Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Otsego, Michigan, family. Letters to Mrs. Sabra Hager discussing personal and family affairs, including mention of neighbors leaving for the Pikes Peak gold rush; also ninety letters from her husband, Phineas A. Hager, of Co. B, Nineteenth Michigan Infantry, twenty-five from her son, William H. White, Sixth Michigan Infantry, and three from Henry Stark of Sixth Michigan Infantry, concerning their service in the Civil War.

Letters to Mrs. Sabra Hager discussing personal and family affairs, including mention of neighbors leaving for the Pikes Peak gold rush. 90 letters from her husband, Phineas A. Hager in which he tells of camp life and duties in the army of the Cumberland, the weather, food, sickness, and news of the Otsego men in his regiment. He comments on the death of his stepson, William White, on bushwhackers, slavery and the Southern people, and on the officers in his regiment. He describes the fighting before Atlanta in which action he was killed. Much of each letter is given over to home and business affairs. Also includes 25 letters from William H. White in which he describes camps Fort Wayne and McKim and camp life and duties; ship transportation to other camps such as Ship Island and Baton Rouge; and a Thanksgiving dinner. He tells about food and exchanging food with the natives, picket duty, sickness, and the use of contrabands in camp. He comments on officers and on slavery.

Harlan Henthorne Hatcher (1898-1998) was president of the University of Michigan from 1951 to 1967. The papers span the years 1837-1998 and document Dr. Hatcher's University of Michigan presidency, Ohio State University career, literary career, organizational involvement, personal life, and family history. Includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, manuscripts, speeches, yearly datebooks, oral history interview transcripts, magnetic audio tape recordings, an audiocassette recording, and photographs.

The Harlan Henthorne Hatcher Papers document his University of Michigan presidency, Ohio State University career, literary career, organizational involvement, personal life, and family history. The collection spans the years 1837-1998, with the bulk of the materials covering 1891-1986. It includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, manuscripts, speeches, yearly datebooks, oral history interview transcripts, magnetic audio tape recordings, an audiocassette recording, and photographs. The collection is strongest in its documentation of Dr. Hatcher's presidency at the University of Michigan, especially in correspondence and speeches. Documentation is weakest on the subjects of his Ohio State University career before 1944 and organizational involvement before 1967. The collection may be useful to researchers interested in the history of the University of Michigan from 1951-1967, the duties of university administrators and their spouses, authors of the 1920's to 1950's, and environmental activism in Michigan in the 1970's and 1980's.

The Harlan Hatcher collection has been divided into two subgroups of files: those which were created or accumulated from his tenure as president of the University of Michigan (1951-1967) and those materials (mainly personal) dated either prior to or subsequent to Hatcher's presidential years.

The library, as archives of the University of Michigan, is the repository for all of the files of its presidents. For historic reasons, all of the papers of presidents up to and including Harlan Hatcher have been treated as personal collections and cataloged under the name of the president. Beginning with Hatcher's successor - Robben Fleming - and continuing to the present, the files of individuals occupying the president's office have been considered both personal and institutional. Records created from an individual's responsibility as president, usually materials from the years when he was president, are treated as office files and have been cataloged as part of the University of Michigan President's Office record group. Materials from either before or after an individual's tenure as president have been treated separately and have been cataloged under that president's name.

Conscientious objector during World Wars I and II and founder of the farming cooperative Saline Valley Farms. Correspondence, diaries, notebooks, and other materials relating to all phases of his career, including his work as Y.M.C.A. worker in England, 1916-1917, and as teacher at Central China University, Wuchang, China, 1922-1926; also family correspondence of Philip H. and Almena S. Gray, 1874-1926; also photographs and motion pictures.

The Harold Gray papers have been divided into seven series: Correspondence; World War I era activities; Personal and Miscellaneous; Printed, clippings, and miscellanea; Family and genealogical; Saline Valley Farms; and Visual Materials (photographs and motion pictures). The great strength of the collection are correspondence, administrative files, diaries, and visual materials documenting the operation of the Saline Valley Farms. There is significant, though smaller quantities of papers detailing Gray's opposition to serving in the military during World War I and his career as a teacher in China in the 1920s.

Detroit financier and industrialist, president of Packard Motor Car Company, leader of the "Good Roads Movement" and president of the Lincoln Highway Association, active in the Republican Party and business associations. Papers include correspondence, scrapbooks and photographs relating to automobile business, cross country auto travels and Joy's political interests.

