Off the Shelf

WHAT ARE WE READING + WATCHING?

We Keep the Dead Close

Sarah Andrus, a librarian at The Henry Ford, encourages a read of the recently published account of a murder at Harvard University that took place in 1969 and remained unsolved for nearly 50 years.

While studying at Harvard, author Becky Cooper heard countless times the legend of a nameless girl, an affair and a murder at the hands of her professor in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. The nameless girl was Jane Britton, and in this part true crime, part memoir, Cooper breaks apart the legend at the seams to tell Jane’s story.

The mix of author obsession and real-life interviews combines to create a captivating picture of the long-gone Britton, the power a storied institution like Harvard holds in its community and the culture of the late 1960s.

We Keep the Dead Close is, at heart, a story of the power of legends and the people who are lost to them.

DID YOU KNOW? /

Author Don Mitchell, a personal friend of murder victim Jane Britton, wrote a book titled Shibai: Remembering Jane Britton’s Murder, which explores his memories and perceptions of the woman he knew and the crime committed against her.

RuAnne Phillips

Membership Marketing Manager The Henry Ford

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Prepare for thrills in this captivating novel written by the queen of mystery herself, Agatha Christie. More than a simple case of whodunit, this story introduces 10 allies turned enemies as they fall victim to an unknown source, one by one. Purposeful pauses, an intricate weaving of thoughtprovoking details and descriptive, suspenseful scenes leave the reader desperate for clues. Who, or what, is the guilty party? You’ll need to read to find out.

Lori Petrelius

Museum Programs Manager The Henry Ford

Black Bird Apple TV+

Based on the true story of Jimmy Keene and Larry Hall, in this television miniseries Keene must befriend the possible serial killer Hall and unweave his web of lies. Paul Walter Hauser’s performance as Hall will make you squirm as he switches effortlessly between harmless and monstrous. I found myself wondering how, or if, I could gain the trust of an unreliable source and complete this near-impossible task.

Letters from the Stacks

FROM THE HENRY FORD ARCHIVE OF AMERICAN INNOVATION

OUR (NOT SO) MYSTERIOUS ORIGINS

The archivists and librarians of the Benson Ford Research Center are no strangers to hard-hitting questions. We’re tasked with helping our patrons find everything from answers about historic car parts to textile design patterns. But just like our storied institution, we occasionally get a curveball like: “Why did Henry Ford start collecting?” And sometimes the best answer we have could be an apocryphal one.

Men like Henry Ford don’t exist without leaving a few myths behind, and myths are easy to pass down from generation to generation, registrar to archivist to librarian, over time. Here the story goes: Henry and Clara Ford were sitting outside when they heard the end line of a poem. They recognized the stanza from childhood and determined it must be from a McGuffey Reader. Henry tracked down a McGuffey’s Eclectic Reader, and then another; he found a primer, and so on and so forth, until he had amassed quite the collection of early reading guides. Only he never found the poem. What he did do was start the basis for one of the largest McGuffey Reader collections in the country and the first objects to be sent to the research library for his future museum.

— SARAH ANDRUS, LIBRARIAN, THE HENRY FORD

ONLINE Have an inquiry or question for the experts who maintain and interpret our collections? Contact the Benson Ford Research Center at research.center@thehenryford.orgc