George Rathmann, founding CEO of Amgen, the developer of innovative bio-technology products such as Neupogen, has died at age 84. He was born and grew up in Milwaukee and earned a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry at Northwestern. Details of his life can be read in this New York Times obituary
George Rathmann, Milwaukee-Born Biotech Innovator, Dies at 84
April 24th, 2012 by Arvid SponbergJanice Voss, 5-time Shuttle Astronaut, dies at 55
February 10th, 2012 by Arvid SponbergJanice Voss, a native of South Bend, IN and a graduate of Purdue University, rode Discovery once and Endeavour and Columbia twice each between 1993 and 2000. Read Janice Voss’s obituary here
Underwater Find in Lake Huron Points to Existence of Ancient Communities
December 26th, 2011 by Arvid SponbergA recent discovery by a University of Michigan anthropologist points to the existence of hunter-gatherer communities along a 9,000-year-old land bridge now submerged in northern Lake Huron.
John O’Shea, the anthropologist, and his fellow researcher, Guy Meadows, a physical oceanographer, have been exploring the Alpena-Amberley Ridge.
Reports of their investigations can be found here, here and here
Benton Harbor’s Predicaments Subject of National Magazine Cover Story
December 21st, 2011 by Arvid SponbergBenton Harbor, a town of 10,000 people in southwestern Michigan, endures the ravages of economic and political upheaval. Recent efforts to revive its fortunes focus the attention of Jonathan Mahler in a cover story for the New York Times Magazine
Talking Inside Corn and Soybeans
December 12th, 2011 by Arvid SponbergThank heaven for local newspapers! There we can learn a thing or two about certain basic realities of life – realities on which everything else we do vitally depends.
Here, for example, is an article from the New Richland (MN) Star Eagle titled “Assessing the Harvest.” Rachel Rietsema’s piece puts Mark Bernard front-and-center and together they don’t disappoint. Here is a glimpse into Midwestern life that glossier publications give us only rarely, if at all.
You’ve heard of talk that’s “inside baseball” or “inside football” – the technical, jargon-laden chat of fans that really know their stuff. Half the programming on ESPN falls into these categories.
In fact, you may wonder at times why we expend so much air-time and personal-time yakking about kids games that have no lasting real-world consequences. What possible difference does hitting a baseball three times out of every ten at-bats make in the world outside the white lines for anybody except the hitter? Is putting a ball through a hoop a skill that transfers to any other field of human endeavor?
On the other hand, the skills required to get corn and soybeans planted, cultivated, harvested, and marketed make possible all the other skills our so-called civilization glorifies. If we don’t eat well, we won’t do anything else well. In fact, forget “well”; we won’t be doing anything – period.
The Midwest has long been called “the world’s breadbasket.” Mark Bernard’s insider’s look at corn and soybeans shows you the hard work, skill, and luck behind that moniker. Here’s what the largest part of the Midwest is all about.
Harry Morgan, M*A*S*H’s Col. Potter, Dies at 96; Had Michigan Boyhood
December 7th, 2011 by Arvid SponbergHarry Morgan sustained one of the most successful acting careers of the twentieth century, working in the theatre, motion pictures, and television. He appeared in 50 films and 10 television series. Counting made-for-tv movies, he appeared in prime-time roles for 42 consecutive seasons, 1957-1999. (Source: IMDB.Com)
He was born Harry Bratsberg (often misspelled with a “u”) in Detroit to immigrant parents. His father came from Norway, his mother from Sweden. He graduated from Muskegon (MI) High School and attended the University of Chicago. As Bratsberg, he began his professional theatrical career in New York with the influential Group Theatre. With that company in 1937, he debuted in Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy, directed by Harold Clurman, assisted by Sanford Meisner. The cast included Luther Adler, Morris Carnovsky, Frances Farmer, John Garfield (still Jules Garfinkle), Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden (still Mladen Sekulovich), and Elia Kazan. (Source: IBDB.Com)
Read the full New York Times obituary here.
Harry Morgan’s interview for the Archive of American Television can be accessed here.
David C. Anderson, Pioneering Scholar of Midwestern Literature, Dies At 87
December 7th, 2011 by Arvid SponbergDavid D. Anderson, Ph.D. , 87, university distinguished professor emeritus, Michigan State University, died December 3 at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Mich. Born June 8, 1924 in Lorain, Ohio, Dr. Anderson grew up on the shores of Lake Erie, where he was inspired by stories of the Great Lakes and by accounts of local history. Following graduation from St. Mary’s High School in 1942, he served in the amphibious forces of the US Navy; participated in the Anzio Landing; earned a Silver Star and five battle stars; and when his ship, P.C. 621, was torpedoed and sunk, a Purple Heart.
