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Collection includes Moral Re-Armament newsletters, newspaper clippings, news releasees, and magazines; correspondence to/from Shera; and miscellaneous materials.

The collection is organized alphabetically by type of material, and chronologically within folders. Most of the collection consists of local school newsletters, state and national newspaper clippings, news releases, 1941-1949 (Scattered), and the New World News magazines, 1945-1947, which document the interests, activities, and ideals of MRA.

Correspondence includes that to Arthur Shera and his family, 1944-1949, and from Arthur to Howard Davidson of New World News, 1945-1946, a MRA periodical, and to various people 1948-1949. Also included are mailing correspondence, press releases, forms, and programs,1946-1946, and undated, for Ideas Have Legs, which was first a book and later a play, which disseminated the ideals of the MRA.

Miscellaneous materials in the collection include an organizational history and biographical materials on Arthur Shera from a variety of online sources; Book Order Forms 1945-1947; Lists of Food for Europe from the Grand Rapids (Mich.) team, 1946; Lists of Names, 1944, 1947, and undated (these are likely various mailing lists, rather than a list of members), the very brief play, Where are you?, undated; and some miscellaneous poems by Arthur and other members of the MRA, 1945, 1947, and undated.

Homemade glass slides (39) document historic buildings, fort, rock formations, and harbors of Mackinac Island (Mich.), Arlington Hotel, Petoskey (Mich.), Pointe Aux Barques lighthouse, Chicago (Ill.), including one of a statue of Abraham Lincoln by August Saint-Gaudens in Lincoln Park, and buildings and statues of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition (2) seen in 1898-1899, and miscellaneous slides of other locations.

The collection consists of 39 homemade slides documenting Lamont, Mackinaw Island, and Petoskey, Michigan; Pointe Aux Barques Lighthouse in Port Hope, Michigan; Chicago, including buildings of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 seen in 1898 and 1899; two ships, the launch of the Illinois, April 22, 1899, and the U.S.S. Oregon, returning from the Philippines, 1898; and an interior view of a home in Denver, Colorado; the exterior of Hadden Hall in Debyshire, England; a view of a dock, possibly in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and a few unidentified, miscellaneous slides. Many of the homemade slides have manufactured labels on which are typed “No.,” “Subject,” and “Manufactured by Geo. H. Luther, Austin, Ill.” Some of the slide labels are just slips of paper. The information on the slide labels is handwritten unless otherwise specified in the inventory as being typed. While most of the slides are undated they are clearly a set, so they were likely all made between 1898 and 1899. The slides were not originally numbered, but are now (if they have a label) to facilitate retrieval and use by researchers. The collection probably was in part created and in part collected by George H. Luther. Overall the slides are in good condition and are housed in their original box.

The collection consists of various photographic materials documenting a variety of Michigan locations, buildings, topics, and people.

The collection consists mostly of glass-plate and black and white film negatives of varying sizes, as well as some matching or related black and white photographs of varying size. There are also slides (4) and color photographs (9). The collection is organized into film negatives, glass-plate negatives, and negatives of Will B. Gregg. Each subseries is then organized alphabetically by topic. Most of the collection is undated, but some are dated 1904-1905, [1920s], 1927-1928, and 1972.

Major topics documented in the collection include the vacation resort communities on Sager’s Resort on Burt Lake; Bryant’s Hotel on Douglas Lake; Torch Lake Camp or Hayo-Went-Ha YMCA camp for boys, 1927-1928; and boat racing in Oden, Michigan [1920s]. Also included are the buildings, nature, people and animals of Boyne City, Charlevoix, Horton Bay, Pickerel Lake, Rosedale, Petoskey, Walloon Lake, as well as tourist sites on Mackinac Island. While a number of prominent people’s homes in Rosedale and Ellis Real Estate advertisements in Rosedale, and cottages at Pickerel Lake are identified, the majority of buildings and people in the collection are not.

