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The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring Michigan District is a Jewish fraternal organization. The records cover the period between 1934 and 2007 and consist primarily of minutes, newsletters, correspondence, newspaper clippings, press releases, yearbooks, event announcements, programs, photographs, publications and posters.

The records of the Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring cover the period between 1934 and 2007. The record group consists primarily of minutes, newsletters, correspondence, newspaper clippings, press releases, yearbooks, event announcements, programs, photographs, publications and posters. The records are arranged into four series: Administrative, Local Branches, Community Activities/Topical Files, and Events.

Workshop organized by University of Michigan faculty that investigates the causes, circumstances, and consequences of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Records detail the activities of the Workshop, including administrative functions and papers, materials from the Workshops themselves, and Workshop projects. Also included are materials related to the scope and topic of the Workshops.

The Workshop for Armenian/Turkish Scholarship (WATS) consists of records and related material from the WATS archives. The records are divided into five series: Administrative, Workshops, WATS Projects, and Related Materials. The collection was organized by Nora Nercessian prior to being presented to the Bentley Historical Library. The arrangement and description done by Nercessian has largely been retained.

University of Michigan radio station, founded 1948. Administrative records documenting the development of radio broadcasting at the University of Michigan; radio scripts, technical specifications, publicity, scrapbooks, and photographs; and sound recordings of radio programs produced and broadcast by WUOM and affiliate stations, as well as recordings of various University conferences, ceremonies, etc.

The records of radio station WUOM document the development of radio broadcasting at the University of Michigan from the 1920s through the 2000s. A significant amount of material dates from the founding of the campus radio station WUOM in 1948. The records include administrative files; scripts, publicity material, course guides and other program related material; and recordings of select broadcasts. Additional materials include the records of affiliate stations, namely WFUM in Flint, which documents the station's facilities and operations, photographs of events, and programming guides.

Yale Kamisar, the Clarence Darrow Distinguished University Professor, was a professor in the University of Michigan Law School from 1965 to 2004. An expert in criminal law, particularly the exclusionary rule of the Fourth Amendment and the Miranda right based on the Fifth Amendment, Kamisar was a proponent of defendant rights, and wrote extensively on the subject. In the 1960s, his arguments were influential as Chief Justice Earl Warren's Supreme Court ruled on several key defendants' rights issues, such as search and seizure (Mapp v. Ohio), guaranteed legal counsel to the poor (Gideon v. Wainwright), the right to counsel while in custody (Escobedo v. Illinois), and the right to remain silent (Miranda v. Arizona). Kamisar also wrote and lectured extensively on assisted suicide, euthanasia, and mercy killing. His collection consists of research topical files; speech, debate, lecture, and presentation files; teaching files; and writings.

The Yale Kamisar papers include biographical information, topical files, correspondence with law school colleagues, Supreme Court justices, judges, lawyers, and students. They also include teaching files and articles on constitutional and criminal law, particularly the exclusionary rule and the Miranda rule, as well as material on Kamisar’s work on assisted suicide, euthanasia, and mercy-killing and other topics. The papers are divided into four series: Research Topical Files; Speech, Debate, Lecture, and Presentation Files; Teaching Files; and Writings.

The Year 2000 Information Campaign was formed as part of the University's concern and overall plan to insure that the information systems used on campus would not be affected by the "Millennium Bug"-- the possibility that computer systems would not properly process date values with the turn of the century. Records include the Year 2000 Information Campaign website as of Nov. 2000. The website includes information created to assist university units in understanding the year 2000 problem and a methodology for the assessment of information systems. The website includes memoranda from executive officers, quarterly reports, a white paper, and a series of announcements under the title "Bug Bytes."

The Year 2000 Information Campaign WEBSITE series, first captured via File Transfer Protocol in October 2000 includes the entire contents of the Year 2000 Information Campaign website. The WEBSITE series includes 71 HTML files, 8 PowerPoint files, 11 Microsoft Word files, and 5 GIF files. The website target audience was University of Michigan units. The website includes information to assist units in understanding what the Year 2000 problem consisted of and provided individual units with a methodology for the assessment of their information systems. The series consists of four subseries: University of Michigan Year 2000 Activities, University of Michigan Unit Action, University of Michigan Year 2000 Working Groups, and Year 2000 Announcements. As noted in the access requirements section, the origin directory structure of the website was maintained. When accessing a subseries however, note that the original structure was essentially flat.

