Ypsi Stories hostess Shoshanna was able to work with Miriam Berman Stidd to unearth this podcast episode, which we are airing in its entirety, followed by a 2023 conversation with Miriam Stidd, Lisa Bashert, and Beth Bashert, facillitated by Shoshanna, about the original episode itself, and about changes felt between 2019 and 2023, as members of the LGBTQ community, in Ypsilanti. For more information about this and other episodes of Ypsi Stories, including photos and bibliographies, check out ⁠ypsilibrary.org/ypsistories ⁠ If you don’t want to miss any future episodes, you can always subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you find your podcasts! To keep up to date on this podcast, as well as all the great things the Ypsilanti District Library is doing, you can follow the library on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, and of course, you can always check out our webpage at ⁠ypsilibrary.org

    38 min

  7. 05/19/2023

    Episode 19: Shadow Art Fair - Ypsilanti's Interactive Art Experience

    In this season's episode we learn about the Shadow Art Fair, which was a local social, cultural, and interactive art experience that for many years in the 00s and 10s marked the peak of summer in July, while providing a warm, community-based, secular gathering each winter as well. We'll be speaking with some of the core organizers of the Shadow, including Mark Maynard, Jennifer Yates, and Melissa Dettloff.For more information about this and other episodes of Ypsi Stories, including photos and bibliographies, check out ypsilibrary.org/ypsistoriesIf you don’t want to miss any future episodes, you can always subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you find your podcasts!To keep up to date on this podcast, as well as all the great things the Ypsilanti District Library is doing, you can follow the library on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, and of course, you can always check out our webpage at ypsilibrary.org

    59 min

  8. 12/05/2022

    Episode 18: More Buses for Ypsilanti

    In this season's episode we learn about the history of the 2014 campaign to expand transit in Ypsilanti, the state of transit then and now, and the power that this work had in terms of connecting the community through movement organizing. We'll be speaking with some of those involved in the 2014 campaign, including Martha Valadez, Gillian Ream Gainsley, Tad Wysor, and Kathy Meagher. For more information about this and other episodes of Ypsi Stories, including photos and bibliographies, check out ypsilibrary.org/ypsistories If you don’t want to miss any future episodes, you can always subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you find your podcasts! To keep up to date on this podcast, as well as all the great things the Ypsilanti District Library is doing, you can follow the library on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, and of course, you can always check out our webpage at ypsilibrary.org

    1h 7m
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

Ypsi Stories is a podcast about the history of Ypsilanti, told in story form by historians, academics, community members, and local experts.

Information

  • Creator
    Ypsilanti District Library
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2024
  • Episodes
    28
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Ypsilanti District Library
  • Show Website
    Ypsi Stories

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