Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Records of car dealerships owned by the Dalgleish family of Detroit, Michigan. Advertising and customer service material, photographs, selected business records, and artifacts. The collection is of special interest to researchers of Detroit business community and to the U.S. automobile industry and trade historians. Collection is especially rich with material related to auto advertising, particularly, the Cadillac.

The Dalgleish Cadillac Oldsmobile collection encompasses the history of the family-owned business from the 1930s through the 2010s. Depending on the time period and particular marketing campaigns, Dalgleish dealership appeared in advertising material and customer service mailings as Charles Dalgleish Cadillac, Dalgleish Cadillac, Dalgleish Oldsmobile Cadillac, and Dalgleish Peugeot. Organization of material follows the company's history, transformations, and changes of name. The collection is organized into five series: Charles H. Dalgleish, Sr., Charlie's Nash, Inc., Charlie's Oldsmobile, Dalgleish Dealerships, and Advertising Material.

Fred E. Schwab was an influential member of the plastics community in the Detroit area. A German immigrant, he opened and ran several plastic manufacturing businesses, including Schwab & Frank and Schwab Plastics, which focused on styrofoam products and later automotive parts. He was also a founding member of the Society of Plastics Engineers. The collection includes personal materials, photographs, and professional files relating to his association with various plastics firms.

The Fred E. Schwab collection has been divided into three series: PERSONAL LIFE, PLASTICS, and PHOTOGRAPHS. The collection documents Schwab's professional endeavors in the plastic community in addition to elements from his personal life.

Author, writer for radio and television programs, and advertising executive; collection includes scripts for radio and television programs, "The Firefighters," "Reflections," and "I Remember Mama"; materials relating to his work in opposition to the Vietnam War; correspondence, speeches, and manuscripts and copies of novels; also photographs and films.

The Webber papers, dating from 1936-1986, are organized into four series: Personal/Biographical, Writings, Anti-Vietnam War Activism, and Audio-visual Materials. The collection displays the broad creative nature of Webber's life and career, documenting his involvement in both radio and television broadcasting and advertising, his experience as a novelist and writer, as a sailor in World War II, and his activism against the Vietnam War in the early 1970's. As such, they also contain a wealth of information on the advertising industry itself and its response to the Vietnam War, the experience of American novelists in the 20th century, and support research on 20th century American literature. Correspondence can be found scattered throughout the collection: organized chronologically in the Personal/Biographical series, and associated with relevant projects in the Writings and Anti-War series.

Topical files and writings of Michelle Krebs, a Detroit-based freelance automotive writer who served as editorial coordinator and contributing editor for various publications of the automotive industry as well as contributing journalist for newspapers and general-interest magazines.

The Michelle Krebs collection includes her writings, in the form of newspaper and magazine clippings, as well as research materials collected as part of her professional work as analyst and journalist for the automotive industry. The papers are arranged in the following series: Writings, Topical Files, and Promotional Materials, Press Releases, and Publications, and Shows and Presentations Audio Visual Materials. The 2012 accession contains additions to the Topical Files, Promotional Materials, Press Releases, and Publications series.

Photographs (positive and negative), slides, and transparencies taken by the company's photographers to document company activities, products, services, employees at work and at leisure, company exhibits and commemorations, and the response of the company to natural disasters and civil disturbances.

In 1993, Michigan Bell as a corporate entity was subsumed within the Ameritech Corporation. As a by-product of this reorganization and the downsizing resulting from it, the company agreed to deposit with the Bentley Historical Library its extensive archive of photographic images. Totalling approximately one million images, the Michigan Bell Telephone Company photo archive consists of negatives, copy prints, and color transparencies taken in the period since World War II (the bulk beginning in 1949). The collection does not include photos taken since 1983; interspersed throughout, however, are numerous images from before 1949.

The collection has been maintained in the order received with two principal series: Positives and Negatives.

The content of the photographs in the two series varies considerably. Naturally the collection documents the products of the company (phones and other communication devices) and the services provided (e.g. employees at work or the company reacting to a specific customer need). These photos were taken both to inform the general public as accompaniment to press notices and advertising copy and as a communications vehicle within the company, informing employees through the company news publication, Tielines, of activities going on in other divisions of the company or among the various regional Bell offices.

More importantly perhaps, the collection has value for its documentation of events and activities that are common to all large companies. These include images relating to: 1. The activities of employees within the corporation at their work (office workers, repairmen, operators, various support personnel, managers, etc.); 2. The activities of employees outside their work routine as members of corporate social groups (i.e., the company baseball or ice hockey team), at home engaged in leisure time activities, or involved in company-sponsored charitable or public service functions; and 3. Commemorations of specific milestones or events (company parade floats, area office open houses, corporate displays at public events such as fairs, etc.).

In addition, the collection documents the extraordinary and unforeseen as the phone company reacts to events and emergencies not within its control (floods, tornadoes, fires, the 1967 Detroit riot, strikes, and the like) or as a participant in history-making events (the announcement in Ann Arbor of the success of the Salk polio vaccine or the preparation involved in the 1980 Republican National Convention that convened in Detroit).

The Penrod/Hiawatha Company collection is mainly comprised of postcards, although some supplemental photographic items directed toward tourists is also included. The postcards, numbering more than 5,000, primarily are of the Michigan landscape and its towns and cities, covering every region of the state. Typical postcard themes dominate, particularly natural scenery, outdoor recreation, and shopping districts. The postcards date from the 1950s through the opening decades of the twenty-first century, although very few display copyright dates. The collection is divided into the following series.

1. Non-Postcard Items (calendars, brochures, booklets): Box 1
2. Non-Penrod/Hiawatha Postcards: Box 2
3. Penrod/Hiawatha Postcards, 1970s-1990s: Boxes 2-5
4. Penrod/Hiawatha Postcards, mid- to late 1990s: Boxes 5-6
5. Penrod/Hiawatha Postcards, late 1990s-2000): Boxes 6-7
6. Penrod/Hiawatha Postcards, 2001-2004: Box 8
7. Penrod/Hiawatha Postcards, 2005-2014: Box 9
8. Oversize and miscellaneous: Box 10

As batches of postcards are received every years, it was decided to arrange the items in blocks of time according to the date of their accession. Thus for the researcher interested in a specific city, it will be necessary to examine the listing for each of the series.

Battle Creek, Michigan and Washington, D.C. family including C.W. (Charles William) Post, cereal manufacturer, and anti-union activist and founder of Post City, Texas; and his daughter Marjorie Merriweather Post, executive of General Foods Co., wife of U. S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, art collector, philanthropist, socialite, and Washington D.C. hostess. C.W. Post papers, largely concern labor-management relations, unionism, the Postum Company, currency reform, advertising, and matters of food and hygiene; Marjorie Merriweather Post papers document her social activities and travel, philanthropies art collections, and the maintenance and preservation of her homes and other possessions.

The Post family collection includes papers of businessman and food processor, C. W. Post, largely relating to labor-management relations, unionism, the Post Company, currency reform, advertising, and matters of food and hygiene; and papers, photographs, and sound recordings of his daughter, Marjorie Merriweather Post, General Foods executive and philanthropist, relating to social activities and engagements, philanthropies, and the maintenance and preservation of her homes and other possessions.

The C.W. Post papers consist of manuscript items and printed works created by C.W. Post and retained by his daughter, Marjorie Merriweather Post. The papers are arranged alphabetically by subject.