Search

The Women, Gender, and Family collection contains miscellaneous individual items relating to women, gender, and family primarily in America, between 1678 and 1996.

The Women, Gender, and Family collection contains miscellaneous items relating to women, gender, and family between 1678 and 1996. The bulk of the collection ranges in from 1800 to the early 20th century and is geographically focused on the United States of America. Topics include marriage and divorce, childrearing and motherhood, household management, and consensual and coerced sex. Other areas of interest cover women’s various forms of labor, legal restitution for paternity suits and financial support, and education for women and children. While not as heavily represented, multiple items detail women's engagement in politics, slavery and abolition, and women's rights.

The records of the Women's League of the University of Michigan contain the League's constitution and articles of incorporation, reports, correspondence, minutes of the League and of women students' governing bodies, scrapbooks, presidents reports, and photographs; letters from Ella Wheeler Wilcox and William Dean Howells; also papers of Edith M. Wheeler and Sarah Mills Gayley Browne.

The records of the Women's League date from 1890 to 1965 and measure 33 linear feet. The records are divided into eight series: Women's League (records of the organization), Michigan League (records of the building), Administrative, Students, Union-League Merger, Photographs, and Scrapbooks and Architectural records. The records span the life of the organization and are especially strong for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however many of the subseries include records for only a year or two. The bulk of the records are President's Reports, which consist of two to five large bound volumes for each academic year. The subseries in the last five series are arranged alphabetically by type of material, and many are continuations of subseries from the first two series which were from an earlier accession.

The Women's Research Club of the University of Michigan was founded in 1902 in response to the exclusion of women from the recently established all-male research clubs. Records include minutes, correspondence and reports of club officers and committees, papers concerning the club anniversaries, and photographs.

Records of the Women's Research Club include minutes, 1902-1999; correspondence, 1903-1939 and 1952-1994; membership lists 1904-1999; financial records 1903-1999; correspondence and reports of club officers and committees, including Loan Fund materials; papers concerning the 25th, 50th, 75th, 85th and 90th anniversaries; relationships with the men's research club; histories, memorials, photographs, and clippings.

This collection of 22 items bearing printed letterheads from various women's suffrage organizations. A portion of the collection is blank stationery. The correspondence relates to expenses, event planning, donation solicitations, and advocacy efforts. The majority originated from organizations based in Boston, Massachusetts. One letter has an anti-suffrage tone.

• Bay County League of Women Voters (Bay City, Mich.)
• Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage
• The Empire State Campaign Committee (New York, N.Y.)
• Equal Suffrage League
• Leslie Woman Suffrage Commission, Inc. (New York, N.Y.)
• Leslie Woman Suffrage Continuing Committee (New York, N.Y.)
• Marcus Ward Company Incorporated
• Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association
• National American Woman Suffrage Association (New York, N.Y.)
• New York State Woman Suffrage Association
• Springfield Equal Suffrage League
• Suffrage Referendum State Committee
• Suffrage Study Club (Sea Cliff, N.Y.)
• The Woman's Journal and Suffrage News

The Wood family papers contain correspondence and other items related to the family of James A. Wood of Lebanon, Connecticut, and his descendants from the mid-19th to the early 20th century. Much of the content pertains to education, family news, and politics.

The Wood family papers (4 linear feet) contain correspondence and other items related to the family of James A. Wood of Lebanon, Connecticut, and his descendants from the mid-19th to the early 20th century.

The Correspondence series comprises almost all of the collection. Early items are incoming letters to James A. Wood, Rebecca D. Pillsbury (later Wood), and their daughter, Helen Elizabeth Wood, from family members and acquaintances. James A. Wood's siblings wrote with updates on their lives, such as Caroline E. Wood's teaching career in numerous towns throughout New York. Rebecca D. Pillsbury also received letters from her brothers and sisters, and both Wood's and Pillsbury's correspondents discussed family matters, religion, and local news. Margaret Ann's letter of December 3, 1860, concerns her affection for a deceased baby sister, and an unidentified author's letter of September 4, 1861, describes the recent death of a grandmother. James A. Wood received an increasing amount of business-related correspondence, including letters from Charles W. Pierce, in the 1870s.

After the 1870s, most letters are addressed to Rebecca D. Wood and her daughter, Helen Elizabeth Wood. Rebecca's children often wrote letters to their mother, and Helen received letters from cousins and friends from around the East Coast. George P. Wood, Helen's brother, often shared stories of his young son James and of his life in Baltimore, Maryland; Washington, D. C.; and Peekskill, New York. In one letter, George included a map showing the location of his home in Washington, D. C. (November 13, 1899).

