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Currency of Change · Treasury Talk Podcast

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  Introduction: Welcome to Treasury Talk, a podcast featuring timely tips and information for Michigan taxpayers hosted by State Treasurer Rachael Eubanks. Listen for takeaways from our subject matter experts that will support you, your family and your business. Welcome to Treasury Talk, the official podcast of the Michigan Department of Treasury.
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  Lance: I'm Chief Deputy Treasurer Lance Wilkinson, guest hosting this month for Treasurer Rachael Eubanks. Today, we're excited to be speaking with Valerie Marvin, director of education and history at the Michigan State Capitol. Valerie created the educational publication "A history of the State Treasurer's Office H141," and recently advised on an in House history exhibit in the Treasury's offices. So in addition to hearing about her work at the Capitol, we're also looking forward to hearing a little bit about our own history. Valerie, thank you for joining us today.
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  Valerie: My pleasure. Thanks for the invitation.
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  Lance: So what exactly goes into your role as Director of Education and History?
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  Valerie: So my staff and I are responsible for all of the public facing educational pieces of the Michigan State Capitol Commission. So the commission oversees the Capitol facility staff and the Capitol education staff. The education team first and foremost, provides guided tours. We see almost 100,000 people who go through our building every year. Many of them are about nine years old and come on school tours. But we also get a lot of walk in visitors, particularly in the summertime. We get families traveling around, we get, day school programs, we get, international visitors who are working on exchange programs through Michigan State University and some of the different schools in Michigan. We also get visitors from what we call capitol collectors, which are people who set out to see all fifty of America's state capitols and, of course, the national capitol in D.C. we also take care of the capitols collection. Now that sounds museum-y and we do museum things. Certainly we do exhibits. So a couple years ago, we opened up Heritage Hall, our new visitor center that includes some space for exhibits that interpret capitol history. And our collection contains things like architectural salvage, sold pieces of metalwork and stone that have had to be replaced. We have furniture. We have pieces of carpet from the House and Senate chambers. We also have a lot of documents, things like the booklet from the dedication of the capital in eighteen seventy nine or the rededication in nineteen seventy nine. We have tens of thousands of historic photos, both of offices and of people who've worked in the building. We collect political memorabilia from officeholders who work in the building, and we also collect capitol souvenirs. So if it is somehow connected to Michigan State capitol, we try to collect it. We also do the capitol social media, and we produce a series of public programs.
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  Lance: Now you have a pretty extensive historical flag collection as well, don't you?
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  Valerie: Yes. Yeah. So one of my colleagues, Matt Van Acker, is the director of Save the Flags, which is our program to preserve and care for and interpret and educate people about Michigan's collection of Civil War battle flags. So when our current capital opened in 1879, there was actually a state military museum within it in the old state Adjutant General's office. And the military museum contained, among other things, battle flags that had been carried by Michigan soldiers literally onto the battlefield at Gettysburg and Antietam. And, you know, all of the battles we learn about in school, these flags were brought home by Michigan soldiers at the end of the war. And one of the reasons we built a new capital was to have a safe, fireproof home for those flags. The Victorians saw them as relics. They were somewhat sacred. And so those original flags remained in the capital until nineteen ninety. So today, those flags are held in a storage space in the Michigan Historical Museum, the Michigan History Center. We work very closely with them.
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  Lance: Well thank you. Next question is why do you think it's important to preserve the history of Michigan's capital and government?
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  Valerie: Well, Michigan's capital belongs to everybody, and the work that we do in that building affects everyone. It is our seat of government, which means that is where our government is located. That is where the legislature meets. That is where the governor has an office, which means that we as citizens are affected every day by the work that is done in that building. Which means whether or not we stop to think about it on a daily basis, we all have a vested interest in that building and the work that's being done. That building has also, over the last one hundred and forty eight years and counting, become a great symbol of our state. So it opened quietly in the fall of 1878, we officially dedicated it on January first of 1879, and it has really become one of the focal points for our state. And we want people to feel welcome. But we also need to take care of the building. It is a symbol of who we are, but it is also literally the center of state leadership.