Branch of the YMCA; Annual reports, clippings, correspondence, financial records, minutes of meetings, photographs, press releases, published materials, rosters, and scrapbooks; also includes collected branch records for the Railroad branch, 1877-1890, and the Downtown branch, 1890-1909; and publication, Detroit Young Men, 1911-1922.

The records of the Metropolitan Offices of the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit consist of annual reports, correspondence, financial materials, minutes (Secretary's records), photographs, published brochures and pamphlets, and scrapbooks. The materials document, somewhat unevenly, the efforts of the YMCA to tend to the spiritual, physical, and social needs of the young men in Detroit. The strengths of this record group are in its minutes (Secretary's records) and photographs, each of which provides detailed and telling insight into the development of Detroit and the YMCA from the nineteenth century to 2006. The scrapbooks created by the YMCA, 1936-1973, are also of interest in that they accurately reflect all newspaper coverage of YMCA events and activities for this decade.

The records have been arranged in four series: Administration, Secretary's Records, Visual Materials, and Scrapbooks.

The Ypsilanti Campaign for Equality (YCFE) organization was formed in about 2001 to contest a ballot proposal that would have removed sexual orientation protections from the Ypsilanti City Charter. This record group comprises the material they amassed during their campaign; it includes budgets, planning documents, literature, and press coverage.

This record group is divided into three series: 2002 Campaign (0.7 linear feet, 2001-2002), Digital Records (150 MB, 2001-2002) and Ypsilanti Campaign for Equality and Elizabeth Warren Eddins vs. Ypsilanti City Clerk, City of Ypsilanti, Washtenaw County Election Commission and Washtenaw County Clerk (0.2 linear feet, 1998-2002).

This is the official collection of Central Michigan University’s Orchesis Dance Troupe, and also documents the CMU career of its found, Yvette Birs Crandall, and her impact on Orchesis and its students, performances, practices, workshops, and social events, mainly 1967-2010, with a few materials postdating that through 2023.

This is the official collection of Central Michigan University’s Orchesis Dance Troupe, and also documents the CMU career of its found, Yvette Birs Crandall, and her impact on Orchesis and its students, performances, practices, workshops, and social events, mainly 1967-2010, with a few materials postdating that through 2023. The collection also includes a small amount of material documenting earlier CMU dance instructors, including Grace Ryan, country dancing classes, and performances, formal dances, possibly Sadie Hawkins dances, as well as social dances at CMU, 1928-1967, in photographs and a scrapbook, which Crandall likely inherited from prior CMU instructors. Yvette’s Wisconsin and CMU University papers and research materials, related to movement and dance, and photographs of and clippings about her (see Box 1) and her published reviews on music, dance, and theatre in the Midland Daily News, 1991-1992 (see Box 5) complete the collection. A list of performances was compiled by Archivist Marian Matyn from documentation in the collection and is found in Orchesis, Programs, 1969-1979 (in Box 2).

Nearly complete, the collection provides excellent documentation of Orchesis and how crucial Crandall was to its success and vitality. All aspects or Orchesis are documented in this collection including advertising, auditions, welcoming or “initiations” of new members, graduating senior events, performances, choreographer’s workshops, social events, travels, competitions, training, backstage preparations, classes, costume and makeup design, choreography, , and participation in CMU events such as country dancing and doing dance movements after a float in Homecoming parades and dancing in Madrigals. Orchesis also performed at various local institutions, such as Mid-Michigan Community College. In 1969 Orchesis performed Peter and the Wolf, for which they received hand printed thank you notes and hand drawn art from elementary school children at Longview Elementary School in Midland, Michigan. Because the children’s materials was very acidic, they were photocopied. In the early 2000s Orchesis performed with Dance Umbrella dancers. Dance Umbrella is an international modern dance festival.

The collection also provides important evidence of how one woman successfully built and expanded a nationally recognized modern dance company from scratch composed mainly of female students. When compared to the CMU Athletics collection, it is clear that she did not have the resources nor the support accorded the more traditional recognized athletic programs which merited CMU published programs and posters, so Crandall and her daughter, Rebecca Crandall Folt, designed and made Orchesis posters and programs themselves by hand. The lack of official CMU photographs in the collection is also interesting and unusual among CMU collections. Crandall paid private photographers for the professional, non-CMU photographs.

