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The Florence Romaine collection is comprised of correspondence, documents, genealogies, photographs, scrapbooks, and newspaper clippings related to the Brossard, Draper, and Smith families throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and to the acting career of Florence Smith Romaine.

The Florence Romaine collection (1 linear foot) is comprised of correspondence, documents, genealogies, photographs, scrapbooks, and newspaper clippings related to the Brossard, Draper, and Smith families throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and to the acting career of Florence Smith Romaine.

The Correspondence series (59 items) contains personal letters between members of the Brossard, Draper, and Smith families; many are written in French. Most of the material is dated from 1843-1907; the collection also includes 3 early letters to members of the Brossard family, as well as postcards that Florence Smith Romaine wrote to Grace Maxwell from 1962-1963. The series includes letters to Claude Ferdinand de Brossard from various correspondents; to Ferdinand de Brossard and Jenny de Brossard Draper from their mother, Elizabeth de Brossard; to Elizabeth Brossard from her sister-in-law, Julie de Brossard; to Jenny de Brossard Draper from Seth Enos Smith; and to Florence Smith Romaine from her mother, Jenny Draper Smith, and grandmother, Jenny de Brossard Draper. Other items include 6 letters to C. C. Randall.

The Writings series consists of 3 items by Florence Smith Romaine: a rumination on night written around 1905, a play entitled "The Silver Bell of Hat-Shep-Sut's Cat," and Whistling Bill, a children's book published in 1937.

Documents are divided into three subseries: Legal Documents (7 items), Business Documents (3 items), and Awards and Diplomas (2 items). Legal documents include birth certificates, marriage certificates, and passports related to Claude and Elisabeth Brossard and their descendants, as well as a copy of Florence Smith Romaine's will. Business documents are related to Brossard family accounts. The award and diploma concern Jenny Draper's academic achievements at the Chegaray Institute and a Brossard family member's receipt of the Fleur de Lys.

The Photographs series has two subseries: Photograph Album and Loose Photographs. The photograph album (26 pages) contains 104 cartes-de-visite and tintype studio portraits, including portraits of members of the Brossard, Draper, and Smith families. Two pages from a photograph album of the Romaine family are housed separately. Loose photographs (32 items), including 2 cased items (one housed in the Graphics Division), mostly show Florence Romaine in theatrical costumes; several photographs show members of the Smith and Draper families.

Two Scrapbooks contain newspaper clippings, programs, notes, and other items regarding Florence Romaine's acting career, as well as articles, children's stories, and puzzles that she wrote for The Christian Science Monitor in 1924 and 1925. The Newspaper Clippings (3 items) concern the career of Worthington L. Romaine and the deaths of Seth and Seth E. Smith.

Genealogies and Family Histories consist of a pamphlet about the descendants of Henry and Elizabeth Smith, including Seth Enos Smith and Florence Smith Romaine; manuscript and typed notes pertaining to the Draper and Stull families and to the life of Florence Romaine; and pages from Thomas Waln-Morgan Draper's 1892 genealogy The Drapers in America.

Miscellaneous Items and Fragments (17 items) include notes and poetry (in French), 2 invitations, a copy of a recommendation letter for Father Marie-Joseph de Geramb to the governor of Cairo, and a promotional pamphlet for "Florence May Smith."

This collection contains documents, correspondence, and a journal related to German immigrant Carl Gallwitz and to the Mathes family, Alsatian immigrants who were later related to the Gallwitz family by marriage. Included are German-language documents from the early 19th century as well as a journal that Carl Gallwitz kept while traveling to and around the United States in the 1820s.

This collection contains 9 documents, 2 letters, and a journal related to German immigrant Carl Christ Wilhelm Gallwitz and to the Mathes family, Alsatian immigrants who were later related to the Gallwitz family by marriage.

The first 5 items, all in German, are 3 baptism certificates, a printed poem about baptism, and a document. The poem is surrounded by a colored printed floral border, and the document is written on a sheet with a colored illustration of two birds in a floral setting. Other documents are a naturalization certificate for Martin Mathers [sic], issued in Wooster, Ohio (April 2, 1855), and a German and French document from the 1860s certifying the 1833 birth of George Mathes to Martin Mathes and Marguerite Rott of the Alsatian town of Wissembourg.

Correspondence includes a German letter from Martin Mathes, Jr., to his father (July 19, 1850) and a letter signed by several men in Coloma, California, about the death of Martin Mathes, Jr., and funeral costs (December 8, 1850). A manuscript poem in German and an illustration of the Sun are undated.

Carl Christ Wilhelm Gallwitz kept a journal (459 pages) between March 22, 1820, and January 1832. He documented his travels in Europe and in the United States, as well as his life in Ohio. Gallwitz wrote brief entries almost daily between 1820 and 1822, and less frequently through January 1832. Gallwitz occasionally drew illustrations, including a kite's stringing system (July 1, 1820, p. 68), various types of fish (July 4, 1820, pp. 71-73), a "May apple" plant (August 6, 1820, p. 94), and an unidentified mammal (19 August, 1820, p. 99). The journal includes a list of cities that Gallwitz visited while traveling between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and New Orleans, Louisiana (pp. 270-271), as well as several pages of watercolor and ink manuscript maps of his traveling route, usually made on riverboats (pp. 273-299). A translated copy of the journal and Gallwitz's itinerary are housed with the collection.

The journal also includes a colorful illustration of a man painting the portrait of a woman in an interior setting, featuring details such as a patterned rug, a side table with teacups, and paintings hung on the wall (p. 486). Two additional illustrations depict store signs for "L. Weeman & Comp. Store" and "1823. L. Ewing's Office" (p. 491). The inside of the back cover bears a pencil sketch of three figures at the base of a bluff.