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  Lance: Thank you. How many visitors do you receive at the Capitol each year and where do they come from?
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  Valerie: Sure. So people come from all across the state. We get a lot of elementary schools who come in as part of their curriculum and tour.
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  Lance: I have seen them running across the lawn.
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  Valerie: Yes, yes, their school buses park within sight of your building. The kids like to have lunch sometimes back here on the complex. Hopefully you don't actually hear them too often, although I think that is possible with some groups who are very excited to say the least. Um, we also get visitors who come in because they want to interact with government. They want to meet with their legislators, they want to take place in a protest or an advocacy event. They might be here for a luncheon or a breakfast. People come to talk about education. They come to talk about historic preservation. They come to talk about every issue you can imagine. Some people come because they like the architecture. They like the history. You know, in some ways, we believe that the great buildings of the world belong to everybody. And so we want everyone to come see the building and to feel welcome and to have a good experience.
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  Lance: So are there any facts that surprised visitors to the Capitol?
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  Valerie: Well, when you think of a Capitol building, most people think of government first and foremost. And we don't always all necessarily have warm fuzzies when we think about government. But the building is designed in such a way to literally reach out to visitors. So you think about the way the steps come out and offer you kind of this formal entrance to the building. You think about the way the dome rises up. It's meant to be an icon, but most people are surprised when they come inside and how colorful it is. Now, some of this, I'm going to be honest, was all about saving money. When we built our capital, we had a pretty modest budget. We spent one point four million dollars on it, which was considered to be very good. There were no unexpected cost overruns. So needless to say, I think the state treasurer at the time was probably pretty happy. Um, but what they did to save money, but to still give you a good impression is they used all kinds of faux finishes through the building. So most of the finishes in the capital, excuse me, most of the materials in the capital are pine. They're plaster, but they have been painted to look like more expensive materials. We didn't have the money to decorate it, so we told everyone the plaster walls need time to cure. Well, we gave those plaster walls six years to cure, which was probably a little more than they actually needed. It took six years to construct almost six years to decorate, which tells you something about how ornate that decoration is. We have over nine acres of hand-painted art throughout the building. Everything is painted a variety of colors and designs. There are influences in the artwork from all over the world. Because the Victorians were well connected, they were interested in different cultures.
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  Lance: No, it is gorgeous. It is just a rainbow of color everywhere you look. Well, so you've touched on this a little bit from a design perspective, but what else makes the building itself important or notable?
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  Valerie: Sure. So the decorative art is one of the things that we're known for. And actually it is one of three reasons our building was named a National Historic Landmark in nineteen ninety two. Now, in the late 80's into the early 90's, we did a massive restoration. There are still some folks who remember that before the restoration, things were rough. We had continually updated and redecorated the building, which meant in some places we had green shag carpeting. The restoration kind of gave us a reset. We said, okay, we're going to go back and rediscover what this place was meant to look like. So in some places, we dug through nineteen coats of paint to figure out what the original paint colors were, so then we could recreate it. Now, at that time, we also started to really think more about how this building fit in with America's architectural landscape. And we realized our capital is the first designed by the man considered to be America's greatest capital architect, Elijah Myers. Myers would design five capitals, four of which were built, three of which still stand Michigan, Texas and Colorado. And he was really considered to be the greatest American architect of Capitol buildings and is certainly the most prolific to this day. We are also one of the first buildings in the post-Civil war period to be built with a tall iron dome before the Civil War. If capitals had them, they were mostly wooden, and they all leaked terribly, as you might imagine. But then, in the mid eighteen hundreds, this wonder product comes along cast iron. Suddenly you can build pieces of things in factories and then just snap them together and assemble them on site. And this really, really becomes a thing when in the eighteen fifties, the federal government decides they're going to put a big iron dome on the US Capitol. They become a trend to the point where today they seem somewhat ubiquitous. And in many ways, this Michigan is a big part of this because we are one of the first state capitals built after the end of the Civil War. We are part of this first wave of the new union, and we have an iron Dome, so we help set that standard. And because the construction was on budget and scandal free, many other people came from other states to see our building, to talk to our building commissioners, to figure out how they made it work, so then they could go back and do the same thing in their home states.
