Jacob Jones, Detroit historian and Albert Kahn Legacy Foundation board member, recently published a tribute to the remarkable first- and second-generation American architects, artists and engineers who didn’t just shape much of the Motor City’s built environment, they helped define what the U.S. could be…and would become a century later.
Jones’ narrative (“History Lesson: Telling Detroit’s Immigrant Story Through its Architecture”) reminds us that — in a time when immigrants are too often scapegoated and sidelined — much of the mythical American greatness about which we romanticize was largely forged by those we now risk marginalizing or forgetting. But, as Jones notes, their legacy is with us always, etched in concrete, carved in stone and woven into the very soul of Detroit.
Read the article as it appeared in Model D in June 2025:
HISTORY-LESSON_-Telling-Detroits-immigrant-story-through-its-architecture-–-Model-D
