Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Detroit newspaperman and United States Senator from Michigan. Correspondence chiefly concerning his 1952 senatorial campaign and his newspaper work in the United States and abroad during World War II; scrapbooks of newspaper articles written by Moody and published for the most part in the Detroit News and Barron's; tape recordings of public affairs radio program; photographs and motion pictures of public affairs interview programs.

The Blair Moody collection documents the career of a Washington-based newspaper correspondent and columnist and United States Senator. The collection covers the period 1928 to 1954, though the bulk of materials date since the mid-1940s. Much of the collection pertains to that period of time when Moody was in the Senate or was running for election to the Senate, although his newspaper career is also well documented. The collection has been divided into the following series: Biographical; Correspondence; Personal/Family; Newspaper Career; Gridiron Club; Senatorial Papers; Speeches; Scrapbooks; Sound Recordings; and Visual Materials.

Files of state chairs, Neil Staebler, John J. Collins, Zolton Ferency, Sander Levin, James McNeely, Morley Winograd, Olivia Maynard, Richard Wiener, F. Thomas LeWand, and Gary Corbin; files of deputy state chair, Billie S. Farnum, vice chairs Adelaide Hart and Olivia Maynard, and vice chair Robert Mitchell; files relating to state constitutional convention, and to state and national political campaigns, since 1950; sound recordings and visual materials.

The records of the Democratic Party of Michigan have come to the library in several accessions beginning in 1967 and periodically thereafter. The record group is comprised of files mainly from the Lansing office of the Democratic Party of Michigan. The files are of the officers of the party: state chair, vice chair, deputy chair, and secretary among others. As might be expected, the records relate to the day-to-day operation of the party, the management of political campaigns (i.e. selecting candidates, defining issues, raising funds, getting out the vote, etc.). In addition, much of the records concern the state organization's relationship with the National Democratic Party and its participation in the national convention to select a presidential nominee. Because of inconsistencies in how files were maintained and used, the files of one party officer might also include materials of his / her predecessor. Thus the researcher should be examine the entire finding aid for material on any given topic or time period.

The records of the Democratic Party of Michigan has been arranged into the following series: (1) Earlier records, prior to 1965; (2) State Chair, Democratic State Central Committee files; (3) Other Party Officers; (4) Headquarters files; (5) Detroit Office Files; (6) Topical Files; (7) State Central Committee Meeting Minutes; (8) State and National Convention files; (9) Appeals Committee; (10) Publications and miscellaneous; (11) Visual Materials; (12) Sound Recordings.

Republican Governor of Michigan, 1962-1969; Presidential candidate, 1968; Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, 1969-1972. Papers consist of extensive correspondence and subject files from his tenure as governor, campaign material, and files relating to service at HUD and his other political activities, includes photographs, films and videotapes and sound recordings.

The papers of George Romney document the many faceted career of an automobile executive, governor of Michigan, candidate for President, cabinet officer, and activist on behalf of volunteerism. In this electronic version of the finding aid to the Romney papers, there are six subgroups of materials. These are Gubernatorial Papers covering the period of 1962 to 1969, Pre-gubernatorial Papers covering the period before taking office in 1963, Post-gubernatorial Papers covering the period after 1968, records of Romney Associates (a group established during his bid for the presidency), Visual Materials covering mainly the period up to 1969, and Sound Recordings also covering up to 1969. There is some overlapping of dates, particularly around the time when Romney was first elected governor in 1962 and the period when he joined the Nixon administration in 1969. The researcher should also note that the papers of Lenore Romney are not part of this finding aid.

Democratic congressman from Michigan, member of the House committees on Education and Labor, Interior and Insular Affairs, Budget, and the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations; and chairman of the Democratic Study Group, 1967-1968, and chairman of the Democratic Party Commission on Rules, 1969-1972. Congressional files, political files, Democratic Party materials; photographs; and post-congressional materials.

The James G. O'Hara Papers, 1958-1987, comprise 53.5 linear feet of material documenting his career as a member of Congress, his 1976 campaign for the Senate nomination, his service on various commissions and committees of the national Democratic Party, and his various activities and interests after leaving the House of Representatives. The collection has been organized in two subgroups: Congressional Papers and Post-Congressional Activities with most of the papers accumulated during his years in Congress. The papers include correspondence, staff memoranda and background papers, speeches, press releases, campaign brochures and literature, texts of bills sponsored or co-sponsored by O'Hara, transcripts of hearings and minutes of meetings, a diary kept by O'Hara from April to August 1969, newspaper clippings, photographs, audio and video tapes, and scrapbooks.