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  Lance: So I didn't know those were cast iron. Yep. Um, so I mean, a lot of states have domes and they're all cast iron. Yep. Any idea how much a cast iron dome weighs?
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  Valerie: Oh, I cannot even begin to imagine. I can't either. I can tell you, it seems like a lot. If you went back and looked at the old Lansing State Republican, which was the name of the main newspaper at the time, you could probably figure it out because Lansing was such a small town in the eighteen seventies that they would report on basically every wagon of materials that were dragged up Michigan Avenue from the train station, and sometimes they would even speculate on how much they weighed.
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  Lance: All right. I'm probably won't do that research, but if somebody else has done it, I'd love to know it. All right. So the building itself opened almost one hundred and fifty years ago. What was its original use and how was it funded?
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  Valerie: Sure. So on a basic level, it was funded through tax dollars. There was actually a specific tax that was levied during the six years of construction that paid for it. So we did not go into debt for this. Um, this was this was very much something that people were contributing to at the time. And as I said, it ended up costing about one point four million dollars. Now, when it opened, it was the seat of government. Okay, that's a big grand statement. What does it mean? Well, it means that every single person who worked in state government in Lansing worked in that building. Now, that is really hard to comprehend. Everybody in Lansing who worked for the state worked in that building. Now, that means all of the departments were there. Treasury, the Auditor General, the adjutant general, Secretary of state, superintendent of public instruction, Board of Health. Railroad Commission, the Pomological society. The State Board of Agriculture. Um, it means the legislature was in the building using the chambers where they still are today. It meant the governor had an office. It was the only office for a long time on the second floor, upstairs on the third floor. The Supreme Court had their chamber as well as some offices, and then in the West Wing. So the back wing, that is where the State Library was located. Now, that library was actually three stories tall and was designed to hold about one hundred thousand books. The woman who presided over it, Harriet Tenny, was actually the first woman to serve in Michigan state government. And by the time this building opens, we know that about a quarter of the state's workforce is female, which is something we don't expect. You know, we think of women coming into government in the twentieth century when they get the right to vote. Women started working in government in Michigan in eighteen sixty nine. The workforce was diverse in other ways. For example, we know that the state of Michigan started hiring people of color in the eighteen seventies. So there are African American men and women who are working in this building. We know that there are many veterans who work in this building. Many Civil War veterans would go on and serve in the legislature or would work in the departments. And when you think about it, having everybody in one building had a lot of advantages. It made communication pretty easy. In fact, when I talked to people who worked in the building as late as the nineteen sixties, they talk about just the, the happy serendipity. Um, you know, you could be rushing out of a meeting and jump onto the elevator and there's the governor and a Supreme Court justice and the state treasurer. And they're all having a conversation, trying to work out a problem right there, because you could literally just run into all of those people in the hallways. Now, over time, of course, we add new departments in and the departments start to change what they do. So a great example is the secretary of state. The secretary of State did things like take a state census in the eighteen seventies. Nobody was thinking about automobile licensing when the Capitol was constructed. And so once they get into that building in the early nineteen hundreds, their square footage needs balloons, and suddenly they become the biggest user of space within the capital.
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  Lance: So you sort of started down this path, but can you go over some of the changes that the capital has seen throughout the years?
