Important Things to Know
Who Did We Have in Mind When Creating This Archive?
Out of the many categories of businesses listed each year in the Green Books, we deciced to research and document our findings on the categories we thought would be most important to (college) students: hotels, taverns, and nightclubs. We acknowledge that many students may have not had the funds to stay in a hotel opposed to staying with someone from the community, but because lodging is an essential part of travel and had more listings than the tourist home category, we still decided to include it.
The rest of the categories listed for Michigan are:
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Ranch
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Service stations
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Liquor stores
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automobiles
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tailors
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Drug stores
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Barber shops
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Beauty schools
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Beauty parlors
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Tourist homes
Although students probably went to/used many of these services, we also picked the three categories we thought we would have a better chance at finding photos of people interacting with these spaces opposed to photos of places like tailors and drug stores.
Ann Arbor vs. Detroit Analysis
We felt that analyzing the difference in the amount of listings in Ann Arbor opposed to Detroit from a student perspective would be important for two reasons.
- We’re current University of Michigan students at the Ann Arbor campus.
- The lived experiences of Black students in Ann Arbor and Detroit today reflect what we found in the archive: only two hotels were listed in Ann Arbor for all 5 years we looked at with no other categories listed.
This is juxtaposed with Detroit who had 13 categories and over 50 listings in the same period. In 2023, many Black students at U-M Ann Arbor would similarly tell you that they feel Detroit has more creative, educational, personal care, and retail spaces that are made for and by people who look like them.
Interested in locating more Green Book locations?
Due to changes in Detroit's city layout largely due to urban renewal, there were many listings that we could not locate. However, Detroit's Public Library provides historical maps of the city. We encourage users to use the addresses listed in the Green Books and the historical maps to try to find more listing locations! Please note that a library card is required to view the collection.