In addition to family and social news, letters occasionally referred to current events. "Dana," one of Helen E. Wood's cousins, wrote from his United States Army post during World War I (December 28, 1917), and other friends discussed the impact of the war. Among Helen's correspondents were Ida McCollister of New Hampshire and Harry Sawyer, an old friend who shared news of his life in Kearney, Nebraska. In one later letter, George P. Wood expressed some of his political views about the 1924 presidential election (October 27, 1924). Correspondence was less frequent after Helen E. Wood's death in 1933, with most incoming letters addressed to Winchester R. Wood of Lynn, Massachusetts, a member of the family's Connecticut branch. Undated items include similar family correspondence, as well as one letter written on a printed program for the Public Meeting of the Philadelphian Society at Kimball Union Academy at Meridian, New Hampshire, on June 12, 1878.

The Essays series includes an "Autobiography of a Sofa," written by R[ebecca] D. Pillsbury, as well as a manuscript draft of the "Common School Repository...Published semi-monthly by L. J. Boynton & R[ebecca] D. Pillsbury," containing 8 pages of short pieces attributed, often only by first name, to various contributors.

Among the six Receipts, addressed to A. Wood (1 item) and Helen E. Wood (5 items) are two receipts for Helen E. Wood's educational expenses and two slips crediting her account at Citizens National Bank, Boston.

Maps and Blueprints comprise 7 items. These are several drawings of house layouts, one map showing the locations of two buildings, and two blueprints.

The Newspaper Clippings series has 6 items, one of which is an article entitled "What They Say: How Girls of Various Cities Behave When They are Kissed."

The Ephemera series contains 52 Christmas cards, greeting cards, postcards, calling cards, programs, and other printed items. Specific items include 2 Red Cross membership cards, a pamphlet advertising The Art of Living Long by Louis Cornaro, and a blank order sheet for Sears, Roebuck and Co. from the 1920s.

The Woodruffs were a lumbering family from Ludington, Michigan. The collection includes clippings, correspondence and photographs. The Woodruff family materials contain photo books and prints of the University of Michigan area during the 1890s, and correspondence home to the family from U-M students. The Marin family materials include information on Axel Marin's career as a University of Michigan professor, and photographs of Michigan football, ca. 1940.

The Woodruff-Marin papers contain information about Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan, and greater Michigan. The bulk of the collection consists of photographs taken by Eugene C. Woodruff between 1890 and 1896. The collection is arranged into two series, the Woodruff Family Papers and the Marin Family Papers.

The Woods family papers chronicle the establishment of an important family in western Virginia during the 18th and early 19th centuries. While the bulk of the collection pertains to Archibald Woods' (1764-1846) activities as a surveyor and land speculator in Ohio County, the collection also contains several letters from later generations of the family, and documents relating to military and public affairs, including the War of 1812.

The Woods family papers chronicle the establishment of an important family in western Virginia during the 18th and early 19th centuries. While the bulk of the collection pertains to Archibald Woods' (1764-1846) activities as a surveyor and land speculator in Ohio County, the collection also contains several letters from later generations of the family, and documents relating to military and public affairs. A series of land surveys of the Ohio Valley, prepared by Archibald Woods, has been arranged and placed at the end of the collection, and two land documents relating to Woods property are also present in Oversize Manuscripts, a 1774 deed signed by Dunmore granting lands in Botetourt County and an 1820 grant signed by James Monroe for lands in Ohio.

The collection includes a petition relating to the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798. Addressed to the Senate and House of Representatives of Virginia from the citizens of Ohio County, the petition includes thirty nine signatures protesting the Acts. The signers expressed their concern regarding what they saw as a violation of the Constitution, and asserted that the acts were a "serious cause of alarm" for the citizens of Ohio County, whom, they noted, continued to adhere to the Democratic principles of the American Revolution.

During the time that Andrew Woods served as sheriff of Botetourt County, 1777-1780, he kept a small, deerskin-bound notebook of his activities including receipts and notes on the collection of taxes and fees. There are also sporadic family business records. Included are an agreement for disposition of property including land, livestock, and enslaved persons (named Herod [Bin?], Sip, Ceasar, and Nanas). A copy of a contract between siblings Andrew, Martha, and Archibald (likely Andrew Woods' children) for the care of Martha Poage Woods and arrangements for the purchase of an enslaved person for Elijah Woods is also present. The contract provided for clothing, food, and shelter and, if Martha chose "to go back over the mountains," to provide an enslaved person to care for her.

Over fifty surveys and treasury warrants document Archibald Woods' importance as a surveyor and land speculator in the Ohio River Valley. Many of these can be positively traced to land that today lies in the state of West Virginia, mostly in the panhandle, but, Woods owned property throughout Ohio County, which then included parts of Ohio and a corner of Pennsylvania. A contemporary range and township map assists in situating Woods' land holdings.