The collection is organized by size, format. and then alphabetically and chronologically within each series. Photographs are further organized by those with and without negative numbers. The paper-based and photographic series (Boxes 1-5 which are all .5 cubic foot boxes) are: Biographical Materials, Orchesis materials, Photographs that are not specific to Orchesis, and Crandall’s published reviews. There are two oversized scrapbooks document dance at CMU, 1928-1967, and CMU Orchesis, 1968-1971. The three oversized folders include CMU Orchesis posters (Folder 1-2) and oversized Orchesis professional photographs, both black and white and color, undated. Additionally, photographs are further organized within folders by those with a negative number or date/time stamp and then those without. Overall the collection is in very good condition except for the acidic contents of the scrapbooks and a few posters with tape stains or have hole punctures. Most of collection, as donated, was original material, but some were photocopies. Formats in the collection include paper, original art, photographic materials, including two DVDs, and scrapbooks

Recordings:

In March 2024, Orchesis recordings were donated (see Boxes 6-12, which are all cubic foot boxes). The recordings are organized chronologically and document Orchesis concert performances, workshop performances, Madrigal dinner concerts, “Puttin’ On The Ritz” events, Swing Club, and dancing in Homecoming parades, and liturgical dances. The recording formats include Ampex, Karex, Memorex, and Sony five- and seven- inch helical video tapes, VHS videotapes, CDs, DVDs. And Sony Mini Discs. Warren Crandall recorded most of the recordings, but there are some recordings created and presumably copyrighted by Kabobel’s Kamera and Heitman Video Services, that Yvette paid for, and one that is a gift copy from a Channel 9 and 10 News segment. None of the recordings were created or copyrighted by CMU.

Besides the Recordings, other major Orchesis series include Photographs, Programs, and Posters, which merit further description to assist researchers.

Photographs:

Photographs, 1940s-2010, 2023, in the collection are from multiple photographers, both professional who hold copyright, and amateurs. CMU copyright of photographs taken by CMU Photographer Robert Barclay are few and found interfiled with other photographs dated 1981, 1993-1998 and 2000-2006. Bryan P. Wallace, a professional photographer, took all the photographs which are stamped with his name and copyright information, 1986-1987, including all the galley proofs and related negatives. Other photographer’s names are occasionally found on photographs, while others are unidentified. Most of the professional photographs are black and white until the 2000s. Amateur photographs taken by those in the company and probably also by Yvette document individuals, groups, travel, social events, performances. There is one photograph of the liturgical dance troupe in 1973 in Muskegon with a priest. There are also photographs of a country dance troupe in costume dancing during a CMU Homecoming parade, 1989. Part or all of the company traveled to various trips to cities including Washington, D.C. and Milwaukee, Mid-Michigan College, and Western Michigan University, to perform and participate in regional or national dance events. The company also had summer picnics, a welcoming event, referred to as the initiation, for new members, and a graduation recognition event after the show of the academic year with a cake where each graduating senior receive an award, hug, and the applause of peers. Within folders photographs are sorted by those with a negative number or date/time stamp and those without. Those with additional identification, especially amateur photographs, with a specific event and/or a year date, are in separate folders. Some people, dates, and events are identified in photographs by labels or writing on the back of photographs. If the labels were loose or detached, the Archivist wrote the information in pencil on a piece of acid-free paper and included that in the photograph sleeve, and withdrew the original label or note.

Programs:

CMU Orchesis programs, 1969-2010, are nearly a complete and include mostly Orchesis events: Choreographers Workshop Performance, all concerts, “Puttin’ on the Ritz” events, CMU Madrigal dinners, and Choreographers Workshop Performances, dance competitions, events outside of CMU that she choreographed or advised, and a Church program, featuring CMU liturgical dancers, December 3, 1978. The programs vary in size, format, and materials, and some were photocopies when donated. Those listed as ‘Program’ are only the list of dances and performers. During the 1970s many of the early programs and posters were hand drawn or written in penmanship. Both programs and posters featured photographs from the past. Sometimes there are matching illustrations for programs and posters.

