Collections

Conservationist, professor of natural resources at the University of Michigan. Professional files, including correspondence, speeches, and newspaper clippings; letters to his wife, 1943-1946, while in military service stationed in the Solomon Islands during World War II; and photographs.

The Leonard collection consists of thirteen linear feet of materials, most of which is correspondence, both personal and professional. There are also biographical and genealogical information, clippings, speeches, research notes, photographs, printed materials, and miscellaneous writings. The collection has been arranged into the following series: World War II service; Professional Correspondence; Topical Information; Topical files; Organizational/People file; and Photographs.

The Kan Nakamura journal translations include one manuscript and one typed translations of a journal kept by a young Japanese officer during the Second World War while serving with one of the regiments stationed on Guadalcanal. The two translations contain over 120 minor, factual, and meaningful variations.

Kan Nakamura's journal exposes the mind of a young Japanese officer during the Second World War, serving with one of the highly disciplined, but outmanned regiments stationed on Guadalcanal. A young officer, apparently fresh out of a military academy, Nakamura is a sympathetic figure, motivated but sensitive, a man who yearns for home, fears combat, but who guts out the worst conditions of hunger, disease, death, and threat from the air.

Although the journal entries are brief and often perfunctory, and although he took part in little actual combat on Guadalcanal, Nakamura's journal is a valuable record of the first major land battle in the Pacific involving American forces as seen from the Japanese perspective. It is particularly useful for revealing the emotional and mental preparation of a typical Japanese junior officer and provides revealing glimpses of day-to-day service during the worst period of the Battle of Guadalcanal, as well as the hardships experienced by the entrenched forces.

The typescript translation (23 pages) from the original Japanese was purportedly made in April, 1943, shortly after the American victory at Guadalcanal. It was presumably translated by American intelligence agents interested in information on Japanese troop movements, strength, or strategy, but it contains no information about Nakamura's fate.

The manuscript translation (57 pages) title page states "Diary of / Kan Makamura [sic.] / Probational Officer / of / Sano Gronze Shoji / Butai Takizawa Butai / Matsungo Tai / September 19, 1942 / to / January 8, 1943". At the back of the manuscript volume is a 1-page word list in English and "Morovo" [Marovo] followed by the name M. K. Raina, Seventh Day Adventist Mission, Batuna, Marovo Lagoon, British Solomon Islands.

The two translations contain over 120 minor (i.e. I am very happy vs. I feel very happy), factual (i.e. This makes 16 persons from my platoon vs. This makes 6 persons we lost from my platoon), and meaningful variations (I took a look vs. I took a bath), plus frequent alternate spellings of places and names. In addition, the typescript notes days of the week and the manuscript does not; the manuscript notes weather conditions after each date and the typescript does not until September 24, 1942.

Urban planning specialist. Reports, sketches, and other material relating to the development of the Willow Run Bomber Plant area in Wayne County, Michigan, during World War II; studies of the proposed Detroit Civic Center, 1952; also papers concerning his later work as planning director in Santa Clara County, California; letter from Frank Lloyd Wright; and sketchbooks with drawings and watercolors of buildings and scenes in Europe, the United States, and Taiwan; also photographs of Belser.

Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan, 1936-1957, previously professor at the University of Munich, internationally known for his work on radioactivity; papers include extensive correspondence files, lectures and publications, personal/biographical material and photographs.

The papers of Kasimir Fajans, professor of chemistry at the University of Michigan from 1936 to 1957, cover his career as a physical chemist dating from 1912 to 1975.

Professor of drama at University of Michigan, chairman of the Committee on War Activities of the American Educational Theatre Association, and secretary of the Theatre for Victory Council during World War II. Files concerning his war activities, including correspondence, scripts, course materials and printed matter; and photographs.

The Kenneth Rowe Collection, though covering the period 1940-1953, largely concerns the years of World War II and the activities of Rove as chairman of the Committee on War Activities for the American Educational Theatre Association (AETA); as secretary of the Theatre for Victory Council; as consultant to the National Theatre Conference (NTC), official agency for all dramatic activities of the Combined Armed Forces; and as drama consultant to the U.S. Department of Treasury, the Office of Civil Defense, and the Office of Education. Rowe's work in all of these efforts concerned the use of drama as a propaganda tool to raise morale and to define America's goals.

The Rowe collection consists of two linear feet of correspondence, reports, newsletters, play scripts, and printed material. The collection begins with general correspondence followed by files which have been arranged by the name of theatre organizations in which Rove was involved.

