Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Democratic governor of Michigan, 1961-1963; gubernatorial office files, campaign files, papers from his career as state senator and lieutenant governor.

The John B. Swainson collection consists of four subgroups of files: pre-gubernatorial (covering the period of 1943 to 1960), gubernatorial (covering his one-term, two-year tenure as the state's chief executive), post-gubernatorial (covering the years since he left the governor's office, 1963 to 1975), and visual materials.

The great bulk of the collection is the gubernatorial subgroup documenting the last months of Swainson's term as lieutenant governor under Governor G. Mennen Williams, the 1960 campaign for governor, his gubernatorial administration, and his unsuccessful campaign for re-election. The importance of the collection, as with all gubernatorial records, is its documentation of public policy issues of the early 1960s and the relationship of the governor to the legislature, to the heads of the state's various boards and commissions, to the federal government, and to the citizens of Michigan.

Resident of Grand Rapids, Michigan, delegate to the Michigan Constitutional Convention (1961-1962), chairwoman of the Michigan State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and member of the Michigan Civil Service Commission. Correspondence and topical files relating to her public activities; also materials concerning her interest in site planning for a Kent County airport; and photographs.

Except for some personal and genealogical studies, the Judd papers have been arranged into series accumulated as a result of specific interests and activities. These series include Michigan State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights; Michigan Civil Service Commission; Michigan Constitutional Convention; Kent County Airport Site Planning; and Grand Rapids Politics and Reform.