Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

The Todd Duncan Papers document the life and career of baritone singer Todd Duncan. Trained as a classical singer, Duncan was chosen by George Gershwin to originate the role of Porgy in Gershwin's American folk opera Porgy and Bess. Duncan's career spanned numerous concert tours, productions, and performances. The papers in the collection include photographs, scrapbooks, news stories, and personal papers.

The Todd Duncan Papers consist of scrapbooks, photographs, news stories, production programs, and personal papers documenting the career and life of Todd Duncan. Many of the items are scrapbooks of Duncan's career and tours which feature newspaper clippings and photographs from the productions themselves. The collection came to the Bentley Library partially processed. That arrangement has been retained.

The collection spans the years from 1912 to 1998 with the majority of items falling between the years 1935-1973. The collection has ten series: Correspondence; Honors and Awards; Music Programs and Scores; Newspaper Clippings and Scrapbooks; Papers and Books; Photographs; Audio-Visual Materials; Productions and Performances; Topical Files; and African American Music Collection Numbered Items.

Regent of the University of Michigan; public figure concerned with national and international women's rights issues. Files relating to her public life, especially her interest in the University of Michigan, notably during the presidency of Harold T. Shapiro, the work of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, and state and local Democratic Party matters.

The papers of Sarah Goddard Power are arranged into twelve series: Personal/Biographical, Writings, Speeches, Contributions, Trips, Political Activities, Conferences, Philip H. Power, Board of Regents, Photographs, Engagements, and U.S. National Commission for UNESCO. These series cover the period 1953-1987.

Papers include correspondence, diary, clippings, and photographs relating to his experience as a prisoner; correspondence relating to his Purple Heart award and the Prisoner of War medal. Also included a memoir by Sidney Esensten about his experience as an American P.O.W. during the Korean War.

Visual materials include photos relating to his experience as a prisoner; videotape entitled "P.O.W.--Americans in Enemy Hands" (1986), which includes interview with Fletcher; videotape of 1990 presentation by Fletcher and three Tuskegee Airmen, African American World War II aviators, describing their military experiences, and an undated videotape "Priority: P.O.W."

African American civil rights activist and Black militant leader in Monroe County North Carolina who came to advocate armed self-defense in response to violence, left the United States in 1961 and lived in Cuba and China until 1969 when he settled in Baldwin Michigan. Papers include correspondence, newspaper clippings, audio-visual material, manuscripts, petitions, and government documents documenting the civil rights movement, black nationalism, radical politics in the United States and Williams's experiences in Cuba and China.

The Robert Williams papers, dating from 1951, include correspondence, notes, newspaper clippings, audio-visual material, manuscripts, petitions, and government documents. The collection documents a wide variety of subjects: the American civil rights movement, Black Nationalism, cold war politics, Castro's Cuba, Mao's China, and the radical left in the United States.

As Robert Williams continued to add to his collection following his initial donation in 1976, it was necessary to arrange and describe the materials based on groupings of dates of accessioning. Thus the bulk of the collection is divided into two subgroups: 1976-1979 Accessions and 1983-1997 Accessions with much overlapping of material. In addition, the collection contains a small series of papers collected by his son John C. Williams and a separate series of Audio-Visual Materials.

Social scientist, director of the Institute for Social Research of the University of Michigan. Papers include project files, survey research data and reports, and printed material, largely from his work with the Division of Program Surveys, Bureau of Agricultural Economics and the office of War Information during World War II; Office Of Strategic Bombing Survey, I.S.R. project files; and transcript of oral interview, 1970.

The Rensis Likert Papers document his work as one of the pioneers of survey research, first with the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, then with the Office of War Information, Office of Strategic Bombing Surveys and finally at the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center and Institute for Social Research. The papers include biographical information on Likert; transcripts of oral history interviews with Likert; reports, background information, correspondence relating to various survey projects.

The Likert papers were received and initially processed in four accessions in 1975, 1982,1990 and 1995. Material in later accessions sometimes continued or complemented records series in prior accessions. The papers are boxed in an order that reflects the dates the accessions individual accessions were received. In this finding aid the disparate parts of series received in multiple accessions have been together to reflect the intellectual arrangement of the collection. As a result, the box-folder sequence in he contents listing are not always consecutive.

The materials in the 1975 accession (boxes 1-20) of the Rensis Likert Papers cover the period of 1939 to 1953 and largely concern Likert's work at the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and the Office of War Information during World War II and his subsequent work in the early development of the Survey Research Center.

In 1982 the family of Rensis Likert donated an additional three feet (boxes 21-23) of materials. Notable items in this accession concern Likert's work as assistant secretary and treasurer of the Psychological Corporation (1934-1935); consultant to the Newell-Emmett Company (1935); survey researcher with the Morale Division of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey unit (ca. 1944-1946); and activities with other professional organizations (ca. 1938-1949)

The third accession of the Likert papers (box 24-29) came from the library of the Institute of Social Research of the University of Michigan. The files pertain to all phases of Likert's professional career, and thus the researcher should use these papers in conjunction with the materials in the previous accessions. The final accession (box 29) was received form several sources.

Battle Creek, Michigan and Washington, D.C. family including C.W. (Charles William) Post, cereal manufacturer, and anti-union activist and founder of Post City, Texas; and his daughter Marjorie Merriweather Post, executive of General Foods Co., wife of U. S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, art collector, philanthropist, socialite, and Washington D.C. hostess. C.W. Post papers, largely concern labor-management relations, unionism, the Postum Company, currency reform, advertising, and matters of food and hygiene; Marjorie Merriweather Post papers document her social activities and travel, philanthropies art collections, and the maintenance and preservation of her homes and other possessions.

