Current Exhibitions

It took Louis Meier, Sr. twelve years to build his clock.  Its hand-carved mahogany base, detailed glass clock face and intricate mechanisms made it a Detroit marvel when it debuted in his jewelry store at East Grand Boulevard and Gratiot Avenue in 1904.

A crowd favorite for years, The Glancy Trains are from the collection of Alfred R. Glancy Jr. (1908–1973), real estate financier and former-owner of the Empire State Building in New York City. During the 1950s and 1960s, Mr. Glancy enjoyed hosting “train parties” for friends, neighbors, schoolchildren and scout groups each holiday season at his home in Grosse Pointe Shores.

In 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt urged the United States to become the “arsenal of democracy,” arming democratic nations against the looming totalitarian threats of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. It took ingenuity and perseverance under difficult circumstances, but Detroit answered the call — producing 30 percent of the war material generated in the United States before the end of the war in 1945.

Detroit was a pivotal part of the Underground Railroad, an informal network of safe houses and people willing to help runaway enslaved people. They adapted the language of the railroads to keep it secret.

Starting in 2015, the Detroit Historical Society convened diverse groups and communities around the effects of a historic crisis with its Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward project. From the hundreds of oral histories in our archive, the assistance and input of our many partners, and the latest historical scholarship, we have developed the Detroit 67: Perspectives exhibition to allow visitors to better understand the events of July 1967, what led up to them, where we are today, and how to connect to efforts moving Detroit forward

The Gothic Room in the Polk Family Hall is the first exhibit you enter when coming into the Dossin Great Lakes Museum.  Stepping through its doors is like stepping back in time inside the reconstructed gentleman’s lounge of the City of Detroit III, with a window on the right side of the gallery set up as if you’re looking out at the Detroit shore line in the early 1900s.

The S.S. William Clay Ford, a Great Lakes freighter, was scrapped in 1987 and its pilot house was brought to the Dossin Great Lakes Museum. 

Detroit’s growth and development into one of the nation’s leading metropolitan regions is undeniably linked to the river that shares its name. The Dossin Great Lakes Museum’s core exhibition Built by the River highways that Detroiters have long used the river and lakes around us to build our industries, engage our neighbors, and pursue our recreational passions.