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The Michigan Historical Collections Topical Photograph Collection offer a broad and varied glimpse into nearly one hundred years of Michigan history, from the 1860s into the 1950s. The provenance of most of the photographs has been lost and therefore these images have been grouped together by subject into an artificial accumulation. Subjects depicted range from industry and transportation to clothing styles and social customs.

The photographs in this collection were received from various sources. Subjects include carriages, automobiles, Great Lakes shipping, railroads, and mass transit, especially street railroads. There are also images documenting activities within the mining, forestry, and lumber industries, mostly in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Also included are photographs of various ethnic groups and their societies, notably of Native Americans (1870s-1930s) of the Manistee and Ludington, Michigan, areas. Some of the images are street views and private residences in various Michigan towns and cities. Of interest are photographs of Michigan units taking part in the Spanish-American War and the "Polar Bear Expedition" of World War I. There is also a series of bookplates, [acquired from?] William H. Bicknell, many of which relate to the University of Michigan.

Titled "American Murders 1675 - 1900 A Bibliography of American Murder Trials and Cases by Thomas M. McDade," these six black three-ring notebooks are a typed working draft of The Annals of Murder: A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on American Murders from Colonial Times to 1900, published in 1961 by the University of Oklahoma Press. The draft contains McDade's manuscript revisions, additions, and notes, as well as a few laid-in library call slips and suggested corrections sent to McDade after the release of the publication.

Titled "American Murders 1675 - 1900 A Bibliography of American Murder Trials and Cases by Thomas M. McDade," these six black three-ring notebooks are a typed working draft of The Annals of Murder: A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on American Murders from Colonial Times to 1900, published in 1961 by the University of Oklahoma Press. The draft contains McDade's manuscript revisions, additions, and notes, as well as a few laid-in library call slips and suggested corrections sent to McDade after the release of the publication. Each volume bears one or more ownership stamps: "Thomas M. McDade / 83 Purchase Street / Purchase, New York" and/or "Thomas M. McDade / Scotland Yard / Purchase, New York."

While the notebooks are undated, they are all the same size and form; one has "Handbook for Salesmen of General Foods Sales Co., Inc." gold-colored text on the cover. Thoms M. McDade began working for the company in 1946 and moved to Purchase, New York, in 1956. He received funding from the University of Oklahoma Press for the project through the Ford Foundation in the 1950s.

The working draft is arranged alphabetically by the name of the perpetrator/s of a capital crime, or victim/s name if the perpetrator's name was unknown—the same arrangement as the published bibliography. Most of the sheets in the notebooks contain a description of a crime, bibliographical entry, and/or sources or locations where copies of the book/pamphlet/broadside/etc. could be found.

Laid in and stapled in items include communications or notes that postdate the 1961 publication of the volume. One, for example, is a May 31, 1961, postcard sent to McDade giving a collation of John T. James' The Benders in Kansas (1913). Another example is a 1962 postcard from the New York Historical Society offering a correction to bibliographic entries 819 and 820, stating that they should both read the "life of Miss Ellen" and not "life of Miss Helen."

Other materials laid into the volumes include bookplates of the Law Library at the University of Missouri, filled-out library call slips, notes of sermons looked at by McDade at the American Antiquarian Society, and more.