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Detroit German-American business; scrapbooks containing a variety of printed material, photographs, handwritten accounts of sentiments and occasions, and hand-drawn ink illustrations.

The Carl E. Schmidt collection consists of sixteen volumes of scrapbooks documenting the wide scope of Schmidt's interests. These scrapbooks were compiled and numbered by Schmidt himself, although some of the explanatory text was added by a friend, Dr. Tobias Sigel, who was himself a German immigrant and prominent citizen of Detroit. The scrapbooks are filled with a variety of printed material, photographs, handwritten accounts of sentiments and occasions, and hand-drawn ink illustrations. Much of the scrapbooks' text is in German, including many clippings from German language newspapers. The illustrations in Volume II are particularly attractive. They are hand-drawn red and black ink illustrations of fanciful, legendary themes relating to Walhalla.

The following inventory is a general guide to the contents of each volume. For those scrapbooks that were paginated by Schmidt, specific sections of special interest have been noted in the inventory. Volume 2 also has its own, original index. There is one corresponding folder for each of thirteen of the volumes. These folders contain loose items removed from volumes one through eleven, thirteen, and fourteen.

As the inventory shows, Schmidt was most thorough in documenting his recreational and farming interests, and his political activity in Detroit, at the state level, and in the German-American community. There is, however, very little information about his tannery business.

A pioneer Detroit, Michigan family, established the Ferry Seed Company and other business enterprises, active in civic and cultural affairs. Papers document the family and its business, cultural, political and philanthropic activities.

The Ferry family papers document the rise to prominence of this family who first gained their fortune as seed merchants. The papers also reveal the workings of other Detroit businesses, the development of the Detroit Institute of Arts, turn-of-the-century Michigan politics, and the suburban development of Grosse Pointe. The papers span the years 1758 to 1989 with the bulk of the materials covering 1855 to 1959. The collection consists of: account books, ledgers, journals, and business reports; blue prints, deeds, titles, abstracts, and mortgages; correspondence (business and personal); appointment books, diaries, scrapbooks, and clippings; receipts and tax returns, photographs, and printed miscellanea. It is important to note that the Michigan Historical Collections does not house all extant Ferry materials. The donor, Dexter M. Ferry, III, retains possession of several early account books, ledgers, and journals related to D.M. Ferry & Co.; he also kept some family correspondence and virtually all photographs.

The Ferry family papers arrived at the Michigan Historical Collections in an order based on when the donor reviewed the materials. In the course of reprocessing, this order was altered, and an arrangement assigning primacy to the generation of Ferry who created the document was followed. This reprocessing has resulted in three series: Historical and Background, materials predating Dexter M. Ferry; Dexter M. Ferry; and Dexter M. Ferry, Jr. The few problems presented by overlap between generations are duly noted in the contents list. Within these generational series the materials are arrayed in business, personal, philanthropic, and political subseries. Given the natures of the family and the family business, the researcher should note that murkiness exists between subseries divisions. In general these dividing principles work well. They preserve Dexter M. Ferry, III's original order at the folder level while facilitating access by independent researchers.

The strengths of the Ferry collection are myriad. The family correspondence provide unique insight into a family which grew wealthy but remained close-knit. Especially interesting are the long runs of correspondence between Dexter M. Ferry and his mother, Lucy Ferry Crippen, and Dexter M. Ferry, Jr. and his mother, Addie Miller Ferry. The former run reveals much about the fluid society of late nineteenth-century Detroit, and the latter reflects the pressures of more rigidly defined social strictures. The correspondence between Ferry, Jr. and his sisters, Blanche Ferry Hooker and Queene Ferry Coonley, are illuminating on the handling of the family business in the changing economic climates of the twentieth century.

Some facets of the development of the Detroit business community are well documented as the family invested heavily in local real estate and business. The strengths of the present collection revolve around the Dexter M. Ferry, Jr. materials relating to business and finance in Detroit from 1920 to 1950, particularly the banking community's reaction to the crisis of the Depression. The links between automobile touring, the good roads movement, and the development of ancillary industries to support the burgeoning automotive industry are fairly well documented by Dexter M. Ferry, Jr.'s papers. Young Ferry's close association with the development of the Detroit Institute of Arts is extremely well documented and these papers provide a case study of twentieth century patronage.

