In Thursday’s session (The Detroit Industrial Murals of Diego Rivera) Nancy Jones, Director of Education at the Detroit Institute of Arts, will introduce participants to Rivera’s spectacular murals in the courtyard of the Institute. Her profile will identify the themes and explain the techniques that Rivera employed in creating the frescoes that cover the four walls of the courtyard. In this session Dora Apel, professor of Art History at Wayne State University, will trace Rivera’s capacity to provoke dynamic public response by exploring how, in the words of one commentator, “the murals belonged to anyone, including the Communist Party, who used the murals to win new members; civil rights leaders, who sought support from the working class; and corporate executive recruiters” This seminar constitutes a tour in itself, but will also be followed by visits to the Burton Archives of the Detroit Public Library (for research) and to the Ford Piquette (Model T) plant, where Robert Casey, Curator of Transportation at the Henry Ford Museum will discuss (in the year of its centennial) the rise and fall of the Tin Lizzie.