Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

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Collection

Harley Harris Bartlett Papers, 1909-1960

11 linear feet — 13 film reels (in 4)

Professor of botany and director of the Botanical Gardens at the University of Michigan. Correspondence, research notes, forty-nine volumes of diaries, and other papers relating to his professional career, including his botanical expeditions to South America and the Philippines and his interest in the Phoenix Project of the University of Michigan; also a history of the botany department of the University containing material on Mark W. Harrington, professor of astronomy and director of the University Observatory; and photographs.

The collection has been divided into the following series: Correspondence; Phoenix Project of the University of Michigan; Miscellaneous; Diaries; and Other Bound Records.

A significant portion of the collection is the diaries that Bartlett maintained from 1926 to 1960. Included are detailed diary entries for the period 1934-1935 when he was an exchange professor of botany at the University of the Philippines. While in the Philippines, Bartlett also compiled Philippine English vocabularies and a two-volume Sambali-English-Tagalog vocabulary.

Collection

Mary C. Bromage papers, 1862-1994 (majority within 1923-1980)

4 linear feet

Professor of Written Communication in the School of Business Administration of the University of Michigan; writer on Irish history; correspondence, family history, newspaper editorials, photographs, and topical files.

The Mary C. Bromage papers are divided into five series: Correspondence, Family History, Newspaper Editorials, Photographs and Topical.

Collection

Prentiss Marsh Brown Papers, 1902-1973

28 linear feet (in 29 boxes) — 2 oversize folders — 12 microfilms

Michigan congressman and senator, head of the U.S. Office of Price Administration; papers include correspondence, legislative files, speeches, political files, business and legal records, diaries and scrapbooks, visual materials, and sound recordings.

The Prentiss M. Brown Collection is rich and full and offers researchers materials on a variety of local and national topics reflecting the diversity of the man's private and public life. The earliest item in the collection is a letter book dated 1902-04 of James J. Brown, like his son a prominent St. Ignace attorney. The collection then picks up Prentiss M. Brown's entrance to the legal profession in 1917, traces his rise to public office, his work in Congress and with the O.P.A., and then concludes with his later business interests and his crusade upon behalf of the Mackinac Bridge.

The Brown Collection comprises approximately twenty-eight feet of correspondence, letterbooks, scrapbooks, diaries, speeches, topical and legislative files, photographs and phonograph records, and legal case files and business records. Covering the period 1917 to 1973, the papers concentrate most heavily in the years 1932-1942 when Brown was in the U.S. Congress. The greatest gap in the collection is in the period of the 1920s when Brown was making his first bids for political office. Also missing are any extensive files for the time of Brown's O.P.A. directorship. What the collection has on the O.P.A. are largely speeches, scrapbooks, and congratulatory letters.

Collection

Carlisle Family papers, 1860-1972

1.5 linear feet

Daniel Carlisle family of Buchanan, Michigan; family correspondence, diaries, and photographs.

The Carlisle family collection consists of two feet of material dating from 1860 to 1972. The papers relate to various members of the Daniel Carlisle family of Buchanan, Michigan. The collection contains correspondence between Hannah L. Carlisle and her husband, Daniel Carlisle. Include as well are letters and eight of Hannah Carlisle's diaries, written between 1885 and 1900 and largely concerning her life in Dead wood, South Dakota.

Other family members represented in the collection are William and Phyllis Carlisle and Vivian Carlisle. The letters of William D. Carlisle concern his service in the US Navy during World War II. The letters of Phyllis Carlisle relate both to her student life at the University of Michigan during the early 1940s and to her service in the Waves during the war. The letters of Vivian Carlisle were written while a student at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University during the 1940s.

Other items of interest is a folder of genealogical material and a letter written by Francis A. Carlisle while serving in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, describing his experiences.

Collection

Louis William Doll papers, 1937-1951

8 linear feet — 1 oversize folder

Bay City, Michigan, librarian, historian, and teacher; archivist of the Historical Division of the Far East Command in Japan after World War II. Diaries describing life and activities in Japan; letters from friends and family during and after the Second World War; doctoral thesis and miscellanea; and photographs.

The collection consists primarily of diaries and correspondence from the period when Doll served in Japan.

Collection

Robert W. Fletcher papers, 1950-2004

0.4 linear feet — 3 digital video files

Online

Papers include correspondence, diary, clippings, and photographs relating to his experience as a prisoner; correspondence relating to his Purple Heart award and the Prisoner of War medal. Also included a memoir by Sidney Esensten about his experience as an American P.O.W. during the Korean War.

Visual materials include photos relating to his experience as a prisoner; videotape entitled "P.O.W.--Americans in Enemy Hands" (1986), which includes interview with Fletcher; videotape of 1990 presentation by Fletcher and three Tuskegee Airmen, African American World War II aviators, describing their military experiences, and an undated videotape "Priority: P.O.W."

Collection

Josephine Fellows Gomon papers, 1913-1975

10 linear feet — 2 oversize volumes

Executive secretary to Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy, 1930-1933, chairwoman of the Mayor's Unemployment Committee, later director of the Detroit Housing Commission, candidate for Detroit public office, and director of women personnel at the Willow Run Bomber Plant during World War II. Correspondence and diaries concerning the Murphy mayoralty, Clarence Darrow and the Ossian Sweet Murder Trial of 1925, and local Detroit politics; and photographs.

