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President's correspondence, executive committee minutes, and minutes of annual conventions; also files on individual churches in the Synod, including clippings, reports, church histories and programs; and photographs.

The records of the Michigan Synod of the Lutheran Church in America include president's correspondence; executive committee minutes; and minutes of annual conventions; files on individual churches in the Synod, including clippings, reports, church histories and programs; and photographs. The records have been arranged into the following series: Organizational and Administrative Records; Archivist's files; Organizational units and programs; Lutheran Church Women; Printed material; Church files; Topical files; and Visual Materials. Most of the records prior to 1962 originally came from the archives of United Lutheran Church in America.

Pastor of the Grand Rapids A. M. E. First Community Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan, city commissioner, acting mayor, and later mayor, 1971-1975. Mayoralty files, political materials, scrapbooks of career activities, and photographs.

The Lyman Parks collection consists mainly of files created and accumulated during the period of his mayoralty. Included are files on the many federal, state and local conferences that he attended. The correspondence files consist mainly of congratulatory letters. The best documentation of Parks' mayoralty will be found in his speech file and in the several scrapbooks from the years when he was in office. The collection also includes photographs, both portraits and photographs of public activities.

The collection has been arranged into the following series: Biographical and Personal; Correspondence; Mayoralty Files; A.M.E. Activities; Photographs; and Scrapbooks.

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).

State chapter of national temperance organization founded in 1874; records include correspondence of early W.C.T.U. workers, Alice E. H. Peters and Ella Eaton Kellogg; also minutes, scrapbooks, and other records of individual Michigan W.C.T.U. districts and chapters.

The Michigan Woman's Temperance Union records divide into seven series: Correspondence; Miscellaneous and Publicity; Printed Materials; District Records; County Union Records; Local Union Records; and Photographs. The records document the period of the Michigan WCTU's greatest influence, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as the organization's gradual declining influence following the repeal of the prohibition amendment.

Grand Rapids, Michigan family, involved in furniture making and other businesses, also active in local state and Republican Party politics and businessmen's associations. Papers include family papers and correspondence, business records, scrapbooks and visual materials.

The Sligh family collection consists of the personal and business papers of the four generations of Slighs mentioned in the biographical introduction: James W. Sligh, Charles R. Sligh, Charles R. Sligh, Jr., and Robert L. Sligh. Although there is some overlap, the files have been arranged into seven series, one for each of these three Slighs, one for the Sligh Furniture Company and related family businesses, and one each for Newspaper clippings and Scrapbooks, and Visual Materials.

Tom Van Zoeren was a park ranger at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. His collection contains oral history interviews relating to the history of the Sleeping Bear Dunes region and other Michigan localities.

The Van Zoeren collection contains oral history interviews conducted between 1979 and 2010, and includes copies of scanned photos and supporting documents. The interviews are available variously on audio cassette tapes and online. Transcripts or summaries are found in the collection for many of the interviews. The Van Zoeren collection is organized in two sections by format.

The first section contains analog files and audio cassette tapes. This section is arranged in series by family interview: Basch/Lanham/Van Zoeren oral history interviews, 1993-2000; George Burfiend oral history interviews, photo collection, and farm tour, 2005-2008; DeKorne family oral history and photographs, 2006; Doan family oral history interview, 2006; Dottie (Ashmore) Lanham oral history and photograph collection, 2003-2008; Alfred and Loraine (Olsen) Mason oral history interview and photo collection, 2001-2004; Leonard Thoreson oral history interview and photos, 2005-2006; and Frederick and Margretha Werner Farm oral history interview and photo collection, 2006-2007. These series contain information related to the families and interviews in the form of text, scanned and printed images, and audio and video recordings.