The Henry B. Joy papers consist of correspondence concerning his business activities in Detroit, Michigan, his support of the Lincoln Highway Association, his campaign against the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition), and their interest in the Federal Council of Churches; also business letter books, 1888-1892, and 1902-1903; photograph album, 1915, concerning automobile trip from Detroit to San Francisco; scrapbooks, 1883-1937, containing newspaper clippings and articles relating to the development of the automobile industry, national economic affairs and Republican politics; and collection of printed pamphlets and newsletters, 1927-1936, of conservative individuals and organizations, including the American Coalition, American Liberty League, the Vigilant Intelligence Federation, the Daughters of the American Revolution, Elizabeth Dilling, Robert E. Edmonson, the Industrial Defense Association, the National Civic Federation, and the Union League of Michigan. The collection also includes photograph albums of cross-country automobile trips and of racing cars; also portraits of Joy.

The Henry Chandler Cowles photograph collection is comprised primarily of lantern slides. As a botany professor at the University of Chicago, Cowles led several field trips to observe ecological environments during the years from 1898 to 1934. The lantern slides in this collection cover the geographic areas of Michigan, Colorado, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Illinois and include photographic subjects such as dunes, plant life, forests, landscapes, and class group pictures.

The Henry Chandler Cowles photograph collection is comprised primarily of glass lantern slides from Cowles's ecology trips covering the years 1898 to 1936 with the majority being unmarked or falling between the years 1900-1912. Captions affixed to the plates are noted when available along with any numbering. Some of the handwriting is difficult to make out as are the Latin names of the plants but every attempt at correct spelling has been made. The collection is divided into seven series: Michigan Photographs, Colorado Photographs, Illinois Photographs, Indiana Photographs, Wisconsin Photographs, Miscellaneous Photographs, and Indiana Transparencies. Each state has subseries of General -- which indicates a many single location photographs -- and subseries of cities for which a group of photographs exists.

Collection includes a diary (1862-1864) that contains brief notations of daily activities and maps of military engagements. Also includes some photographic portraits (one colored) and correspondence.

A diary (Jan. 1, 1862-Apr. 30, 1863) kept while he was serving in Company D, 9th Michigan Infantry as corporal and sergeant (1861-1864), mostly in Tennessee. The brief entries tell of guard and picket duty and other daily activities in camp and on the march, of an occasional skirmish with the enemy, the weather, and church attendance. He also describes the battlefield of Stones River. Also includes miscellaneous papers relating to his military service and an address to the Grange, ca. 1870.

Civil War letters written by Alfred W. Wright, Co. A, Seventeenth Michigan Infantry, and George Blashfield, Co. E, Sixth Michigan Infantry; also a program of the Fairview Union School for 1863 and miscellaneous correspondence.

The collection includes two diaries, for 1864 and 1865. In the 1864 diary, Dean tells of directing and supervising men in erecting and operating sawmills and building storehouses, hospitals, bridges, etc. around Lookout Mountain and Chattanooga. He also writes of the move from there to the siege of Atlanta and the occupation of Atlanta; of deserters, prisoners, destruction of railroads, regimental inspections, and camp life in general; and of the return march to Chattanooga in six and one-half days. The 1865 diary (Jan.-June), kept while he was in Chattanooga, tells about the weather, building barracks, duties, social activities, the surrender of Lee, death of Lincoln, and mustering out. Also includes miscellaneous citations, commissions, legal documents relating to his military service and his work as regent, and a statement (notarized by Dean) of Victor C. Vaughan pertaining to the Douglas-Rose dispute, 1878.

Graduate School of the University of Michigan. Includes Bulletins and Announcements of courses and degree requirements, graduate student hand books and other information for graduate students.

The Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies Announcements, Bulletins and Handbooks series consists of publications directly related to graduate school policies and procedures and includes information on degree program requirements and curriculum.

Academic degree program requirements are defined in what is called the university "bulletin" or general catalog. For example, program requirements outline how many credits and what subjects a student needs to complete in order to receive a degree in an academic program within a specific school or college. At the University of Michigan, the degree program requirements are positioned as a contract between the university and the student with regard to the definition and program requirements.

Included in this series are the Announcement (or Bulletin), Graduate Student Handbook and Information for Graduate Students. Some publications (or their successors) may no longer be available in print but are available on the school s website.

Note that other publications produced by the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies, such as Rackham Reports, are separately cataloged.