Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Executive with the American Red Cross. Correspondence, diaries, reports, memoranda, and other materials relating to relief and refugee work during World War II in Italy, France, and Germany (Buchenwald), his work in re-establishing Red Cross societies in Austria, Hungary, and the Middle East after the war, and his survey of humanitarian problems resulting from the Palestinian conflict, 1948.

The Wilfrid de St. Aubin collection consists of seven feet of correspondence, reports, memoranda, and other official papers covering his Red Cross work during World War II and the immediate postwar period. Of special interest is a letter and report written by St. Aubin containing his impression and observations of the Buchenwald concentration camp. St. Aubin was one of the first to come to the camp after its liberation. There are also diaries which provide added background and detail of St. Aubin's varied career.

The Thomas M. Spaulding collection has been arranged into the following series: Correspondence and other materials; Biographical and Personal; Organizational Affiliations; Political Materials; Topical Files; Writings; Stephen Tucker Spaulding Materials; and Photographs. The correspondence is of interest for its mention of current affairs, national politics, and the Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C. Of special interest are two volumes of diaries, covering the period of 1941-1944, with detailed comments on the conduct of World War II as viewed from Washington, D.C.

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.

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."

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.

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.

The Ludwig Family Papers document the lives of members of the Ludwig family from the time of their arrival in the United States of America in 1733, through 1985. This collection includes family histories, scrapbooks, and family photographs. Also included in the collection are both personal and professional papers of Claud Cecil Ludwig, Frederick E. Ludwig, and Ruby Newman Ludwig.

The Ludwig Family record group covers a period of time from the 1850s to the 1980s. The collection of information documenting the history of the Ludwig family includes family histories, ancestral charts, and a large collection of photographic materials. The diaries and scrapbooks included in the collection describe everyday life during the periods covered. The collection is particularly strong in documenting the lives of Claud Cecil Ludwig and Frederick E. Ludwig.

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.

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.

University of Michigan professor of political science, special advisor to the U.S. Military Government in Germany after World War II, participant in numerous government commissions; papers include correspondence, working files, speeches, course materials, and visual and sound materials.

The James K. Pollock papers represent an accumulation of files from a lifetime of academic teaching and research and an extraordinary number of public service responsibilities to both his state and his nation. The files within the collection fall into two categories: types of document (such as correspondence, speeches and writings, visual materials, etc.) and files resulting from a specific activity or position (such as his work as delegate to the Michigan Constitutional Convention or his service with the Office of the Military Government in Germany after World War II).

The collection is large and of a complicated arrangement because of Pollock's many activities. When received in 1969, the files were maintained as received; very little processing was done to the collection so that an inventory to the papers could be quickly prepared. The order of material is that devised by James K. Pollock and his secretarial staff in the U-M Department of Political Science. Recognizing the anomalies within the order of the collection, the library made the decision to list the contents to the collection while at the same time preparing a detailed card file index (by box and folder number, i.e. 16-8) to significant correspondents and subjects. While there was much to be said for this method of preparing a finding aid expeditiously, it also covered up some problems in arrangement. Thus series and subseries of materials are not always grouped together as they were created by Pollock. Files on the Hoover Commission and the Michigan Constitutional Convention, for example, come before Pollock's work in Germany after the war. In 1999, effort was made to resolve some of the inconsistencies and obvious misfilings of the first inventory but because of the numbering system used in 1969 and the card index prepared for the files, there are still some problems. Researchers should be alert to these difficulties and take time to examine different parts of the collection for material on a similar topic.