Seven printed orders, each unique, or nearly unique, include information about troop recruitment and deployment during the War of 1812, and about demobilization at the end of the war. Among other documents in the collection are Archibald Woods' commissions and resignations.

There is little true correspondence in the Woods family papers, although one item, a letter from Joe Woods, is of some interest. In this letter written to his mother, Woods summarizes his reasons for transferring to Princeton, assuring her of his sound character and his decision. William Woods' ledger and daybook from 1828 and Hamilton Woods' cypher book from ca. 1820s are also present in the collection. The collection contains a photograph album with cartes-de-visite, cabinet cards, and other photos from around the 1870s and 1880s, as well as approximately 0.5 linear feet of photographs of Woods family members, particularly Ruth Woods and Charles Moss from the early 20th century, and the Woods family homestead.

Finally, the collection contains useful information about the Woods family estate, Woodsdale. Three documents from 1815-1816 provide floor plans and a record of construction costs, and there are two copy photographs of the house as it stood before its demolition in 1949. In 1976-77, Ruth Moss described the physical layout of the home and grounds as she recalled them, as well as her memories of life at Woodsdale in the early part of the century. An additional 0.25 linear feet of Ruth Moss's genealogical research on the Woods family is also present.

The Wright family collection consists primarily of correspondence related to the Morfit family and to Wilbur and Orville Wright's uncle, John Wright.

The Wright family collection consists primarily of correspondence related to the Morfit family and to Wilbur and Orville Wright's uncle, John Wright. Several of the items in the collection relate to Henry Mason Morfit, John Wright's attorney, and to his son Campbell, including a series of letters from mid-1853 chronicling Wright's attempt to secure a patent for improvements to reapers and mining machines. Also included is a document dated May 26, 1852, in which Wright formally gave Morfit power of attorney in the matter. Other Wright items include a letter from Danforth P. Wright to Henry Wright, dated October 24, 1842, asking for genealogical information to be added to a history of the family. In addition to the John Wright letters, the collection also holds several items written to Campbell Morfit, Henry's son, mentioning his academic work at the University of Maryland. Later material in the collection includes a 1919 letter detailing the provenance of the John Wright papers, written on stationary from the Aero Club of America, and a 1940 letter composed by Orville Wright's secretary, confirming the Wright brothers' appreciation for the work of Lilienthal and Chanute.

Philo E. and Fannie E. Pettibone Wright family of Detroit, Michigan. Personal papers of Fannie Wright with her husband Philo, her brother Sherman Pettibone, her daughters Virginia, Maude, and Evelyn, her son Philo S., and other members of the family, concerning family affairs and the genealogy of the Wright and Pettibone families.

The collection has been arranged by name of family member. Included is personal correspondence of Fannie Wright with her husband Philo E., her brother Sherman Pettibone, daughters Virginia, Maude, and Evelyn, son Philo S., and other members of the family, concerning family affairs and the genealogy of the Wright and Pettibone families. There are also fifty-seven volumes of Fannie E. Wright's diaries, 1863-1925, recording family news, social events, and home activities in Detroit, Michigan. Also of interest are account books of the Sherman Pettibone farm of Tallmadge, Ohio, and account books of Philo S. Wright, 1893-1913. Photographs in the collection consist of individual and group portraits of family members; photographs of family homes; and photographs of boating on the Detroit River.

The Yacht Vergana photograph album contains approximately 190 photographs related to the lifestyle and friends of a New York-based yacht owner.

The Yacht Vergana photograph album contains approximately 190 photographs related to the lifestyle and friends of a New York-based yacht owner. The album (18 x 26 cm) is fully bound in brown leather. Images of interest include views taken in and around Long Island Sound, including the torpedo boat Ericsson at the Greenport dock; shell races at Poughkeepsie, with spectators aboard the steamboat Chester W. Chapin; Luna Park on Coney Island; various sailing and steam vessels on Long Island Sound; Prospect Park in Brooklyn; the racing yacht Flint's Arrow; a group of nurses from the Flower Free Hospital on a shipboard outing; buildings in Greenport; Sir Thomas Lipton's yacht, Erin; cadets at West Point; the steamboat Orient and her crew; the yacht Vergana; Long Island Railroad snow plows; and an automobile race at the Riverhead Fair (according to laid-in caption). Other photographs include beach scenes, fishing boats, family and friends onboard the Vergana and other vessels, and unidentified street views possibly taken on Long Island. A number of photographs include manuscript captions.