North Country History with Rob Burg
Your podcast on the Forest History of the Great Lakes Region. The forests of the Great Lakes have been home to people for centuries and have provided great resources and wealth, shelter, food, and recreation for many. But in the wake of these uses, the region has been environmentally damaged from deforestation, fire, and erosion, and are still recovering to this day. I will be your guide for exploring the forests and sharing stories of the forests and the people who have called them home.
About Rob Burg: Hi! I'm an environmental historian specializing on the forest history of the Great Lakes Region. I am a mostly lifelong Michigan resident and studied at Eastern Michigan University for both my undergraduate degree in History and graduate studies in Historic Preservation. My 35-year professional life has mostly been in history museums, including the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, the Michigan History Museum, and the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer. I began my environmental history career with managing both the Hartwick Pines Logging Museum and the Civilian Conservation Corps Museum for the Michigan History Museum system, directing the Lovells Museum of Trout Fishing History, archivist for the Devereaux Memorial Library in Grayling, Michigan, and as the Interpretive Resources Coordinator for the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer in Grand Island, Nebraska. I am proud that the first person to ever call me an environmental historian was none other than Dr. William Cronon, the dean of American Environmental History.
North Country History with Rob Burg
Frank W. May-From Slavery to Lumberman
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In honor of Black History Month, I want to introduce a unique story in Michigan History to my listeners, the story of Frank W. May, a man who was born into enslavement in Kentucky prior to the American Civil War, and after emancipation raised himself to the ownership of a sawmill in Detroit and a lumberman owning a modest logging operation in Otsego County in the Northern Lower Peninsula in the 1890s.
In 2017 I had an article about Frank May published in Chronicle, the membership magazine of the Historical Society of Michigan, title "Frank W. May's Spirit of Enterprise." It was based on research that I conducted in 2016 mostly through the Detroit Public Library's Burton Historical Collections. I don't quite remember how I came across Frank May and his connection to the Michigan lumber industry, but I knew that it was a story that needed to be shared with a wider audience. In this episode I am casting that net further and I go back to that article and sharing it with the listeners of the podcast.
The article that I wrote:
Burg, Rob. "Frank W. May's Spirit of Enterprise." Chronicle, Membership Magazine of the Historical Society of Michigan, Lansing, Michigan. Vol. 40, No. 2. pp. 20-22. hsmichigan.org