The Josephine Gomon papers have been divided into the following series: Correspondence; Clippings/Scrapbooks; Notebooks of news items; Diaries; Biographical/Personal; Materials concerning Frank Murphy; Materials related to Gomon's projected biography of Frank Murphy; Ford Motor Company materials; Photographs.

Collection

Theophil Henry Hildebrandt Papers, 1887-1978 (majority within 1930-1960)

7 linear feet

Mathematician, professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan. Correspondence and other papers relating to professional and family matters, to his association with the Bethlehem Church in Ann Arbor, and to his involvement with the American Mathematical Society, especially regarding the controversy over loyalty oaths in the 1950s; also letters from family members, notably sister Martha, a school teacher, who comments on her career and her life as a single woman; and letters from son Paul during World War II; and photographs.

The papers of T.H. Hildebrandt consist of seven linear feet of materials spanning the years 1887 to 1978. The bulk of the collection falls between the years 1930 and 1960. The papers have been arranged in ten series: Biographical Material, Bethlehem Church, Compositions, Correspondence, Lectures, Notes, Organizations, Universities, Writings, and Visual Materials.

As Hildebrandt was fairly well known in his field, he corresponded with other eminent mathematicians of his time, including Eliakim Hostings Moore (with whom he had studied) and Maurice Frechet. The Hildebrandt papers are also valuable for other topics: the development of mathematical ideas and the various pressures placed on academics during the Cold War to name both two examples.

Collection

Houck, Kibler, and Smith families papers, 1853-2012 (majority within 1910-1946)

5.0 linear feet — 1 oversize box

Genealogical collection for the Houck, Kibler, and Smith families, whose ancestors settled Michigan between the 1840s and 1900s. Includes correspondence, estate records, diaries, photographs, scrapbooks, war records, and other materials.

This genealogical collection traces the roots of three Michigan families. The papers include correspondence, estate records, visual materials, and war records.

Collection

Arthur J. Lacy Papers, 1891-1975

10 linear feet — 2 oversize folders — 1 oversize volume

Detroit, Michigan, attorney and judge, Democratic candidate for governor in 1934. Correspondence, legal case files, family materials, speeches, essays, diary notes, financial materials, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, and transcript of oral interview.

The Arthur J. Lacy collection consists of correspondence and other papers documenting his political activities within the Democratic party and career as a Detroit attorney. The collection has been divided into the following series: Biographical information; Personal letters; Professional correspondence and related papers; Lacy Family papers; Speeches; Early personal materials; Writings, essays, etc.; Financial files; Miscellaneous; Newspapers clippings; Photographs; and Legal files.

The Lacy Collection documents particularly well Lacy's major legal cases (Wilson vs. White, the Ford Stock Tax Case, Mary A. Rackham Estate) and his transition from conservative Democrat to conservative Republican. His letters home from Valparaiso, Indiana and Ann Arbor and his letters to his future wife Beth Garwick give a detailed picture of college life in the 1890's. Major subjects covered in the public papers are the Detroit Domestic Relations Court, problems of taxation and banking in the depression, Lacy's friendship with James Couzens, and the campaigns of 1932 and 1934. A series of notes Lacy wrote to himself from 1915-1928 and 1946-1956 reveal his political ideals, personal morality, and his relationship to his family.

Within the Professional Correspondence and related papers series, the researcher will find correspondence with many notable political and business figures. These include John W. Anderson, William R. Angell, Art Baker, Arthur A. Ballantine, C.C. Bradner, John V. Brennan, Thomas E. Brennan, Prentiss M. Brown, Wilber M. Brucker, George E. Bushnell, Daniel T. Campau, Harvey J. Campbell, John J. Carson, E.R. Chapin, John S. Coleman, William A. Comstock, Calvin Coolidge, Grace G. Coolidge, Frank Couzens, James J. Couzens, John D. Dingell, Patrick J. Doyle, William J. Durant, Henry T. Ewald, Mordecai J.B. Ezechiel, James A. Farley, Homer Ferguson, Woodbridge N. Ferris, Clara J.B. Ford, Edsel B. Ford, Joseph Foss, Fred W. Green, Alexander J. Groesbeck, Edgar A. Guest, James M. Hare, Herbert C. Hoover, J. Edgar Hoover, Kaufman T. Keller, Stanley S. Kresge, David Lawrence, Arthur F. Lederle, John C. Lehr, Fulton Lewis, Percy Loud, William G. McAdoo, William McKinley, George A. Marston, Eliza M. Mosher, Frank Murphy, George Murphy, William J. Norton, George D. O'Brien, Elmer B. O'Hara, Hazen S. Pingree, Mary A. H. Rackham, Horace H. Rackham, Clarence A. Reid, George W. Romney, Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Alexander G. Ruthven, W.M. Skillman, Albert E. Sleeper, Edward D. Stair, Arthur E. Summerfield, William H. Taft, Joseph P. Tumulty, Arthur H. Vandenberg, A. VanderZee, Murray D. Van Wagoner, Henry F. Vaughan, Carl Vinson, Matilda R.D. Wilson, Clarence E. Wilcox, and R.A.C. Wollenberg.

The Lacy Family papers are rich in detail about life in Michigan in the nineteenth and early twentieth century; the surviving letters document family crises and Lacy's role in them as the oldest and most successful child and later, as family leader. Lacy was the family genealogist and he collected and preserved the family correspondence of his uncles and aunt, some of which date back to the 1850's.