University of Michigan professor of political science, special advisor to the U.S. Military Government in Germany after World War II, participant in numerous government commissions; papers include correspondence, working files, speeches, course materials, and visual and sound materials.

The James K. Pollock papers represent an accumulation of files from a lifetime of academic teaching and research and an extraordinary number of public service responsibilities to both his state and his nation. The files within the collection fall into two categories: types of document (such as correspondence, speeches and writings, visual materials, etc.) and files resulting from a specific activity or position (such as his work as delegate to the Michigan Constitutional Convention or his service with the Office of the Military Government in Germany after World War II).

The collection is large and of a complicated arrangement because of Pollock's many activities. When received in 1969, the files were maintained as received; very little processing was done to the collection so that an inventory to the papers could be quickly prepared. The order of material is that devised by James K. Pollock and his secretarial staff in the U-M Department of Political Science. Recognizing the anomalies within the order of the collection, the library made the decision to list the contents to the collection while at the same time preparing a detailed card file index (by box and folder number, i.e. 16-8) to significant correspondents and subjects. While there was much to be said for this method of preparing a finding aid expeditiously, it also covered up some problems in arrangement. Thus series and subseries of materials are not always grouped together as they were created by Pollock. Files on the Hoover Commission and the Michigan Constitutional Convention, for example, come before Pollock's work in Germany after the war. In 1999, effort was made to resolve some of the inconsistencies and obvious misfilings of the first inventory but because of the numbering system used in 1969 and the card index prepared for the files, there are still some problems. Researchers should be alert to these difficulties and take time to examine different parts of the collection for material on a similar topic.

Democratic governor of Michigan, 1961-1963; gubernatorial office files, campaign files, papers from his career as state senator and lieutenant governor.

The John B. Swainson collection consists of four subgroups of files: pre-gubernatorial (covering the period of 1943 to 1960), gubernatorial (covering his one-term, two-year tenure as the state's chief executive), post-gubernatorial (covering the years since he left the governor's office, 1963 to 1975), and visual materials.

The great bulk of the collection is the gubernatorial subgroup documenting the last months of Swainson's term as lieutenant governor under Governor G. Mennen Williams, the 1960 campaign for governor, his gubernatorial administration, and his unsuccessful campaign for re-election. The importance of the collection, as with all gubernatorial records, is its documentation of public policy issues of the early 1960s and the relationship of the governor to the legislature, to the heads of the state's various boards and commissions, to the federal government, and to the citizens of Michigan.

The television production studio and media services unit of the University of Michigan, commonly referred to as "Michigan Media." It was formed in 1978 through the merger of the university Television Center and the university Audio-Visual Education Center. The Television Center began producing educational programs for broadcast on commercial and public stations in 1950. The Audio-Visual Education Center produced films for the university and operated a film distribution library. The Media Resources Center closed in 1986. The collection consists of documentary type film and video and film and video of television programs produced by the Media Resources Center and its predecessors.

The University of Michigan Media Resources Center Films and Videotapes collection consists of "archives" film footage produced or collected by the Center and television programs and films produced by the Center. The "archives" films are divide into three series; Archives Film (Series AF), Film File (Series AF) and Audio-Visual Education Center Film File Series AVEC Film File. The television programs are organized based on the

Archives Films

The "archival films": consist of documentary style, 16mm film footage of a variety of University of Michigan events, buildings, and personalities. The series originated in 1959 when the Television Center began a project to create a "university film archives." Some of this footage was shot for the purpose of being incorporated into television programs, but much of the filming was done simply to create a film record of the university. Filming was done on a regular basis through about 1972. After that date the Michigan Media collection includes comparatively few "archival" films.

The subject matter of the archival films falls into several broad categories:

1. Series AF -- Archives Films and Series FF -- Film File
   • Ceremonial - including footage of awards ceremonies, inaugurations, graduations, building groundbreakings and dedications
   • Campus scenes - buildings and construction sites, students on the Diag, and general activity on campus
   • Athletic events and marching band performances
   • Student activities -- including protests, fraternity/sorority activities, homecoming, course registration, and social events.
   • Faculty and administrator interviews
   • Visiting dignitaries and participants in special programs and conferences on campus.
   • Films collected by the Television Center - these include several films from the 1920s and 1930s
2. Series AVEC Film File
   • Original footage shot for use in Audio-Visual Education Center films

Films in the three archival series range from a few minutes to more than an hour in length. The films may be negatives, original positives, or work prints. Some are identified as "trims," i.e. original footage edited out of finished productions. The work prints have often been cut and spliced and portions may be missing. Several titles were originally recorded on either two- or one-videotape reels or directly on 3/4-inch videotape cassette.

