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The David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography consists of over 100,000 images in a variety of formats including daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, cartes de visite, cabinet photographs, real photo postcards, stereographs, and mounted and unmounted paper prints. The collection is primarily made up of vernacular photographs of everyday life in Michigan taken by both professional and amateur photographers from the 1840s into the mid-twentieth century. In addition to supporting local history research, the collection has resources for the study of specific events and subjects. Included are images related to lumbering, mining, suburbanization; the industrialization of cities; travel and transportation; the impact of the automobile; the rise of middle-class leisure society; fashion and dress; ethnicity and race; the role of fraternal organizations in society; and the participation of photographers in business, domestic, and social life. The collection is only partially open for research.

The subject contents of different photographic format series within the Tinder collection vary, depending in part upon how each format was historically used, and the date range of that format's popularity. For example, cartes de visite and cased images are most often formal studio portraits, while stereographs are likely to be outdoor views. Cabinet photographs are frequently portraits, but often composed with less formality than the cartes de visite and cased images. The postcards and the mounted prints contain very diverse subjects. The photographers' file contains many important and rare images of photographers, their galleries, promotional images, and the activities of photographers in the field. See individual series descriptions in the Contents List below for more specific details.

Included throughout are images by both professional and amateur photographers, although those by professionals are extant in far greater numbers.

The Gerald T. and Charlotte B. Maxson printed ephemera collection contains over 5,000 pieces of assorted ephemera, the majority of which were commercially printed in the United States during the mid to late 19th-century.

The Gerald T. and Charlotte B. Maxson printed ephemera collection contains over 5,000 pieces of assorted ephemera, the majority of which were commercially printed in the United States during the mid to late 19th-century.

The Maxson collection provides a valuable resource for the study of 19th-century visual culture, commercial advertising, and humor in addition to the role of gender, ethnicity, and race in advertising. American businesses are the predominant focus of the collection, though many international businesses are also represented. While trade cards are by far the most prevalent type of ephemera found in this collection, an extensive array of genres are present including die cut scrapbook pieces, photographs, engravings, maps, serials, and manuscript materials.

The 23 binders that house the Maxson collection were arranged by the collectors themselves. Items are organized somewhat randomly in terms of topical arrangement. While pockets of related materials can be found here and there (for instance, the entirety of Volume 16 contains circus-related items while Volume 11 contains an extensive number of Shaker-related materials), for the most part any given subject may appear in any given volume. In some cases, items are clustered as a result of having been acquired together or due to a documented common provenance. Occasional typed annotations written by the Maxsons help provide additional context for certain items.

The Maxson Collection Subject Index serves as a volume-level subject index for materials found throughout the binders. The subjects indexed here are generally representative of both visual and commercial content. In addition to more general subjects, many names of specific people, places, buildings, events, and organizations that appear in the materials have also been listed. Researchers engaging with this collection should be aware that they will encounter numerous examples of racist caricatures, especially ones depicting African American, Native American, Irish, and Chinese people.

The McCreery and Fenton families were prominent Genesee county, Michigan residents some of whose members distinguished themselves in local and state government, as soldiers during the Civil War, and in the United States diplomatic service. Papers include diaries, correspondence and other material relating to the Civil War, local and state politics and aspects of diplomatic service in Central and South America.

The McCreery-Fenton family collection documents the individual careers of family members who served their community and their nation in a variety of roles. Through correspondence, diaries and other materials, the researcher will find information pertaining to the Civil War, to the history of Flint and Fenton in Genesee County, Michigan, and to facets of America's diplomatic relations with some of the countries of Central and South America. Arranged by name of the three principal family members represented in the collection - William M. Fenton, William B. McCreery, and Fenton R. McCreery, the papers also include series of general family materials, business records, and photographs.

The Newell family papers show what life was like in a small New York town in the mid-1860s and detail Albert Newell's entrepreneurial ventures into the oil and cotton trades. The heart of the Newell family papers consists of 41 letters written by Arthur W. and Cornelia E. Newell to their son George Newell during his first two years at Yale.

The Newell family papers show what life was like in a small New York town in the mid-1860s and detail Albert Newell's entrepreneurial ventures into the oil and cotton trades. The heart of the Newell family papers consists of 41 letters written by Arthur W. and Cornelia E. Newell to their son George Newell during his first two years at Yale. Most were written from the family home in Medina, New York. Both Arthur and Cornelia included news of local people's movements and sicknesses, of events, and the effects of the weather on the crops. They frequently mentioned trips to nearby Lockport, Middleport and Ridgeway, often for cultural or religious activities. The Newells' letters also recounted longer trips to Chicago for the nomination of Lincoln on the Republican ticket in 1860, to the Armory in Springfield, Mass., and to the Grand Review of the Army of the Potomac in Washington in May 1865.

There are no letters from George to his parents, but some information about his university years can be inferred from the letters they wrote to him. They both lectured him about being an upstanding young gentleman, exhorting him to "choose virtue as your Goddess..." and to "beware of all evil". As a freshman he joined a fraternity without having to undergo too many trials. During the winter of 1865-66 he hurt his ankle severely enough to necessitate the use of a crutch for several months. He first lived in a private home at 30 High Street but moved to college rooms his sophomore year. Arthur's investments meant that the Newells were often cash poor, however, they were still able to send George over $970.00 during his first two years of college. Yale tuition at the time was less than $25.00 per term. Almost all of George's tuition bills are included in this collection, along with a "promise to pay" signed by his father.

There are five letters written to George Newell in the 1880s and 1900. As an older man, he evidently developed an interest in his family history, and there are two letters from a second cousin concerning their great grandfather Thomas Steadman. Colonel Edwin Franklin Brown of the 28th New York Infantry wrote George a marvelous letter recounting the involvement of his father, Jeremiah Brown, in the "Morgan Affair". In 1826 the Masons of the Batavia Lodge were accused of murdering Capt. William A. Morgan for divulging secrets of the society. Jeremiah Brown was charged with complicity in the abduction of Morgan, went into hiding, was tried at Lockport and acquitted by Judge William S. Marcy (who went on to serve as governor 1833-1838). This event catalyzed the Anti-Masonic movement, led by Thurlow Weed, and Brown related some of the repercussions felt by his family.

The collection also includes three earlier Newell family documents. The oldest is a small copybook, inscribed, "Samuel Newell his book 1734". It evidently passed from generation to generation of Newells and contains genealogical information and some accounts; dates span from 1726 to 1823. According to the copybook, Solomon Newell married Sally Steadman in 1807. The two letters from George's second cousin G. W. Pierce suggest that her father was Thomas Steadman, a Revolutionary War soldier from Connecticut. Pierce refers to Thomas Steadman as "your [George's] Grandmother's Father", offering further evidence that Arthur was the son of Solomon and Sally (Steadman) Newell. The other two documents are early nineteenth century deeds. One, from Damaris Newell, gave his son Solomon Newell land on Center Hill in Barkhamsted, Litchfield County, Conn. The second, signed by Grandison Newell, gave Solomon a portion of a house and barn, also on Center Hill. The rest of the collection is comprised of a variety of miscellaneous documents relating to the life of George Newell, including Yale tuition bills, a bill from the photographer, George K. Warren, a stock certificate issued by the Medina & Alabama Plank Road Company, a mortgage, two checks drawn from a Union Bank of Medina account and a clipping from the Medina Tribune.