Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Andrew Tanner was photographer, born in Missouri, who traveled about the United States. He lived for a time in Ann Arbor, Michigan and on Coryell Island (part of the Les Cheneaux Islands) in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The collection consists of glass plate negatives of images taken while in different parts of the United States and Mexico.

The Andrew Tanner Photograph Collection includes glass plate negatives from his travels across the United State and in Mexico in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Images in the collection demonstrate in a vivid way life in the United States, the natural environment, and the photographic processes of the time. The plates are in excellent condition and images are of very good quality. Tanner's original plate numbers are indicated on the slides, and where known, are indicated on the sleeves containing the plates; some plates were also assigned numbers by their intermediate owner, Jack Kausch, and, where known, these are also indicated on the envelopes. The images in the collection (14 boxes) date from 1894 to 1909, and are organized into three series: 5x7 Plates, 1894-1909 (13 boxes), 8x10 Plates, ca. 1900 (1 linear foot), and Miscellaneous (1 linear foot).

Conscientious objector during World Wars I and II and founder of the farming cooperative Saline Valley Farms. Correspondence, diaries, notebooks, and other materials relating to all phases of his career, including his work as Y.M.C.A. worker in England, 1916-1917, and as teacher at Central China University, Wuchang, China, 1922-1926; also family correspondence of Philip H. and Almena S. Gray, 1874-1926; also photographs and motion pictures.

The Harold Gray papers have been divided into seven series: Correspondence; World War I era activities; Personal and Miscellaneous; Printed, clippings, and miscellanea; Family and genealogical; Saline Valley Farms; and Visual Materials (photographs and motion pictures). The great strength of the collection are correspondence, administrative files, diaries, and visual materials documenting the operation of the Saline Valley Farms. There is significant, though smaller quantities of papers detailing Gray's opposition to serving in the military during World War I and his career as a teacher in China in the 1920s.