Papers of several generations of Laramy and DeBlonde families of Grand Rapids, Mich. Correspondence constitutes most of the collection. Of special interest are Richard C. Laramy Sr. World War II-period letters written to his family, as well as letters written by James E. Laramy as a Univeristy of Michigan student in 1969-1972. Also included family photographs and photos of the members of the Grand Rapids Central High School Class of 1902, WWII regimental reunion materials and military papers, blank postcards depicting locations in Michigan, as well as a small amount of University of Michigan miscellanea.

The collection includes correspondence, photographs, and other materials that document the lives of two Grand Rapids, Mich. families. The Laramy family materials are more prominent in the collection.

Michigan-born newspaperman; correspondence and diaries relating to his professional career.

The collection is comprised of two series: Correspondence and Diaries. The letters are to members of his family describing his journalistic activities and political events of the day. There are letters with observations about Governor Hiram Johnson of California (1910-1917), comments about suffrage for women, 1911-1920, impressions about the two World Wars, and the Progressive Party campaign of Henry Wallace in 1948. The diaries, 1934-1936, discuss his daily life, American politics during the New Deal, and international relations particularly with the Soviet Union.

This collection contains 10 letters that Lee and Grace De Graff and their son, Lee De Graff, Jr., received from men serving in the United States Armed Forces during and just after the Second World War.

This collection contains 10 letters that Lee and Grace De Graff and their son, Lee De Graff, Jr., received from members of the United States Armed Forces during and just after the Second World War. The first items are a letter in which Private Frederick T. Davis commented on machine gun training at the Air Forces Technical School at Lowry Field, Colorado (January 2, 1942), and a letter from Staff Sergeant Buddy Montana, a relative of the De Graff family, about his busy schedule and his correspondence habits (January 27, 1944).

The De Graffs' nephew, sailor Hugh Brown ("Hughie"), wrote 5 letters while stationed on P.C. 494 and serving in the Philippines from June 1944-April 1946. He requested information about family members in New York and provided his impressions of the Philippines; in one letter to Lee De Graff, Jr., Brown described local women (June 9, 1945). In another letter, he commented on the recent success of the New York Yankees, whom he followed while recovering from tonsillitis in a Brooklyn hospital, enclosing 5 humorous (unrelated) cartoons (April 6, 1946). By the end of the war, Brown was stationed in Subic Bay, Luzon, and intended to return home and marry a woman named Peggy (undated).

Lee and Grace De Graff also received a letter and a Christmas card from Private William W. Kosboth of the 304th Medical Battalion, as well as a V-mail letter from William H. Whipple, who included a Christmas card from the 14th Air Force ([1945]). The final item is a typed speech by M. A. De Graff urging donations for the Second Red Cross War Fund (undated).

Journalist, free-lance writer, radio commentator, and professor of journalism, University of Michigan, 1956-1969. The collection contains copies of newspaper clippings, correspondence, articles by and about Stowe, and photographs of Stowe and his wife. The materials document Stowe's coverage of the Spanish Civil War and the resulting FBI surveillance of him, his coverage of World War II, his work for Reader's Digest, and his career as a University of Michigan journalism professor. The collection also includes poetry and biographical prose by Stowe.

This collection contains copies and clippings of Stowe's writings, articles about Stowe and his career, and documentation of Stowe's years as a University of Michigan professor. Stowe pulled these materials together for the Bentley quite self-consciously. Although most of Stowe's original papers are maintained in a collection at the Mass Communications History Center of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, this collection is notable for the annotations made by Stowe and for his selection process. It also contains small amounts of original correspondence.

The Letters, Documents, and Other Manuscripts of the Duane Norman Diedrich Collection is a selection of individual items compiled by manuscript collector Duane Norman Diedrich (1935-2018) and the William L. Clements Library. The content of these materials reflect the life and interests of D. N. Diedrich, most prominently subjects pertinent to intellectual, artistic, and social history, education, speech and elocution, the securing of speakers for events, advice from elders to younger persons, and many others.

The Letters, Documents, and Other Manuscripts of the Duane Norman Diedrich Collection is a selection of individual items compiled by manuscript collector Duane Norman Diedrich (1935-2018) and the William L. Clements Library. The content of these materials reflect the life and interests of D. N. Diedrich, most prominently subjects pertinent to intellectual, artistic, and social history, education, speech and elocution, the securing of speakers for events, advice from elders to younger persons, and many others.

For an item-level description of the collection, with information about each manuscript, please see the box and folder listing below.