The early films, ca 1953-ca.1963, are generally black and white. After 1963 color film is more common. Many of the films, especially, from the early years, are silent. For some of these there are accompanying 16mm magnetic sound tracks or 1/4-inch reel-to-reel audio tapes.

The film description part of the finding aid is arranged by series film number or titles. Film numbers were assigned by the Television Center in an approximate chronological order. The description of individual films is based on a card File created by the Television Center and on a viewing of each film by Bentley staff.

The descriptive record for each film includes the film number; title; date; a brief summary of the content of the film; a listing of significant persons appearing in the film; and technical information on the color, sound, polarity, and length of the film.

The films are stored in canisters, usually on a core rather than a reel. A film number generally refers to an individual film title. There is sometimes more than one film number in a canister and occasionally more than one film number on a single reel or core. Alternate versions of a title are indicated by a lower case letter.

The Television Center gave the films titles which are more or less descriptive. These titles have been retained except for a few instances in which a more descriptive title was assigned or in which a uniform title was created for all parts of a multi-reel film. The individual reels of multi-part titles are designated by a lower case letter, e.g. 98a, 98b, 98c. For some titles the may be more than one film, possibly a negative, positive, work print, or other version. A few tittles have been digitized and are available on DVD and streaming files.

The listing for each film or program in includes a Title, date of production, and abstract/summary of the content of the film and ,when available, the names of persons or organizations featured in the film. University of Michigan faculty and staff are identified by departmental or administrative affiliation (e.g. Peter Gosling, UM-Geog. A list of abbreviations used is included in the Additional Descriptive Data Section of this finding aid.) Technical information for the films is provided in the format: Original: 16mm film, pos, b/w, sil, 343, 00:09:35. The order of the information is:

1. Format -- film / videotape / magnetic sound track
2. Polarity -- neg (negative) /. Pos (positive) / wp (work print)
3. Color -- b/w or color
4. Sound -- silent / sound / sof (sound on film)/ at (accompanying 1/4-inch audiotape)
5. Length -- expressed in feet (footage value is sometimes an estimate)
6. Running time -- in the form 01:33:25 (hours:minutes:seconds)
7. (in cases where there are several versions of a title, there may be multiple values for each category)

Television Programs and AVEC Films

The Television Programs consist of 16mm kinescope films and two-inch and 1-inch videotapes of programs produced by the Center for distribution to commercial and educational television stations. The collection represents only a portion of the television programs produced by the Center. There were no extant copies of some programs when the library acquired the collection.

The films and videotapes in the Michigan Media collection were appraised and only a portion have been selected for permanent retention by the Bentley Historical Library. A number of appraisal criteria were used in determining which television programs and films were retained:

1. subject matter relating to the University of Michigan;
2. subject matter relating to the state of Michigan;
3. subject matter of general, national interest;
4. participation of prominent UM faculty or staff;
5. participation of prominent Michigan personalities;
6. participation of persons of national or international significance;
7. programs marking significant technical or artistic developments at Michigan Media;
8. award winning programs.

The television programs are organized by series created by the Center. The series for the most part reflect different type of programming the Center produced, from the earliest "telecourses" to the independent programs produced under the title "Understanding Our World". to the multi-part programs that were the core of the "University of Michigan Television Hour. See the History section for details on the different series.

The description for individual programs includes the title and date of the program, a unique id number, and an abstract of the content of the program with listing of the host and guests on the program. A program may exist in one or more formats: kinescope negative, kinescope positive and 1-inch or 2-inch videotape. Technical information for each program is recorded in the format16mm kinescope film, neg. #511, Pos. #665, 2-inch video #458. (the negative number was treated as a production and for some programs recorded originally on videotape a negative was not actually produced). The television programs were generally either twelve, fifteen or thirty minutes in length Most are black and white and all have sound.

In 2009 a selection of television programs and films and tapes were digitized. for each tape or film selected a preservation Beta SP tape was made as well as a DVD use copy and a streaming file (mpeg4 and Flash). For some films a high resolution digital copy was made as well (mpeg2). The finding aid lists the original format(s) and the derivative formats for the digitized items.

