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Social Service organization serving the Detroit African American community, affiliate of the National Urban League; includes minutes of the Board of Directors, correspondence and topical files of Executive Directors and Presidents, budgets and financial records, and papers concerning National Urban League conferences and Green Pastures Camp; also departmental files relating to community services, housing, vocational services, health and welfare, job development and employment, and education and youth incentives; and photographs.

The records of the Detroit Urban League include minutes of the Board of Directors, correspondence and topical files of Executive Directors and Presidents, budgets and financial records, and papers concerning National Urban League conferences and Green Pastures Camp; also departmental files relating to community services, housing, vocational services, health and welfare, job development and employment, and education and youth incentives. The records also include photographs of chapter activities, meetings, and ceremonies; photos of buildings and staff (notably executive directors, John Dancy and Francis Kornegay); also films.

Samuel Miller Brownell was an educator and school administrator who served as U.S. Commissioner of Education from 1953-1956 and as Superintendent of Detroit Public Schools from 1956 to 1966. He was married to Esther Delzell Brownell, who taught high school history before their 1927 marriage. This collection documents the Brownells' family life, and to a lesser extent, Samuel M. Brownell's career. Materials include a large collection of correspondence between Samuel and Esther Brownell, personal papers reflecting the family's social and cultural activities and daily life, and a series of scrapbooks, dating from 1900 to 1988, containing photographs, clippings, newsletters, correspondence, and ephemera. The older scrapbooks provide information about the early lives of both of the Brownells, and later scrapbooks document the family's vacations and Samuel Brownell's career as an educator, administrator, and political appointee.

The Samuel Miller Brownell and Esther Delzell Brownell collection documents the family life of two individuals from their courtship through their old age. To a lesser extent, the career of Samuel Brownell as educator is also documented. The papers are arranged roughly chronologically into three series, beginning with the lives of each of the Brownells before their marriage, and then following them as they moved from Nebraska to Michigan, to Connecticut, to Washington, D.C., to Michigan again, and finally to back to Connecticut.