A somewhat refracted view of Michigan politics at the turn of the twentieth century is provided through the scrapbooks and clippings on Dexter Ferry's failed campaign in 1900 for governor of the state. The papers are stronger in their documentation of Dexter Ferry, Jr.'s political involvement with the local governance of Grosse Pointe. Here the details of community control are thoroughly covered by correspondence, reports, and minutes.

Marie Louise's journal documents the few days her family spent in southern California and the automobile trip home along the Santa Fe Trail, through St. Louis, and on to Richmond, Kentucky in 1915. The trip was publicized by the Ford Motor Company.

Marie Louise's journal documents the few days her family spent in southern California and the automobile trip home along the Santa Fe Trail, through St. Louis, and on to Richmond, Kentucky. There are two later entries detailing two dances she hosted. Most of the daily entries are written in a staccato style that rarely gets beyond a laundry list of the day's activities. Still, a certain sense of an irrepressible teenage girl, who described eating while driving as "flying lunch," and had a penchant for olives, and a burning need for ice cream sundaes, peeks through. At the back of the volume she pasted in ephemeral items from the trip, including an advertisement for "The Clansman," which she saw at the Empress Theatre in San Diego, permission to visit a gold mine, and a sunflower. There are also several small newspaper clippings, mostly concerning the family's trip.

The Kelloggs stopped to see the sights along their route, including the gold mine, cañons, and the original twenty mule team wagon that ran into Death Valley. Marie Louise rarely did more than record action. A typical account reads, "Went to the Petrified Forest. Picked up some pieces of the wood," but she did occasionally notice and note the scenery: "At one of the turns sat an Indian woman. It was one of the most picturesque scenes I ever saw. the winding road, an adobe village and the sunshine down to the left and the black clouds, sharp curves and mountains up to the right" (pp.26, 32).

The tourists saw Mojave, Hopi, Navajo, and Pueblo Indians enroute, and bought beads from the Indians in the Mojave desert, and rugs and pottery from the Navajo. Marie Louise snapped photos all along the way. The Kelloggs preferred to stay at "Harvey Houses," as the many establishments along the way owned and run by Fred Harvey were called. The car behaved fairly well, meaning there were only a couple flat tires on the way home, and a few instances of engine trouble. Twice Marie Louise and her mama had to get out and push the car out of mud holes.

The Kelloggs stayed in Santa Fe for a few days, where they were shown the sights by a "perfectly lovely" librarian named Mrs. Wilson (p.34). The family also spent several days in St. Louis, detained on account of the severe rains. Marie Louise and her mama occupied themselves with vaudeville shows (one featured a "Japanese primadonna"), movies, malted milks, and clothes shopping (p.58). At one shop, the retailer was "looking up Daddy's credit in some listing book and so we looked up all the Richmond people and others. I looked up several people in Versailles of course and found that flowers must sell pretty well as they give the seller good credit" (p.54).

After they crossed the Missouri, Marie Louise wrote that they were "Back in hot biscuit country anyway," and she began to anticipate getting home (p.50). She hoped their arrival would get all sorts of attention. "Really when I get home if every time we stop anywhere every body around doesn't run out to look at us and the car, I shall feel very bad about it" (p.52). She got her wish when they pulled into Louisville: "Mr. Banks, head of the Ford Motor Company in Kentucky, had a regular reception, reporters, a photographer and all the clerks. Trying to get our picture in the Sunday paper! Heavens, what a excitement for Richmond if they do succeed!" (p.63). They did succeed, and the clipping is pasted in the journal.

Once home in Richmond, Marie Louise quickly caught up with her best friend Martha, and planned a dance for "about a dozen couples of her young friends," as the newspaper so gratifyingly reported. She weighed herself at the store while getting some cakes for the party, and noted "151. -- caused by sundaes, malted milk and Harvey Houses I suppose" (p.68). Marie Louise expressed her hopes for a boyfriend, and after describing three boys, she longingly admitted to herself, "I could easily lose my heart to any of those three if I only had half a chance" (p.71). In the next, and last entry, Marie Louise, now back at Margaret College, wrote about another dance, her "first real Versailles german" (p.74). She had the satisfaction of reporting that her escort, Grover, was a "wonderful dancer," and declaring, "my old flame absolutely disgusted me. Didn't even like him."