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  Valerie: So one of the biggest changes that has affected the capital is the change in Michigan's population. The building was built for a government that served one million people. Today we have about ten times that many people in the state. So government has naturally changed. Um, the role of government has changed. So when the building opened, it was home to a state land commission, because that's how the state made a lot of its money in the nineteenth and early twentieth century was by selling land. That land commission ceases to exist in the nineteen teens. So they don't need an office anymore. But then you have a Department of Conservation that has created that becomes DNR and so on. So in the nineteen fifties and 60s, the legislature moves to more of a full time model. Um, when the Capitol opened, the legislature met every other year and they met maybe three, four, five months. And you see some of this in the new state constitution that comes in in 1963 to really professionalize the legislature and to say that the legislature should be a more co-equal branch of government. They shouldn't just appropriate money for everybody else and then go home. So they start to look for office space because historically, every legislator worked at their desk on the chamber floor. That ceases to be adequate, to say the least. And so where do they look? Well, they look around them. Now, by the fifties and 60s, most people who worked for the departments were not in the building. They were working in rented space downtown, or they were starting to move into these buildings that were being constructed to the west of the Capitol in the complex. So as part of this, the legislature says, okay, well, if your people are going to be back there, Mr. Treasurer, you should probably go with them. You should probably work back there too. Which means, oh, guess what? We can take over your office. So there is basically a power sharing agreement that comes into place where the legislature draws an invisible but very real line down the middle of the Capitol, and you have house territory and you have Senate territory. And that's how people think of the building today. They think of it as a legislative building?
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  Lance: Absolutely. So how do you balance modern functionality with historic preservation in the building?
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  Valerie: That is the challenge of our existence. Um, on one hand, our building is a national historic landmark. That's a big deal. That's the highest honor you can get for a historic building in America. It means this building is nationally significant, which means we owe it to not only the people of Michigan, but the people of America, to take good care of this building and make sure it is preserved in perpetuity. So what does that mean? Well, that means that we have to maintain our nine acres of decorative art. We actually have a decorative artist on staff who takes care of that and is responsible for the constant repair work that's needed. We also have engineers on staff, we have electricians, we have people who run our Hvac system because we have all of those modern systems, and we need those systems to keep the building in good shape. Now, some of it is because we're an office building. Obviously, the governor does not want to be sitting at her desk drenched in sweat. But also, we need to keep temperatures, humidity levels consistent for the long term preservation of the building. And water is always an issue in any building. So we need to make sure we're keeping the water out. We also, though, need to make sure that the building is usable. People often say, oh, it's a historic building. You do tours, you must be a museum. No, we're not a museum. Museums are often frozen in time. Their mission is solely to interpret history. We interpret history. We try to keep the building accurate to what we call its period of significance, meaning about eighteen ninety or so. So how the building looked after we decorated it. But at the same time, it has to be a functional office building, which means we not only have added electricity to the building over the years. We have Wi-Fi. Now, how do you put Wi-Fi in a building that has brick walls that are multiple feet thick? Well, that is a challenge to say the least. So we are always trying to kind of walk that balance beam. Ultimately, our capital is important, is critical to who we are as Michiganders because it is a public building, because it is open, because it is our seat of state government.
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  Lance: So touching on that, why? Why do you think it's important the Capitol building remains accessible to visitors?
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  Valerie: Well, first and foremost, the people of Michigan elect the government that works in it. So they have the right to know what those elected officials are doing, and they need a place to interact with them. We often talk about our capital being a crossroads. It's not just a place for state officials. It's a place where people can come and interact with their state officials, whether that's at a rally on the lawn, whether that's through an educational tour, whether that's through watching session, whether that is through attending or even testifying at a committee meeting. It is supposed to be a place of interaction, and that is part of what I think of as kind of the magical alchemy of the building. Um, people come from every corner of the state to our capital. It's a place where you pull together people from very different places who often have very different opinions. You pull them into one room and you give them a space where they can look each other in the eye and they can have conversations. And that's important. That is at the center of a democracy. And the capital is literally the place for that democratic process to play out.
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  Lance: All right. What's the most unusual state capital? Oh, and what's your favorite?