Maintaining a lifelong connection to his hometown, Dr. Anderson was a longstanding member of Lorain’s Black River Historical Society, its VFW post 451, and American Legion Post 30. At Bowling Green State University, he received his bachelor’s degree in English and geology in 1951, and an M.A. in English the following year. Prior to his teaching years at MSU, he taught at General Motors Institute (Kettering University). He received his Ph.D. in English from Michigan State University in 1961, where he went on to teach first in the Department of English, and for most of his career, in the Department of American Thought and Language. During 1963-64, he was a Fulbright lecturer in American literature at the University of Karachi, Pakistan. He retired in 1994.
Author, editor, and biographer, Dr. Anderson’s primary scholarship focused on Ohio and Midwestern literature. A foremost authority on the life and letters of Sherwood Anderson (no relation) and co-founder of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature, Dr. Anderson lectured throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. He published 37 books and hundreds of articles as well as poems, a novel, and a collection of short stories. For the past several decades, Dr. Anderson had been invited by the Swedish Academy to nominate candidates for the Nobel Prize in literature. His many awards include honorary doctorates from Wittenberg University and Bowling Green State University, and the Ohioana Career Award for Professional Accomplishments in the Arts and Humanities, in which he joins past recipients, who include Arthur Schlesinger, Toni Morrison, and John Glenn.
He was preceded in death by his wife of more than 53 years, Patricia A. (Rittenhour) Anderson.
Visitation will be at Palmer, Bush & Jensen Family Funeral Homes, Lansing Chapel, Lansing, MI from 6-9 p.m. on Thursday Dec. 8. On Friday Dec. 9, visitation at St. Mary Cathedral in Lansing at 9:00 a.m., followed by the funeral mass beginning at 10:00 a.m. with Rev. Fr. Bernard Reilly officiating. Visitation in Lorain, Ohio on Saturday, Dec. 10 at Mary, Mother of God Catholic Church, beginning at 10:00 a.m., followed by liturgy conducted by Rev. Fr. James Becherer at 11:00 a.m. and interment in Calvary Cemetery, Lorain, Ohio.
Donations in Dr. Anderson’s memory may be made to the Greater Lansing Area Food Bank, the Patricia A. Anderson Library Endowment Fund for Children’s Books at Michigan State, or the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature.
The Driftless Area’s Economic Potential Described
December 7th, 2011 by Arvid SponbergIn a new blog entry, Richard C. Longworth, Senior Fellow of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, writes about the economic potential of the Midwest’s Driftless Area.
Counties on the banks of the Mississippi River where Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin meet comprise the Driftless Area because they escaped the glaciers and the “drift” – silt, clay and other detritus – that typifies glaciated landscapes.
Longworth argues that local and state leaders have failed to use the great attractiveness of the landscape as a cornerstone for economic and cultural development. He sees the failure as symptomatic of a general Midwestern handicap: allowing old habits of mind and outmoded legal arrangements to block innovation.
John Lautner, Architect with Upper Peninsula Roots, Featured in NPR Story
December 3rd, 2011 by Arvid SponbergJohn Lautner (1911-1994) designed homes in Southern California that have become icons of advanced architectural practice. He was born and reared in Marquette, Michigan and graduated from Northern Michigan University. He studied and worked with Frank Lloyd Wright during the 1930s and established his own practice in Los Angeles in 1938. The influence of his Upper Peninsula experiences is often noticed in the creative relationship between his buildings and their natural settings.
You can hear the NPR story at http://www.npr.org/2011/12/03/143053176/nature-and-design-meet-in-lautners-modern-homes
Further information about Lautner can be found at http://www.johnlautner.org/wp/?p=33
Princeton Scholar Robert Wuthnow Analyzes the Changes in His Home State of Kansas
November 14th, 2011 by Arvid SponbergRobert Wuthnow is Chair of the Sociology Department and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton. He also is a native of Kansas. He has written more than 25 books about religion in public life but his two most recent books are the first of his to deal directly with his home state.
The first, Remaking the Heartland: Middle America since the 1950s, analyzes the many changes which Midwesterners continue to endure. A New York Times article by A. G. Sulzberger, “Hispanics Reviving Faded Towns on the Plains,” explores one of the changes, the increasing number of Hispanics settling in Western Kansas.
The second, Red State Religion: Faith and Politics in America’s Heartland, “tells the story of religiously motivated political activism in Kansas from territorial days to the present.”