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The Letters, Documents, and Other Manuscripts of the Duane Norman Diedrich Collection is a selection of individual items compiled by manuscript collector Duane Norman Diedrich (1935-2018) and the William L. Clements Library. The content of these materials reflect the life and interests of D. N. Diedrich, most prominently subjects pertinent to intellectual, artistic, and social history, education, speech and elocution, the securing of speakers for events, advice from elders to younger persons, and many others.

The Letters, Documents, and Other Manuscripts of the Duane Norman Diedrich Collection is a selection of individual items compiled by manuscript collector Duane Norman Diedrich (1935-2018) and the William L. Clements Library. The content of these materials reflect the life and interests of D. N. Diedrich, most prominently subjects pertinent to intellectual, artistic, and social history, education, speech and elocution, the securing of speakers for events, advice from elders to younger persons, and many others.

For an item-level description of the collection, with information about each manuscript, please see the box and folder listing below.

This composition notebook was kept by Merline Patton of Alamogordo, New Mexico, while studying rhetoric at the New Mexico Baptist College (associated with the Southern Baptist Convention) in 1903. The notebook includes essays, reading passages, song lyrics, and notes on English history and literature.

This composition notebook was kept by Merline Patton of Alamogordo, New Mexico, while studying rhetoric at the New Mexico Baptist College (associated with the Southern Baptist Convention) in 1903. The notebook includes essays, reading passages, song lyrics, and notes on English history and literature.

The essays in the notebook include "The Argonautic Expedition" and "Rhetoric." The songs include at least two college/school spirit numbers, though the bulk appear to be popular tunes about love and family, such as "My Girl from Dixie." A section titled "Division of Modern English Lit" contains information related to the Elizabethan Age, the study of Italian language and art, the study of classics translated from Greek and Roman, and more.

The inside cover contains scribbles and mathematics problems, and two small flowers were doodled in the margins.

Dr. Albrecht’s Musical Compositions, 1954, 2018, and undated, and her 2020 obituary, 3.5 cubic feet (in 3 boxes, 1 Oversized, flat box) include a wide variety of many of her original musical compositions, scores, and parts.

Dr. Albrecht’s Musical Compositions, 1954, 2018, and undated, and her 2020 obituary, 3.5 cubic feet (in 3 boxes, 1 Oversized, flat box) include a wide variety of many of her original musical compositions, scores, and parts. These are mostly sacred music, in various formats, in English, Latin, German, and Russian. The collection is organized by series, alphabetically by title, and by size. The series are based mostly on a list of her works compiled by Steven Egler and Mary Stewart Kiesgan, her friends and faculty at CMU’s School of Music, and include: Original Choral Works with Organ; Voice and Piano / Harpsichord / Instruments; Hymn Arrangements and Concertatos; Works for Instruments / Instruments and/or Voice and Organ / Piano; Works for Solo Organ; Works for Solo Piano; Works for Orchestra; Transcriptions to Orchestra and Other Media; Descants and Choral Verses. Another series, not in the list, but which was in one of the original oversized folders in which the collection was delivered to the Clarke, is Instrumental Parts. Two other series added by the Archivist are: Unidentified Pieces, all of which are undated, and Music by Other Composers, with various dates. The formats include handwritten pencil or pen on paper, onion skin, ditto copies, and generic computer or Sibellius copies. A few pieces in the collection are incomplete or lack some of the instrumental parts that should be present. Copies were made of items with significant damage and only the copies were retained in the collection.

Processing Note: Numerous pieces were taped in various places and some consisted of stanzas which were generously taped onto larger pieces of paper for playing ease, resulting in much acidification. These were photocopied to prolong their life and only the copies retained. There were also several cases of oversized onion skin copies with extensive rectangular holes, barely attached to each other by peripheral onionskin strips of borders. To prevent further damage and loss of the material, these onionskins were also copied and only the copies were retained in the collection. Ditto copies, mostly pre-1980 versions smell due to their chemical composition, but deterioration is minimal. During processing .5 cubic foot of duplicates and copied acidic or onionskins were withdrawn and returned to the donor as per the donor request.