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John Harris Forster was a geologist, engineer, surveyor, farmer, and chronicler of life in the Americas in the mid-19th century. As he traveled about North and South America, surveying boundaries, inspecting copper mines, mining gold with the California Forty-Niners, or raising hogs, Forster wrote of his experiences in his journals and used them and his acute memory to describe his travels to family, friends, and an interested public. His journals, correspondence, and speeches are a rich source of social history and geographical and architectural information on life in the areas in which he traveled, including the Great Lakes (Michigan and Wisconsin), Far West, and Central and South America. Forster's papers are of considerable interest for their detailed descriptions of the culture and lifestyle of the native populations he encountered, the terrain and climate of the areas in which he camped and surveyed, and the hardships of life in unsettled or recently settled areas.

The John Harris Forster papers are arranged in seven series. Correspondence primarily contains letters written by Forster to various family members, and is arranged chronologically by year. The Thomas Forster series contains materials of John's father, chiefly correspondence and documents pertaining to family and financial matters. Journals and Manuscripts is arranged by year, with titles provided on the contents list. Scrapbook Materials consist of clippings from various newspapers (most of which are unidentified). Forster evidently was a journalist correspondent for these papers, and his columns seem to be excerpts from his journals, with slight modification. His Speeches and Addresses to various Michigan organizations also are based to a large extent on his journals, but there are exceptions, such as the very interesting one detailing life as a Swine-herd in California. Miscellaneous consists mostly of biographical materials and financial documents. Photographs includes portraits and view of the family farm near Williamston, Michigan. For related materials on Forster, including biographical clippings, correspondence to his wife, family documents, and other Forster writings, the researcher should consult the Mullett Family Papers.

Popular novelist, author of The Robe and Magnificent Obsession, and minister of the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Correspondence with his family, publishers and other authors concerning his work and including comments on national politics, Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, and World War II; also manuscripts of addresses, articles, sermons, and novels; scrapbooks; and photographs.

The Douglas papers consist of material collected by his daughters, Virginia Douglas Dawson and Betty Douglas Wilson Herman, in the preparation of their biography of their father, The Shape of Sunday. The collection has been arranged into the following series: Correspondence; Ministerial Activities; Literary Career; Miscellaneous and personal; and Scrapbooks.

These 12 scrapbook pages contain announcements, reward and wanted advertisements and circulars, typed notes, and police letters and telegrams for individuals wanted by the law. The crimes include illegally collecting subscription money, destruction of a powder magazine at the Navy Yard on Mare Island, family desertion, failure to provide for the family or minor children, auto theft, murder, embezzlement, horse stealing, larceny, bank robbery, burglary, fraud, and others. The primary geographical locations are Sacramento and San Francisco, California; other advertisements are from Georgia, New York, Massachusetts, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois, and other California locations. The bulk of the wanted individuals are white, but several represent Japanese, Greek, and Mexican perpetrators. One letter from the William J. Burns International Detective Agency, Inc., dated April 20, 1918, includes a pasted-on mugshot photograph of Manuel Schenone.

These 12 scrapbook pages contain announcements, reward and wanted advertisements and circulars, typed notes, and police letters and telegrams for individuals wanted by the law. The crimes include illegally collecting subscription money, destruction of a powder magazine at the Navy Yard on Mare Island, family desertion, failure to provide for the family or minor children, auto theft, murder, embezzlement, horse stealing, larceny, bank robbery, burglary, fraud, and other crimes. The primary geographical locations are Sacramento and San Francisco, California; other advertisements are from Georgia, New York, Massachusetts, Oregon, Illinois, and other California locations. The bulk of the wanted individuals are white, but several represent Japanese, Greek, and Mexican perpetrators. One letter from the William J. Burns International Detective Agency, Inc., dated April 20, 1918, includes a pasted-on mugshot photograph of Manuel Schenone. Schenone, "a well known Bunko man", served four years in Folsom Prison and now is wanted for holding up the Yokohama Specie Bank.

The scrapbook pages were once part of a larger volume and bear the printed page numbers 79, 80, 147, 148, 155, 156, 157, 158, 161, 162, 165, and 166; plus one unpaginated partial page.