Most of the programs were dated, some with dates written on them by Crandall, when donated. Depending on the information in the program, Archivist Marian Matyn looked up names and information online in digitized CMLife, and reviewed perpetual calendars to try to determine the year for undated programs, and matched materials to posters or other information in the collection. To assist with the process the Archivist generated a list of performance dates from the programs which she added to the collection. Many Orchesis performances were not listed in CMLife. Overall the programs are in excellent to very good condition.

Posters:

Posters, 1970-2010 in the collection are mainly Orchesis posters for Auditions, Choreographer’s Workshop, Dance Concerts, and “Puttin on the Ritz” events and are almost a complete run. There is also one Orchesis Fall 2008, Dancers Photographic collage poster, 2008, which Yvette crafted. The posters vary widely in size from 8.5x11 inches to 30x20 inches, in shape, colors, and format including paper, cardboard, and plastic. During the 1970s many of the early programs and posters were hand drawn or written in penmanship. Some posters listed are actually the original drawings and composite information with parts taped and glued to paper or cardboard from which posters or printed copies were made. Crandall appears to have created many of these posters by hand. Both programs and posters featured photographs from the past. Sometimes there are matching illustrations for programs and posters. Posters are housed in two Oversized folders. Oversized Folder 1 contains all concert performance posters in chronological order and the collage photographs poster. Oversized Folder 2 includes Oversized art, and all remaining poster series grouped alphabetically by series, then chronologically within each series.

Many posters lacked a year date as published. Depending on the information on the poster, Archivist Marian Matyn compared the information to the programs, and then followed the process she used to determine program year dates. (See that process above.) She wrote years on the posters in pencil. If there is more than one year during Yvette’s CMU career that the poster could date from, the year is in square brackets with a question mark.

A few posters have tape attached, while others have tape or hole damage from being pinned, and one, CMU Faculty Dance Recital, (taped, tape stains and term schedule in pen and marker on revere), September 21-22, 1972, has the term schedule written in pen and marker on the back. Overall the posters are in excellent condition. Most of the photographs donated were originals with some being photocopies.

Also included are posters of events in which CMU dancers participated. These posters include dance festivals, for the now American College Dance Association, 1979-1980, and the Great Lakes Regional Dance Festival, 1991 and 1999, and CMU Madrigal Dinner Concert posters, 1986, 1988-1994. The Madrigals occurred annually at CMU, 1977-1992.

Included with the posters is one oversized original art piece. There is also a folder in Box 2 of a few original hand drawn Orchesis art. The oversized image does not appear in posters nor programs. It is similar to a hand drawn image on the front page of the 1968-1971 scrapbook.

Researchers Note:

Researchers may also be interested in other collections documenting Grace Ryan and Rev. John Goodrow in the Clarke. The CMU Posters collection contains one early Orchesis poster and some Madrigal posters found in Crandall’s Orchesis collection.

Processing Notes:

Approximately 5 cubic feet of paper and audio-visual materials were withdrawn during processing. This includes duplicates, undated and/or unidentified, or very dark or damaged photographs, acidic materials, empty envelopes. If there were larger and smaller versions of the same poster, the smaller version was retained in the collection and the larger version was withdrawn. Acidic materials, except for the pages and contents of the scrapbooks, were photocopied, and the copies were added to the collection while the originals were withdrawn. .75 cubic feet of nationally recorded and distributed LP dance records were withdrawn. Family photographs were returned to the donor. Three cubic feet of recordings were withdrawn during processing, including duplicates, rehearsals, personal recordings of television dance programs and music CDs, non-CMU produced dance instructor videotapes, and unidentifiable, inaccessible, and very dark recordings.

This incomplete collection, 1878-2019 (Scattered) and undated, includes a diary, a diary/ledger book, a restored photograph of Adam Assal (and a photo print copy), and genealogical research compiled by and about Assal and his extended family.

This incomplete collection, 1878-2019 (Scattered) and undated, includes a diary, a diary/ledger, a ledger, a restored photograph of Adam Assal (and a photo print copy), and genealogical research compiled by and about Assal and his extended family. The biographical section of this finding aid details the topics Assal wrote about in his diaries. The Biographical Materials folder includes genealogical research compiled by Adam‘s descendants, their genealogical correspondence (copies) and related materials. There is an undated, professional portrait photograph of Adam Assal, which appears to have been restored in the twentieth or early twenty-first century and a photographic copy print of it. In the photograph Assal is an adult with dark hair and a greying beard. There are also three folders of genealogical information from Ancestry.com, 2019, about Assal and his family, including Eva’s incarceration as an insane woman in the State Hospital in Traverse City, and documentation of Henry Irons’ Civil War pension records. There are also two folders of Charles (Carl) Swanson) genealogical information from Ancestry.com, including one folder on extended family information, 2020-2021.