The Post family collection includes papers of businessman and food processor, C. W. Post, largely relating to labor-management relations, unionism, the Post Company, currency reform, advertising, and matters of food and hygiene; and papers, photographs, and sound recordings of his daughter, Marjorie Merriweather Post, General Foods executive and philanthropist, relating to social activities and engagements, philanthropies, and the maintenance and preservation of her homes and other possessions.

The C.W. Post papers consist of manuscript items and printed works created by C.W. Post and retained by his daughter, Marjorie Merriweather Post. The papers are arranged alphabetically by subject.

Medical student at University of Michigan, graduate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, later surgeon with the 47th U.S. Colored Infantry during the Civil War. Letters to brother describing studies and other activities at the University; and letters written during the war concerning his service in the western campaign in Mississippi and Louisiana, with particular mention of the siege of Vicksburg.

Letters to brother describing studies and other activities at the University; and letters written during the war concerning his service in the western campaign in Mississippi and Louisiana, with particular mention of the siege of Vicksburg.

Photographs (positive and negative), slides, and transparencies taken by the company's photographers to document company activities, products, services, employees at work and at leisure, company exhibits and commemorations, and the response of the company to natural disasters and civil disturbances.

In 1993, Michigan Bell as a corporate entity was subsumed within the Ameritech Corporation. As a by-product of this reorganization and the downsizing resulting from it, the company agreed to deposit with the Bentley Historical Library its extensive archive of photographic images. Totalling approximately one million images, the Michigan Bell Telephone Company photo archive consists of negatives, copy prints, and color transparencies taken in the period since World War II (the bulk beginning in 1949). The collection does not include photos taken since 1983; interspersed throughout, however, are numerous images from before 1949.

The collection has been maintained in the order received with two principal series: Positives and Negatives.

The content of the photographs in the two series varies considerably. Naturally the collection documents the products of the company (phones and other communication devices) and the services provided (e.g. employees at work or the company reacting to a specific customer need). These photos were taken both to inform the general public as accompaniment to press notices and advertising copy and as a communications vehicle within the company, informing employees through the company news publication, Tielines, of activities going on in other divisions of the company or among the various regional Bell offices.

More importantly perhaps, the collection has value for its documentation of events and activities that are common to all large companies. These include images relating to: 1. The activities of employees within the corporation at their work (office workers, repairmen, operators, various support personnel, managers, etc.); 2. The activities of employees outside their work routine as members of corporate social groups (i.e., the company baseball or ice hockey team), at home engaged in leisure time activities, or involved in company-sponsored charitable or public service functions; and 3. Commemorations of specific milestones or events (company parade floats, area office open houses, corporate displays at public events such as fairs, etc.).

In addition, the collection documents the extraordinary and unforeseen as the phone company reacts to events and emergencies not within its control (floods, tornadoes, fires, the 1967 Detroit riot, strikes, and the like) or as a participant in history-making events (the announcement in Ann Arbor of the success of the Salk polio vaccine or the preparation involved in the 1980 Republican National Convention that convened in Detroit).

Records of the Law School document the evolution of legal education at the University of Michigan as well as tenures of various deans and faculty. Documentation includes historical and class files; student organizations and activities; planning and construction of Law School buildings; information on William W. Cook and his bequest; topical files; deans' correspondence; reports and minutes. Also included are materials related to the Thomas M Cooley and William W. Cook lecture series and portraits of faculty and students, photographs of activities of the Judge Advocate General's School held at the Law School during World War II, the construction of the Law Quadrangle and Law Library addition, and student activities.

The Law School Records begin in 1852 and span the years through the end of the twentieth century. The records document the history of legal education at the University of Michigan, the administration of the Law School, and the lives of some of the scholars who have studied and taught there.

The physical arrangement of the records reflects the various accessions of material that have been received from the Law School over the years. This finding aid is structured to reflect the intellectual organization of the records - continuing series and like materials have been brought together regardless of when the records were transferred to the library. The Summary Contents List provides and overview of the organization of the records.

There are eight major series in the record group: Historical and Class Files (1865-1974); Deans of the Law School (1852-1999); Faculty Files (1859-1994); Student Files (1894-1996); Law Quadrangle and William W. Cook, (1919-1938); Law School Lecture Series; Committee of Visitors and Audio/Visual Materials.

Ann Arbor, Michigan, businessman, publisher of Ann Arbor Courier, Republican politician, and regent of University of Michigan. Correspondence, letter books, speeches, newspaper clippings, and photographs; papers (1909-1920) of Michigan Public Domain Commission, of which Beal was a member; papers (1877-1904) concerning Port Huron Gas Light Company; and printed material and miscellanea (1885-1905) concerning League of American Wheelmen and his interest in bicycling.

The Junius E. Beal papers include correspondence, papers accumulated from his various interests and organizational activities, subject files, speeches, newspaper clippings, and photographs. The series in the collection include: Correspondence, Michigan Public Domain Commission, Topical Files; and Other Materials. Most of the files in the collection relate in some way to Beal's life in Ann Arbor, either as a student, a businessman, a public figure, as someone who took civic responsibility seriously and was determined to serve his community and the university that he loved.