Statewide organization based a the University of Michigan to promote cooperation between industry and educational institutions and to encourage industrial and economic development in Michigan. Records include correspondence, minutes of meetings, topical files and reports.
The records that make up the 1992 accession of the Michigan Technology Council record group document the founding and formative years of a broad-based Michigan organization concerned with an issue of vital concern to educational, business, and governmental leaders of the 1980s: the impact of high technology upon industry and society as a whole. Researchers interested in the changing nature of research and industry in the United States (and particularly in Michigan) during the technological boom of the 1980s will find in the record group ample accounts of such changes from the perspective of the people most interested in promoting them and profiting from them. Resistance to and fear of such changes are documented in the record group, as well, through letters and newspaper articles that present views opposing those of the MTC. The record group also provides insights about the relationships between industry, higher education, and government; particular technological topics such as computers, robotics, and biotechnology; tactics for promoting and marketing technological advances in various sectors of the community; and, of course, the history and organization of MTC itself.
Because the records of the 1992 accession were donated to the Bentley Historical Library not by the MTC but by a loosely related organization, the Industrial Development Division of the Institute for Science and Technology, and because the IDD's 1986 reorganization substantially diminished its connections to the MTC, the record group cannot provide a complete picture of the MTC; it documents the early rather than the recent history of the organization, and it concentrates heavily on a few MTC subcommittees and activities while providing scant details about others. Anticipated subsequent accessions to the record group should be able to fill in these gaps. Nevertheless, the records of the first accession document relatively comprehensively the organization's primary goals and concerns, as expressed through agendas, minutes, correspondence, reports, and pamphlets.