DETROIT / A living lexicon / ¼
People who were born here, moved here or built their careers in Detroit: musicians, carmakers, athletes, writers, inventors, civil-rights leaders and a few notorious names. With their dates, their Detroit story and the places where they lived, worked and played, closed ones included.
Hungarian ties 22 Detroiters with Hungarian ties →
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Science & invention · 1904–2007
Rudolf Arnheimart and film theorist, psychologistGerman-born theorist of art and visual perception, author of Art and Visual Perception, who spent his last three decades in Ann Arbor and taught at the University of Michigan.Alice Herzpeace activist, teacherGerman-born pacifist and Wayne State German instructor who in March 1965, aged 82, became the first American known to set herself on fire in protest against the Vietnam War.
Civil rights & activism · 1903–1942
John Siegjournalist, railroad worker, resistance fighterDetroit-born son of a German mechanic who became a Berlin journalist and a core member of the anti-Nazi resistance network the Gestapo called the Red Orchestra.William Valentinerart historian, museum directorGerman-born director of the Detroit Institute of Arts from 1924 to 1945, who built its collections and brought Diego Rivera to paint Detroit Industry.
Science & invention · 1825–1911Herman Kieferphysician, civic leader, diplomatGerman revolutionary of 1848 who fled to Detroit, practiced medicine there for six decades, led German-American civic life and gave his name to the city's public health hospital.
Religion · 1791–1871Frederick Resefirst Catholic Bishop of DetroitGerman-born priest who became the first Catholic bishop of Detroit in 1833, taking Ste. Anne's as his cathedral and bringing religious orders to the frontier diocese.Ruth Adler Schneetextile and interior designerGerman-born textile designer who fled the Nazis as a girl, studied at Cass Tech and Cranbrook, and brought post-war modernism to Detroit homes and offices.Wolf W. Zuelzerpediatric pathologist, hematologistGerman-born pediatric pathologist who led research at Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit for 35 years and helped show that childhood leukemia could be cured.Bernhard Strohbrewer, founder of the Stroh BreweryGerman brewer from Kirn who founded the Lion's Head Brewery in Detroit in 1850, the start of the Stroh Brewery that brewed in the city for 135 years.The lexicon keeps growing. Every entry lists its sources at the bottom. Dates were checked against Wikidata and Wikipedia. The texts are our own. Famous people's places among the sights ↗