Collections

The collection includes publications, meeting minutes, and photographs related to the American bicentennial.

The collection consists largely of publications regarding the American Revolution bicentennial, the celebration of the bicentennial in Michigan, and Michigan Week before and during the bicentennial, 1963-1968 and 1971-1989. Materials include magazine and newspaper articles (copies), newsletters, reports, a few photographs and meeting minutes, and other materials from federal, Michigan, and local bicentennial councils and commissions. A large, although incomplete, run of the Bicentennial Times [Wash.: American Revolution Bicentennial Administration], 1974-1976 (Scattered) is also included, as are a number of special or collectors’ editions of bicentennial newspapers, fliers, bulletins, a calendar, and an issue of Superman Salutes the Bicentennial, 1976. Most of the materials were mailed to John Cumming, who later donated them to the Clarke.

Processing Note: Numerous, miscellaneous generic advertising fliers were withdrawn from the collection during processing because they were of minimal importance in documenting the bicentennial.

The collection consists of photographs, mostly of school children Cornell taught in Weidman and possibly in Mecosta, Michigan, 1928, 1950, and undated.

The collection consists mainly of photographs taken by Cornell of her students and neighbors, and some of Cornell with students, including: formal and informal class photographs of kindergarteners through second graders, children playing on school swings and teeter totters, girls with their dolls, children and a family swimming, and girls posing in nice dresses and boys pulling small wagons at the Boyer’s home, 1928, 1935-1936, and 1948-1950. Some of the groups of children in classes and some individuals are identified. Also included are photographs of a terrible winter storm in Weidman, Michigan, in 1936; Grandma Hayes’ 90th birthday with flowers and a large birthday cake with candles, undated; an unidentified river, undated; Mecosta, Michigan’s one block downtown, Methodist Episcopal Church, and high school; and students posing by the Weidman Elementary School, and the building itself, 1928, and 1935-1936.

The photographs are all in good condition. Some were or still are attached to black, loose photograph album pages. The photographs vary in size from large 1948 class photographs measuring 8 inches x 10 inches, to individual portraits of students, circa 1928, measuring 1 inch x 2.5 inches. All the photographs are black and white, and some have a sepia tone.