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  Valerie: Well, Alaska basically has an office building. Okay. I don't know, Alaska's. Hawaii is designed in such a way that it's supposed to look like an island from overhead, and it actually has, like, open courts in the middle. Okay. Um, where at one point in time, you know, the rain would fall every day and it was, it's very different. Um, I love I think the Virginia State Capitol is interesting because it's one of the first built and it kind of becomes one of those models. So America's a young country. When we start building our capitals and we know what we don't want them to look like, we don't want them to look like Parliament. We don't want them to look like a palace because we are getting rid of those old models. So, um, men like Thomas Jefferson, who fancied himself an architect, among many other things, said, well, if we're trying to be a republic, if we're trying to create in some ways something inspired by the Roman Republic, well, then let's borrow Roman architecture. You know, we look at most capitals in America and say they're historic buildings. But the truth is they were new buildings when they were built. And as much as they were kind of designed to look old by being classical, they also wanted them to spark the imaginations of the people who were visiting them, and to be inspired and to think about how, you know, we can change and shape the future of our state because that's the work that we do. Um, there are also capitals that are very much of the moment. Like I was in Nebraska a few years ago. Nebraska is an art Deco skyscraper. North Dakota is is too. It is. So is Louisiana. Yeah. Yep. Um.
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  Lance: All right. Okay. We're going to lighten things up a bit before diving back into the history of the Michigan capital and how it relates to Treasury. We have a few quick questions to help audiences better get to know our guests. So first, which is your favorite great lake and why?
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  Valerie: This feels like a dangerous question, because whatever you say is going to offend other people. So with my nonpartisan hat firmly in place, um, I have to say probably my favorite as an adult is Lake Superior, which would have surprised fifteen year old me, but my husband has turned me into a person who loves going to the U.P. in the summer. And I just love the moods of Lake Superior. And I love the the rocky, um, coast of Lake Superior. I think it's really, really beautiful outside of history.
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  Lance: Do you have any other specific interests or hobbies?
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  Valerie: I have too many hobbies. Um, I love to create and I'm into vintage fashion, so I actually make a lot of my own clothes. I, so I knit, I'm a person who does not sit still. Well, um, I like to read, I read a lot of history, of course biographies. I also really love historic architecture, so I love to tour historic buildings. I read books about furniture and chairs and front porches and design through time. Um, I also really love cemeteries, which some people will totally get and some people will be like, that is extremely weird. But Victorian cemeteries were meant to be parks and a lot of them are full of absolutely beautiful sculpture and monuments. And I actually find them very peaceful. Some I mean, it's interesting, very beautiful cemeteries, a lot of history there.
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  Lance: All right. Last question. This one is perfect for you. Who is your favorite historical figure?
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  Valerie: So my favorite historical figure is a woman named Harriet Tenney. I find her very inspiring because she is actually the first woman to work in state government. Um, her husband, Jesse, had been state librarian for ten years from eighteen fifty nine to eighteen sixty nine, and she had the gall in eighteen sixty nine to write the governor a letter and explain why he should make her state librarian. And she was so subtle. She did this on State Library letterhead, and Governor Baldwin was brave enough to appoint her. And this, um, opened up government to women. So in some ways, I see her as kind of the mother of all of the women who work in government to this day. And I love how proud she was of this. And in her first report, after she talks about the books she's bought and the bookshelves she's had built and all of the normal things, then she pauses and she celebrates herself. She wrote, by the advice of the chief executive of the state, and with the unanimous consent and approbation of the Senate on the thirty first day of March, 1869. This library was placed in the charge of a woman, and she spells it capital W, capital O, capital M, capital A, capital N. As my dear friend Bernie at the State Library likes to say. She was emoting. She was just oozing with pride in that moment. And that report went to governments all around the world. And I think it tells you something about how much she understood her own significance. She would serve twenty two years as state librarian. She would be appointed by governors from both sides of the political aisle. Um, she would help open up librarianship as a profession to women. And I have become so obsessed with her over time. Um, I've actually written a book about her, so I have a biography of her that will be coming out through MSU press in January of twenty twenty seven. And that biography will look at not only her work in the library, but how she also opened the doors for other women to follow her.
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  Lance: Okay, back to our main focus for this episode Michigan's History. In particular, we're interested in sharing with listeners the history of our department Treasury and how that intersects with that of the State and Capitol building. We know the original Treasurer's office was actually located in the Capitol building itself. What was the purpose of the Treasury Office's original placement in the building?
