While in recent years Detroit's craft beer scene has exploded with activity and innovation, brewing has a long history in the Motor City. Small brewers popped up during the mid-1800s to support nearby saloons. Many breweries survived the dry years by producing "near beer," or non-alcoholic beer, which was quickly abandoned after Prohibition. Consolidation marked the following decades until only Stroh Brewery Company remained. Local brewing returned triumphantly with dozens of breweries opening their doors since the 1990s, including Motor City Brewing Works, Atwater Brewery and Kuhnhenn Brewing Company. Join author and Motor City Brew Tours founder Stephen Johnson for Detroit history by the pint.

While in recent years Detroit's craft beer scene has exploded with activity and innovation, brewing has a long history in the Motor City. Small brewers popped up during the mid-1800s to support nearby saloons. Many breweries survived the dry years by producing "near beer," or non-alcoholic beer, which was quickly abandoned after Prohibition. Consolidation marked the following decades until only Stroh Brewery Company remained. Local brewing returned triumphantly with dozens of breweries opening their doors since the 1990s, including Motor City Brewing Works, Atwater Brewery and Kuhnhenn Brewing Company. Join author and Motor City Brew Tours founder Stephen Johnson for Detroit history by the pint.

Brewed in Detroit describes the history of the brewing industry in the Detroit metropolitan area from its beginning in the 1830s to the present revival by microbrewers and brewpubs.

Michigan's beer history is as diverse as the breweries themselves, and the stories behind them are as fascinating as their tasty concoctions. A few enterprising women found themselves at the forefront of early brewing in the state, and several early Detroit brewers also served as mayor. Pfeiffer's mascot was designed by Walt Disney Studios. Jackson's Eberle Brewing Company took its fight against local prohibition all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Silver Foam trademark embroiled disputants in a different legal fight. Renowned modern craft brewers grew from humble beginnings, often staving off financial disaster, to establish themselves as local, or even national, juggernauts. Grab your favorite brew and join author Patti F. Smith for a look at Michigan's distant brewing past and its recent triumphs.

The Elusive Purple Gang: Detroit's Kosher Nostra is a concise history of one of America's most notorious Prohibition gangs. The Burnstein brothers and their associates were the only Jewish gang in the United States to dominate the rackets of a major American city. From their meteoric rise to the top of Detroit's underworld to their ultimate demise, this is an episodic account of the Purple Gang's corrosive pursuit of power and wealth and their inevitable plunge towards self-destruction.

Taverns, saloons, and restaurants have always played an important role in the development of large American cities like Detroit. Historically Detroiters probably regarded their neighborhood watering hole as no more than a place to drink and discuss politics. In fact, these gathering places also served as the backdrop for important social, civic, and economic events that impacted the lives of residents and affected urban development. Detroit's Historic Drinking Establishments traces the evolution of these places from the city's roots as a fur-trapping settlement to Detroit's dominance as a manufacturing giant. Using historical images from a number of sources including the Detroit Public Library's Burton Historical and Virtual Motor City Collections and the Detroit Historical Museum, this book paints a vivid picture of early Detroit as a destination highly prized for its abundant natural resources and its incomparable hospitality.

The history of private lives of the first and second generations of Polish immigrants in the United States is viewed from the perspective of migrants themselves. What did the migrants do? How did they behave? How protagonists (men, women, children) with their own words presented their experience? Their experience is compared with one of the other groups. The book discusses migration processes, formation of neighborhoods, experiences at work, daily and family lives, functioning of parishes and tensions related to it, and construction of people’s identities and their constant reformulations. Migrants created mutual-aid societies, which played not only economic, but also ideological and political roles. Experiences of immigrants’ children at home and at school are presented, mostly in their own words and from their own perspective. Cultural activities reflect constant changes of groups’ self-identity. The book also depicts the relations between the Polish migrants and members of other ethnic groups – in the streets, public spaces, politics, and within the Catholic church. People lived in pluri-cultural, culturally diverse, contexts, and thus relations with “the others” were complex. The panorama ended in the year 1939, when after the Great Depression, the group entered into a new period of transformation during the war.