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Construction engineer and Michigan Democratic politician; served terms as Oakland County Drain Commissioner, Michigan State Highway Commissioner, and as Governor, 1941-1942; include correspondence, scrapbooks, appointment books, and assorted miscellanea.

The series in the Van Wagoner collection are Correspondence (1933-1945); Newspaper clippings/Scrapbooks (1930-1933 and 1940-1949); Miscellaneous/Political; and Visual Materials. The collection is largely an accumulation of personal materials from his career as a public service. There is very little of these papers that might be classified as administrative or office files from his years as highway commissioner or his term as governor.

Graduate of the College of Engineering of the University of Michigan, later founder of Radio Construction Company, firm that erected various radio towers, notably the University of Michigan's Peach Mountain Radio Astronomy Observatory. Files relating to his construction business and to University of Michigan reunions; also collected materials relating to the history of Sturgis, Michigan.

The William P. Favorite collection contains material relating to reunions of the 1917 and 1920 graduating classes of the School of Engineering at the University of Michigan; records, 1941-1962, of Radio Construction Company, including material related to the construction of the University of Michigan's Peach Mountain Radio Astronomy Observatory; and collected material relating to the history of Favorite's home town of Sturgis, Michigan.