Scrapbooks of John Spencer Curtis, University of Michigan footall player 1903-1906 and track athlete 1905-1906, include clippings, photographs of football players and games and other sports, dance cards, programs and other material for musical and theattical performances, fraternity events and other campus activities, also includes material related to Marthae "Mattie' Gibson, Curtis' future wife, from Pueblo Coloroado high school and University of Colorado; also includes miscellaneous papers related to Curtis' later business career and work with the University of Michigan Alumni Association.
The John Spencer Curtis papers include X folders of manuscripts and photographs and two scrapbooks, plus Curtis' football cap with a stylized UM FBT decal.
Volume 1 of the scrapbooks includes clippings on Curtis and Michigan football from The Michigan Daily, as well as Detroit, Chicago, and other newspapers; photographs of Michigan football and track and field, of Phi Delta Theta and other fraternity houses, campus social activities and student organization, as well as more personal photos of Curtis and his friends and classmates. It also dance cards, concert and theatrical programs; pins, and other memorabilia of student life.
Volume 2, which may have been compiled by Mattie Gibson, includes material on Curtis as well as a section on Gibson with items from her time as a student at Centennial High School and University of Colorado.
Volume 1 includes several blackface images related to a U-M campus production of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and the "County Fair" parade of 1905. Volume 2 includes a photo of men in apparent 'yellowface" costume in the Mattie Gibson section.
The manuscripts include a booklet from a 1959 Kansas City Alumni Association chapter banquet honoring Curtis, miscellaneous articles by or about Curtis and material related to his participation in the University's $55 Million fundraising campaign in conjunction the 1967 sesquicentennial celebration. There is also a folder of portraits and other photographs.
