Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Michigan State Police officer, 1923-1941, Michigan Civil Defense Director during World War II, State Police Commissioner, 1947-1951, Republican candidate for governor, 1954, served on Michigan Liquor Commissioner and as Detroit Recorders Court judge. Papers include extensive documentation of his service as Director of Civil Defense and State Police Commissioner and his political activities.

The Donald S. Leonard collection is a valuable resource to researchers studying topics of law enforcement and civil defense and Michigan state politics and government. The Donald S. Leonard collection has been arranged into seven series: Personal and Correspondence, 1925-1966; Civil Defense; World War II Era, 1941-1946; Michigan State Police, 1929-1952; Detroit Police Department, 1952-1954; Political Files, 1950-1956; Organization and Activities Files; Audio-Visual Materials; Committee on Equal Educational Opportunities. Leonard also taught law course at the State Police Recruit School and Metropolitan Police Academy of Michigan.

Republican U.S. Senator from Michigan, U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines; files relating to his various career responsibilities, photographs, sound recordings.

The Homer Ferguson collection has been divided into eleven series based primarily upon the important phases of his public life: Personal; Circuit Judgeship; Senate Career; Interregnum: November 1954 - April 1955; Hoover Commission; Philippine Ambassadorship; United States Court of Military Appeals; Inter-Parliamentary Union; Photographs, Sound Recordings, and Myrtle Ferguson Papers.

Owen J. Cleary was an attorney, president of Cleary College in Ypsilanti (1940-1960), Michigan secretary of state (1953-1954), and chairman of the Republican State Central Committee (1949-1953). The collection includes correspondence, scrapbooks and clippings, organizational files, and Republican Party files.

The collection documents the later period of Cleary's life, mainly from 1945 to 1959. The series include Correspondence; Scrapbooks and clippings; Organizational interests; and Political files.

The great bulk of the collection consists of correspondence dated from 1945 to 1959 and documenting his work as Republican State chairman (1949-1953), his tenure as Michigan secretary of state (1953-1954), and his various other civic, political, and business involvements. There is included with this finding aid a selective index to Cleary's correspondents.