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  Valerie: I do not think it's an accident that the powers that be Place Treasury and the Auditor General just inside the Capitol's front doors. So most people entered the Capitol up the big grand steps and through those gigantic, beautiful wooden doors. When you go in, Treasury was on your right. Auditor general was on your left. The truth is, most of us interact with state government through our finances, through taxes that we pay, through things that are purchased. Of course, the Treasurer's office was doing bonding. They were doing all of the things they do today virtually, but they were doing it on paper. They were doing it for a smaller state with somewhat different laws. And so we wanted to make it easy for people to come in and out. Now, it did not take long until the Treasury grew down. Today we call it the ground floor because that sounds much more sophisticated. Um, so they actually eventually grew into this space under their first floor suite. And as the State Land Commission, um, closes up shop in the early nineteen teens, they actually get a couple of their rooms as well because Treasury is going to be growing, but eventually they will have employees also working off site in other buildings, though the treasurer himself will continue to work with staff in the Capitol, um, for almost one hundred years, actually. What would the original office treasurer's office have looked like and what would workers have been doing? Sure, those offices would have been very grand. Um, the capital was meant to be beautiful. So the rooms in it have ceilings that are generally about twenty feet tall. That means you have twenty feet of decoratively painted surfaces from the floors up to the ceilings. The ceilings are all decoratively painted as well. You have multi colored wall to wall carpets. The original carpets would have been wool. Um. Today we have reproduction carpets that are woven in period appropriate designs with appropriate colors. And we know some of these things because of black and white photographs. Okay. So we know in eighteen ninety three there's ten desks in here and X number of chairs because state government needs to know what it owns. They would have worked initially, largely by natural light. So the capital has gigantic windows with wooden shutters. Those windows would have been operable. So you want fresh air. You open up that window. Um, they would have relied a lot on natural light augmented by gas. So there would have been gas fixtures in the offices. But because we were trying to be good fiscal stewards of the state, I don't think we actually turned the gas lights on many days because again, everything that happens in the capital ends up in the Lansing newspapers early on. And they talk about as the days are getting longer, the state's going to start saving money because it can turn down and off the gas in the capital. They also had interesting kinds of technology. So, um, it takes a few years before you start to see typewriters coming in the building. Um, you do have a telegraph office in the capital at one point in time. Um, telephones start to come in in the 1880's. We have one picture of an office that shows one telephone for the entire suite of workers. And you also have speaking tubes early on. So there were literally, you know, this is like the soup cans and the, the string when we're kids, they literally had tubes that ran through the building from one suite to the next. And we think the way they worked was you would blow in them and that would alert, that would send up a little flag at the other end of the tube in the other office, and that would alert them that somebody wanted to talk. And then you could get on your speaking tube and you could have a conversation with another office suite down the hall. That is fascinating, fascinating, and a little weird.
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  Lance: All right. Would there have been any security measures in place back then?
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  Valerie: Um, so in, in some instances, I would say probably the most important security was the vaults that were in the suite. Now, the building was initially designed to have one big walk in vault for the treasurer's office. And we know that this was a subject of curiosity. Many people, many newspaper reporters who came to the building would stroll into the treasurer's office and would ask if they could see the stuff in the vault and want to see how the door worked and all of that. I'm sure Treasury's employees got pretty tired of also being tour guides, but this was a public building. And of course, you know you want to help people understand how their government works. Over time. We as technology changes, we go through a series of vault doors. So, um, the first vault door no longer exists that we know of. Now, if somebody knows differently, please tell me. Um, we know another vault door is put in in the nineteen teens, about nineteen thirteen. And this vault door, um, is in response to how Safecracking is changing. So because, um, people are now using dynamite to try to blow up safe doors, um, they actually include a vial of gas in it. And the idea is that the explosion would cause the glass vial to break and the gas to come out, and it would knock out the person who's trying to break in, thus allowing someone to, who's heard the explosion to rush in and save the day before they run off with all the state's money. Um, the next vault door that's put in in the twenties by this point in time, safe crackers are using torches to try to, to cut in to the metal. And so this door contains a product called Dawn steel, which was a patented product that is supposed to, um, as it the second you take heat away from it, what had been melting will Reharden um, would have been interesting to see how this actually worked. It had a patent, but what I think is interesting is when that door goes in in the twenties, I think it's because the state treasurer wanted more space. So at that point in time, the door that had been in the first floor office was moved down to the ground floor, and a second vault is actually created in the ground floor. So now you have twice as much room, twice as much storage space, if you will. You could bring your paper paycheck to the Capitol on Friday afternoon. And the nice ladies who worked in the Treasurer's office would cash your check for you out of the vault on the ground floor. So as much as these vaults were about security, um, they were also about helping Treasury do its job. One state treasurer in the nineteen thirties put in what was called a bandit barrier, which was basically this protective screen between the first floor employees and the public. And it had bulletproof windows. There were large spikes on top that were electrified. So apparently if you would try to touch the wrong thing, you could activate a burglar alarm and you would get a nice strong jolt of electricity as well. It's very interesting about the electrified bandit barrier.