1. Basch, Laura (Oleson), of the Port Oneida, Michigan, area (audio cassettes and online)
2. Burfiend, George, relating to Burfiend farm and Port Oneida (online)
3. DeKorne, Jack relating to the family of Boudewyn and Kate DeKorne of Grand Rapids and Glen Lake, Michigan (online)
4. Fargo, Judy Carole and Ruth Ann Doan Jones, relating to the Frank and Alma Doan family of Croswell, Michigan ( online, filed under Doan family)
5. Lanham, Dottie, relating to her life and to Burdickville and surrounding area (online)
6. Lanham, John, of Burdickville, Michigan (audio cassettes and online)
7. Mason, Alfred and Lorraine [referred to as 'Loraine' in some collection materials] (Olsen), relating to their families, the family farms and the Port Oneida community (online)
8. Miller, Charles, relating to the Frederick and Margretha Werner farm in Port Oneida (online, filed under Werner)
9. Stuber, Mary Lou, relating to the Frederick and Margretha Werner farm in Port Oneida (online, filed under Werner)
10. Thoresen, Leonard, relating to his family, the family farm and the Port Oneida community (online)
11. Thoreson, Leonard, relating to the Frederick and Margretha Werner farm in Port Oneida (online, filed under Werner)
12. Van Noord, Trudy, relating to the family of Boudewyn and Kate DeKorne of Grand Rapids and Glen Lake, Michigan (online, filed under DeKorne family)
13. Van Zoeren, Jay, of Vriesland, Michigan, 1948 graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School (audio cassettes and online)

Additional files relating to these and other persons are available online.

The second section consists of one series of digitized material, oral histories, photos, and other historic materials from the Sleeping Bear Dunes region. The digital files were created or assembled by Van Zoeren and were received on an external hard drive. This series is further divided into subseries by type of material: Information on Farms, Families, etc.; Oral History Audio Files; Historic Images; Video Recordings; Genealogies; Census and Cemetery Records; Historic Maps; and Other Resources. Some of the content may be digitized versions of items in the analog portion of the collection.

Grand Rapids, Michigan-based environmental protection organization. Administrative, educational, legislative, and litigation files relating to various environmental issues, notably the Pigeon River Country State Forest oil drilling controversy, the problem of solid waste disposal, land and water use, and nuclear energy; contain files created during the tenures of executive directors Joan Wolfe, Roger Conner, Kenneth Sikkema, Frank Ruswick, Jr., Robert Newberry, Thomas Leonard, and Rachel Hood.

The records of the WMEAC, received in multiple accessions, but now melded together, have been retained in an order approximate to that maintained by the organization in its earlier years. The records include administrative, educational, legislative, and litigation files relating to various environmental issues, notably the Pigeon River Country State Forest oil drilling controversy, the problem of solid waste disposal, land and water use, and nuclear energy; contain files of executive directors Joan Wolfe, Roger Conner, Kenneth Sikkema, Frank Ruswick, Jr., Robert Newberry and Thomas Leonard. the records are organized into eight series: administrative files, educational files, legislative files, litigation files, chlordane ban efforts, WMEAC non-serial publications, WMEAC publicity and media coverage, and WMEAC serial publications.

Ann Arbor, Michigan, archivist; collected materials relating to local Democratic Party politics; student papers; and photographs.

The McNitt papers consist of materials collected relating to his interest in, and activities with, the local Democratic Party. Included are newsletters, leaflets, campaign materials and newspaper clippings concerning state, county, and municipal politics, particularly the presidential campaigns of Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and George McGovern in 1972, Ann Arbor City Council and school board elections; the New Democratic Coalition of Michigan; the Human Rights Party; the state presidential primary in 1972; Democratic state conventions; state elections in 1968, 1970, 1972, and 1974; and the election campaign of Congressman Richard F. VanderVeen in 1974.

The collection also includes copies of student papers on topics relating to Michigan history. The titles of these papers are "The Library Extension Movement in Grand Rapids", "Journalism and the Republican Party of Michigan, 1890-1920; A Study of the Michigan Republican Newspaper Association", and "Peace and American Society : Rebecca Shelley and the Peace Movement."

Finally, there are many hundreds of photographs taken by McNitt relating to the construction of the Bentley Library and to the accessioning of the papers of Gerald R. Ford.