The exhibition is based on a community-initiated collaboration between the Greater Corktown Development Corporation and the WSU Department of Anthropology that won the 2009 Governor's Award for Historic Preservation. The exhibition presents the results of three seasons of archaeological field research (2006-2008) in the heart of old Detroit.

All are invited to attend the opening. The celebration begins with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Museum of Anthropology, on the first floor of Old Main, 4841 Cass Ave.

The exhibit features the research of WSU students and faculty who explored the city's early residential, industrial, and ethnic history at the Worker's Row House, a small working class tenement built in 1849. Working in collaboration with the Greater Corktown Development Corp., WSU archaeologists have excavated the material remains of more than 150 years of everyday life associated with the early immigrants and working-class folk who helped to build the Motor City.

The exhibit focuses on the collaborative and community-centered nature of research at the Workers Row House and the challenges of excavating and interpreting one of the city's earliest surviving residences. Featured are the artifacts of everyday life from the latter half of the 19th century, including an array of personal items and household goods that were lost, hidden, or discarded and eventually buried in deposits that escaped destruction during the building of the Lodge Freeway in the 1950s. The exhibit offers a glimpse into how immigration, industrialization, and urbanization transformed the lives of working-class residents some 50 years before the first cars rolled off the assembly lines at the Ford Motor Co.

For more information, please visit our Web site: http://www.clas.wayne.edu/unit-news-detail.asp?NewsID=10141.

Wayne State University is a premier urban research university offering more than 350 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to more than 31,000 students.