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  Lance: To set the stage for our listeners, we're having this conversation in Treasury's current building, the Austin building, where this conference room is near where the old vault used to be. And one of the walls of this conference room is the original vault door, original to this building, not the capital.
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  Valerie: So. Well, and we still have both the1913 and the 1924 volt doors in the capital. The doors were welded shut, but the doors are still there. And I will tell you, people love those doors. Um, one of the rooms, the room on the ground floor is one of our tour orientation rooms. So we regularly interpret that space and every, you know, every kid who comes in, what's the combination? Can I unlock the door? And then upstairs on the first floor, the treasurer's old suite is now the, um used by a legislator and their staff. Whoever works and there always thinks they have the coolest office because of that Art Deco vault door.
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  Lance: As we've sort of discussed, Treasury no longer is in the Capitol building. Tell us how that change came to be?
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  Valerie: Sure. So in the mid twentieth century, as the legislature is growing, um, they are looking for space and they see lots of space in the department offices. Now, depending on who you talk to, you hear two versions of this story. If you talk to somebody who worked for the legislature, they will tell you that the people who worked in the departments were sick of the Capitol. It was old. They couldn't fit all of their staff in. It was hard to work in, and they really wanted to be in the bright, shiny new buildings being constructed out back. So the department got the new buildings and the legislature got stuck with the old Capitol. If you talk to somebody who worked for the departments, they will tell you the legislature wanted the capital for themselves. So they kicked the departments out and took over the capital. As with everything in government, there are multiple sides to every story, so I will leave it at that. Another change from that time involved changing the state treasurer to an appointed position. What was the reasoning behind that change? Well, that was what the people of Michigan wanted. So the state officers, as we call them, are outlined in Michigan's constitution. And we have now had four different constitutions. Constitution of eighteen thirty five, eighteen fifty, nineteen oh eight and nineteen sixty three. And ultimately, the Constitution was rewritten to say that we would no longer elect state treasurers. Um, yes. State treasurers used to be elected, as was the Superintendent of Public Instruction, as was the State Land Commissioner, as was a lot of other people, the Auditor General, etc.. Um, ultimately it was decided that that might not be the best thing long term for the state. And so we went to an appointed system instead. Um, but if you look across America, um, there are still elected treasurers in a few states. So it really is something that each state has to decide for itself. Are there any state treasurers that stand out as being particularly impactful to the role or the state of Michigan as a whole? And we'll say pre two thousand. So you don't feel any pressure to pick our current treasurer, um, the state treasurer that we really hold up and are grateful for in capital history is a man named Ebenezer Grosvenor. Um, he was state treasurer in the late eighteen sixties, and he did such a good job and was considered to be a very fiscally cautious person, shall we say, who had no problem keeping people in line and keeping budget sheets balanced? He was appointed one of the commissioners for our Capitol building, so he basically made sure there were no major cost overruns with the project, and we are very grateful to him. Um, he was a long time civil servant. He was in multiple offices in government over the years, and I think he really saw the capital as, um, perhaps his greatest achievement. Um, he was part of the dedication of the building. On January first of 1879, we had a big ceremony. Now, I will say the legislature appropriated no money for it. So in good, fiscally careful fashion, we combined the dedication with the inauguration. So we just threw one party instead. And it is said by one reporter that Grosvenor read the report. Um, officially turned the building over to the governor and that he actually had tears falling as he did it because he was so proud of what they had accomplished.
