Book dossier

The history of Detroit and Michigan

by Silas Farmer

A large number of county histories were produced in Michigan, beginning at the Centennial of 1876. In the mid-1880s, May and Dunbar note that, “In many cases, the attention in local areas shifted from the county level to the preparation of histories of a city. Towering above all of the productions of this type is Silas Farmer, History of Detroit and Wayne County and Early Michigan,1884, which appeared in revised editions in 1889 and 1890. This thousand-page work covers nearly every imaginable topic in truly encyclopedic fashion, with its geographical range, as the title indicates, sometimes stretching well beyond Detroit. Numerous histories of Michigan’s largest city have appeared since Farmer, but none matches it for detail or replaces it as the basic source for the period Farmer covers, although Clarence M. Burton, ed., The City of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922, comes the closest.” - Willis F. Dunbar and George S. May, Michigan: a History of the Wolverine State, Eerdmans 1995.