People were photographed in both individual portraits and groups, doing a variety of functions including: enjoying picnics, social gatherings, fishing, hunting, driving horse-drawn buggies, sleds, and wagons, playing with pets, having fun, boating, racing boats, and posing with their families. They are also shown working on farms and in the logging business. Other topics documented include various boats, a town, possibly Onaway, a church, numerous houses, a boat livery station, vacation cottages, and some downtown stores, farms, fields, clouds, nature scenes of lakes, rivers, lakeshores, docks, forests, bridges, and piles of lumber. Horses appear in many of the images, as do dogs and cows, but dogs are also featured alone in two portraits.

The Logging, (7), People (7), and Walloon Lake, Michigan (6) Glass-plate Negatives which each measure 6.5x8.5 inches, undated, almost all have two images per plate. Otherwise each negative in the collections is of a single image.

There are also color photographs (9) and slides (4), 1972, generally related to Ernest Hemingway’s life in Horton Bay including images of buildings, a historic plaque, and some photographs of Ernest Hemingway’s family in 1915 photographed from books on Hemingway. For information on Ernest Hemingway see the finding aid for his collection.

The last box includes one folder of prints of images scanned from damaged glass-plate negatives, cellulose nitrate negatives, and a badly crinkled film. The best scan possible was made. The CD has been included with the prints.

Processing Note: Obvious duplicate images were withdrawn from the collection. A number of plates with what appeared to be dried muck and/or mold, plates with severe emulsion damage, and four neon yellow glass-plate negatives, as well as nitrate film negatives and positives on transparent film were scanned and the originals removed from the collection. The scans were added to the collection in order to protect the health of researchers and the chemical stability of the collection.

The collection consists mostly of variously sized tinted portraits, film negatives, glass-plate negatives, lantern slides, and tin types, of diverse topics.

This is a miscellaneous collection housed together because of format, not because of provenance. Parts of the collection were donated by several donors over a period of time prior to 1996.

The materials are divided by type of format and size. Some materials which were originally housed or appear to have come from the same donor have been processed together. Therefore, Film Negatives and Glass-Plate Negatives are in two locations in this collection. Ex. Film Negatives are found in both Boxes 1 and 4. In this collection are found Colored, or Tinted, Glass Portraits, Film Negative portraits of men, women, children, and couples [probably from the 1940s-1950s]; Glass-plate negatives of men and women, buildings and structures, a train, and a train station; Lantern Slides; two pamphlets; and Tin Types. Only one Glass-plate negative of construction is dated, 1901. The rest of the materials are undated and may run from the late 19th through the early 20th century.

While many of the images are unidentified portraits of men, women, children, couples, and groups, cows, and miscellaneous, identified images include that of Dr. Anspach (See the catalog record and finding aid to his papers under CMU. Office of the President for further information on him), George Muhlberg [men fencing], the train station at Hudson (Mich.), lumberjacks, the Michigan state capitol, the Chippewa Hotel on Mackinac Island, Dog Sleds, Lumber Yards, and numerous Straits ferries. Among the ferries are Lansing Shoal, Duluth, Tionesta, Juanita, Straits of Mackinac, City of Mackinac, City of St. Ignace, the St. Ignace, and the Majestic. Ferries identified by company name only include the Goodrich Transit Company and Arnold Transit Company.

Also of particular note in the collection are glass-plate negative advertisements for a wide variety of topics including: ad space, businesses, clothing, food, miscellaneous, newspapers, personal, products, and a theater.

Also found in the collection are some World War I “Support the War,” 1918 and undated, propaganda glass-plate negatives. Lastly, there are two Methodist Episcopal Church bulletins, one from Clarkston, 1918, and Wayne, 1912. The decision was made to not separately catalog the bulletins at this time.

Box 6 includes Miscellaneous which may be some photographic experiments with exposure. A number of the images appear to have superimposed images or other visual distortions.

Processing Note: Two glass-plate negatives were so badly cracked that they were withdrawn from the collection. Several others suffered damage from being cracked and/or the emulsions being almost or partial peeled away from the glass. These were scanned by the Clarke’s web master, Pat Thelen, on June 20, 2007. The originals, which could be safely housed without causing further damage to the emulsions, were retained, along with a paper print-out of the image from the scan. Those originals which were so severely deteriorated that they could not be safely housed, were withdrawn from the collection, and a CD of the scan as well as a paper print-out of the image were added to the collection in their place.