The television production studio and media services unit of the University of Michigan, commonly referred to as "Michigan Media." It was formed in 1978 through the merger of the university Television Center and the university Audio-Visual Education Center. The Television Center began producing educational programs for broadcast on commercial and public stations in 1950. The Audio-Visual Education Center produced films for the university and operated a film distribution library. The Media Resources Center closed in 1986. The record group consists of administrative records including Broadcasting Committee minutes, annual reports, unit review material, correspondence, and budget material; scripts for television programs and films; press releases; telecourse outlines and study guides; and brochures and catalogs; also photographs; and films.

The records of the University of Michigan Media Resources Center document the production of educational television programs and films at the University of Michigan, 1950-1988. The collection includes administrative records, scripts, press releases and program summaries, photographs, and films and videotapes. This finding aid describes in detail the paper and photograph portion of the collection and briefly describes the film and videotape. A companion finding aid entitled "University of Michigan. Michigan Media. Program Descriptions" provides detailed descriptions of the films and videotapes in the collection. The Program Description finding aid is stored at the reference desk in the reading room of the Bentley Historical Library.

U. S. Senator from Michigan, 1959-1976, a conscientious supporter of civil rights, consumer protection and environmentalism, Hart served as floor manager of the 1965 civil rights act and 1968 Open Housing Act, introduced legislation to create Sleeping Bear Dunes and Pictured Rock National Lakeshores and sponsored important consumer legislation. Papers include Legislative Files, Staff Files, Press Files, Subject Files, Constituent Correspondence, Office Files, Political Files, Miscellaneous, Sound Recordings, and Visual Materials.

The Philip A. Hart collection consists of those files maintained by Hart and his staff in Washington D.C. while serving as senator from Michigan in the period 1958-1976. A senate office in the 1960s and 1970s could employ as many as thirty staff and clerical workers. In 1975, Hart wrote: "My own office presently consists of 34 full-time people in Washington plus 4 in my Detroit office and one part-time employee each in Grand Rapids and Marquette." Received from Washington, the Hart collection documents the workings of his Capitol office. Excepting for a few files from the 1950s when Hart served in Michigan state government, the Hart papers relate exclusively to Senate activities and detail the variety and bulk of problems crossing the desk of a United States senator and his staff.

In a press release describing his office, Hart stated that the work of a senator falls into three categories: legislative, participating in the discussion and formulation of public policy, and serving as "ambassador" between his constituents and the Federal Government. Beyond the study of legislation, public policy debates, and the relationship between a senator and the people of his state, the Hart collection is a reflection of the times in which Hart served, the sixties and seventies, years of the presidencies of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford, a time when public figures discussed issues of conscience and of war, matters of human rights and of public morality, areas where Hart's basic integrity and humaneness placed him in the forefront of public debate.

The collection falls into eleven principal series: Personal/Biographical, Legislative Files, Staff Files, Press Files, Subject Files, Constituent Correspondence, Office Files, Political Files, Miscellaneous, Sound Recordings, and Visual Materials. Except for Personal/Biographical and the series of audio-visual materials, the Hart collection is an office file and represents the activities of one senator and a dozen or so of his key staff members. To use the collection, the researcher after examining the "Series Description" (on the following pages) should note that for any topical study, information will usually be found in any number of series within the collection. The series represent functional divisions within the Hart office, legislation, press, or whatever. To study an issue such as consumer protection, therefore, the researcher should be prepared to examine the Hart finding aid under the series that might document that topic from different functional perspectives (Legislative Files, Staff Files, Subject Files, among others). The researcher interested in a narrower, more specific topic should recognize that the following inventory, for the most part, is not a folder-level description and thus specialized kinds of information will be filed first under a more general heading.

One more note: The Hart papers originally consisted of more than 700 linear feet of files. Hart himself and his staff had discarded certain types of files before donating them to the library, notably case files and constituent mail answered by form. In addition, the library discarded files of low research content - thank yous, invitations, and carbons of Hart correspondence duplicated in the other principal series of the collection. Furthermore, files containing similar types of correspondence from constituents have been sampled (the folders have "S" or "Samp" on them). Government publications, easily available in a government documents library, and unless heavily annotated, have been discarded. Researchers on any topic within the Hart collection should familiarize themselves with the standard sources on government documents (the indices to the Congressional Record for example). Topics on which Hart played a key legislative role or about which he was keenly interested have not been sampled. These topics include civil rights, the passage of various consumer legislation, the Sleeping Bear Dunes debate, his committee work, and the debate over the war in Vietnam to list a few.