Collections

Undated [1942-1952], mostly unidentified black and white photographs of various Mount Pleasant, Michigan, buildings, people, businesses, and events, including oil-related topics.

This collection of 127 photographs taken by Mr. Collins spans a variety of subjects, although oil seems to be a central topic, with oil companies, machinery, people, disasters, and fair displays, as well as a number of oil-related trucks and businesses of various types in the collection.

The photographs are black and white, undated, although they all must date from 1942 to 1952, and they are mostly unidentified. There is an interesting photograph in the People (Folder 1) of three WWII GIs on camels in Egypt. The GIs are posing in front of what may be the Great Sphinx and Pyramid at Giza. Also there is one photograph each of Sloan and Warriner halls at Central Michigan University in the Building folder. There is a photograph of Fancher Elementary School students in the People (Folder 2), and in the People (Folder 1), there is one photograph each of a large first communion group, a large Christmas party of children, a cowboy band, and a (high school?) football team. The donor believed all the photographs were of Mount Pleasant subjects. Some of the businesses identified in the Businesses and Trucks and People folders include: Roy D. Hafer Oil Company, Roscoe E. Becket Hauling Contractors, Art Savage [gas truck], and Mt. Pleasant Cementing and Mudding.

The collection includes materials, mostly originals, by and about Bovee (Biographical Materials), usually in connection with Central Michigan University (CMU), and (CMU Subjects) of a historic nature that he collected, including CMU materials, publications, photographs, and related materials.

The collection includes materials, mostly originals, by and about him (biographical material), usually in connection with CMU, and CMU materials, publications, photographs, and related materials of a historical nature that he collected (CMU Subjects). Bovee generated a number of reports, speeches, remarks, and was also photographed serving on CMU committees or at building dedications. He and his family were also invited to a number of CMU presidential inaugurations.

Of particular note are Bovee’s Letter about university unrest, 1965, his Statement for Michigan State Senate Committee Investigating Faculty-Administration Relationships at CMU, 1966, and the original raw data and report of the CMU Teaching Faculty Survey, 1966. It is unknown whether or not Bovee was responsible for creating the survey. The investigation led to CMU faculty creating the first faculty union in the state of Michigan.

Also of interest is a rare photograph of the laying of the Finch Fieldhouse’s cornerstone, 1956.

Two copies of his A Master Plan for the City of Mount Pleasant, Isabella County, Michigan November 1965… are also housed in the CMU libraries.