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  Lance: What is your favorite fact you discovered when creating a history of the State Treasurer's office?
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  Valerie: Well, I have to say I have come. I've always had an affection for the Treasury vault doors in the building. Um, they are just one of those cool, quirky things that remind us that as much as our capital is historic, it has always been changing. I am also super grateful for some of the rather unusual projects Treasury has done over time. Um. Years ago I was in the state archives digging through Treasury records looking for information about said vault doors, and I came across these surveys. These surveys were from the nineteen forties. Um Treasury went through the entire capital with a set of floor plans, and they inventoried how many people worked in every single room. They inventoried the number of desks and tables and bookcases and machines. That's a fun thing to try to unpack. What was a machine? Probably a typewriter or an adding machine. You know, all of the things we were using to conduct business at that time. And they put together this list. So that tells us that by the nineteen forties, there were about seven hundred people working in the Capitol every day outside of the legislature. Now, why did they do this? There's, of course, probably a joke in here about Treasury people like numbers, and so they like to count things for fun. Um, but more importantly, at that time, each department, um, was sort of renting its space, if you will. So I think they were figuring out the square footage and the use, so they could make sure that each department was putting an appropriate amount of their funding back into the budget to pay for the building's care. And of course, this sounds odd to us today, but the state has to figure out how to manage its buildings. And, um, every entity within state government is responsible for, um, working with their buildings caretakers to make sure that they have the funding they need. So I think ultimately this probably came down to money, frankly, but I just love them because it's really this insider view of literally the number of people doing work in each room. And you can get a sense of the kind of work they were doing. And that is harder to figure out than you might imagine. Because the truth is, most of us go to work every day and we don't take a picture of our office. We don't write down everything we do. We don't create elaborate descriptions of our computers and our pencils and everything else we have. But these are the things, looking back through time that historians really wish we did do, because it's those everyday things that tell us about the existence of the everyday people who make government run. And ultimately, I would argue that's what our government is. It is a collection of people who come together every day, whether under the Capitol's dome or in another building nearby, and they serve the public, and they try to make sure that they are acting wisely and justly on behalf of the people of the state. What is your greatest athletic achievement? I am a historian. I have zero athletic achievements. Trust me, I don't know, maybe you won like a particularly challenging pickleball tournament or. All right. I would say, you know, if there's one thing we like to remind people, it's that everybody has a tie to the capital. You know, if you work for the state, your history is part of the capital, so come see that. Come see the building where your department was headquartered. But also, if you're just an average taxpayer, if you're an accountant who deals with the state, whoever you are, as someone who lives in Michigan, you also have a tie to that building, not only through your legislators who work in it, who represent you, but through the fact that that building is really the heart and center of our state. So I would just like to always remind people that you are welcome to come visit any time. We offer tours Monday through Friday. We are also open for tours the first Saturday of each month. And unless you have a group of ten or more people, you can literally just walk in anytime. If you do have a group of ten or more people, give us a call. Um, we do scheduling up to a year in advance. So it is very competitive, particularly during the school year, but you can go on our website capital.michigan.gov. to learn more about the tours. You can learn how to schedule an event. You can also take a deeper dive into capital history.
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  Lance: So thank you again so much for this opportunity to come and share some of those stories about Treasury's history with you and Valerie. Thank you for taking the time to walk through your role at the Michigan Capital, plus the fascinating history of the building treasury and a great state. It's essential that we, as public servants of the people of Michigan, study our history and strive for continuous improvement in our work. Listeners, thank you for tuning in. We hope you found this discussion as educational and entertaining as we did. If you're curious to learn more about the Michigan State capital, schedule a visit or attend an event, visit capital dot Michigan dot gov. If you'd like to learn more about Treasury's history, you can visit Michigan.gov/miTreasury story. Until next time. Thank you for listening to Treasury Talk.