Miscellaneous notes are found on the inside covers of all the volumes in the collection. The diaries include his handwritten entries in pencil or black or red ink. The dates are scattered, sometimes skipping months in between entries, while at other times they are almost daily. Some events are recorded in a summary fashion after the fact.

The legal-size diary/ledger spans January 19, 1878-September 21, 1891 on pages 112-236 of the volume. Page 111 (the first surviving page in the volume) and page 266 include accounts concerning wood and potatoes and miscellaneous, 1885 and undated. Pages 261-262 and 265 document the daily temperature and wind. Only the G-Z front index pages, and pages 1-68, 145-148, and 217-250 survive in this ledger. An additional index is written on page 33. The dates of recorded entries jump from September 14, 1888 to May 7, 1889 on the same page (p.190). The volume includes a variety of accounts, some specifically with Assal. Accounts vary from basic mathematical totals to specific accounts for lodging, wood and log jobs, rent, postage, groceries, dry goods, and money donated to an orphan's home. Children's drawings of Essexville (p.68), blobs (pages 145, 235), and deer (page 218) are included in the volume, as well as evidence a child practiced writing their numbers (page 219). There is a printed note by a child, "Alonzo Assal Jr four years old, Frank J. Assal, ten years old" with other names and Michigan locations (p. 48). When he was age nine, Alonzo printed his name in the volume (p. 166). Scribbles are found throughout the volume. The pages that survive are separated from the covers and spine. The cover has some leather rot issues, and some pages are acidic.

A smaller diary volume contains Adam’s diary entries for September 10, 1885-January 11, 1887 (pages 43-142). There are lines in pencil around the words on pages 84-85, 114-115 and 118-121, presumably drawn by children. This volume is also missing pages. The extant pages are separated from the covers and spine. A receipt to Alonzo Assal for $62.50 from Richardson Lumber Co., Bay City, Mich., July 3, 1925 is found inside the back cover. It is printed and typed on a small, acidic envelope with a corner ripped off. Because it is acidic, the envelope is now in a folder piece of acid-free paper.

The collection includes biographical information, correspondence, notably of the Boys' Republic, photographs and photograph albums, subject files, plaques, etc.

The collection includes: Biographical Information, consisting of diplomas, family history materials, photographs, newspaper clippings (copies), and related materials, 1930s-2002, undated; Correspondence, General (from students), to parents related to World War II, from two girl friends, Rebecca Reynolds and Verna May, and Dale Williams, a boy in the Boys’ Vocational School in Lansing, 1939-1955, undated, and the Boys’ Republic and student there, Bob Downes, 1948-1951; Photographs, 1922, 2000; Subject Files, including materials related to CMU, Flushing High School, Greeting Cards, Historical Michigan Calendars, Flint Junior College, the University of Michigan, the Boys’ Republic, juvenile delinquency, and other materials, 1935, 2000, undated; Photograph Albums related to his family and CMU, military service, and HOSTS/Mentor Program, 1941, 2000; Photographs of the Flushing High School Senior Class, 1939; and Plaques, for his outstanding work as a school and senior volunteer at West Elementary School, Florida, 1997-1998. The Oversized folders include Historical Landmarks of Brighton, a collection of illustrations of and text about Brighton, Michigan’s landmark buildings and history, undated, and a CMU war years class reunion photograph, 2000.

Because some of the materials in the Boys’ Republic correspondence and notebook contain sensitive, personal information about the students, researchers are asked to not name the individual students who created or are discussed in these materials.

The following materials were removed from the collection and cataloged: Memory Lane Gazette, 1982-2002, the Montrose Historical Association Newsletter, and Fieldbook of Natural History, c. 1949, by E. Laurence Palmer, which includes autographs and souvenir materials from Rufus’ favorite teacher, CMU Biology Dept. Professor Irene Jarae.