Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Administrative records include bylaws, correspondence, meeting minutes, and newsletters. Topical files concern various political groups and issues such as the Detroit newspaper strike, the appearance of the Ku Klux Klan in Ann Arbor in 1996, and other labor matters.

The collection contains administrative records of the Labor Party of Washtenaw County, including by-laws, correspondence, meeting minutes, and newsletters, as well as material, collected by party chairperson Michelle Kinnucan, related to issues such as the Detroit newspaper strike, living wage campaign, health care, and the environment.

The collection has been divided into three series. Administrative Records, Topical Files, and Videocassettes.

Architectural photographer based in Troy, Mich. Photoprints and copy negatives, chiefly a portfolio entitled "Man's Presence," a study of Michigan's manmade environment.

Representing but a tiny fraction of Korab's oeuvre, the collection held at the Bentley Library will nevertheless appeal to a broad range of researchers. Especially in a collective sense, Korab photographs are not only about architecture and architectural photography, but also about art, technology, modernism, photography's history, the environment, urbanism, ruralism, and the creative process itself. They also document one individual's spirited commitment to a life's work -- work expressed both analytically and emotionally.

The essence of the collection is a Korab portfolio entitled Man's Presence, a study of Michigan's man-made environment that drew him to dozens of towns, cities and rural areas in the upper and lower peninsulas. Photographs capture the quiet magnificence of silos and barns, the elegance of 19th century mansions, the utilitarian architecture of iron foundries and grain elevators. There are also pictures depicting ways man has wasted resources (an abandoned lumber mill, a barren tract of bulldozed land. A superb example of Korab's lifelong fascination with vernacular architecture, Man's Presence is a deliberate effort to capture on film Michigan worlds that otherwise might go unnoticed or become lost to future generations.

The collection is comprised of three series: Biographical Materials; Man's Presence Contact Sheets; and Man's Presence Copy Prints and Copy Negatives.

Ann Arbor, Michigan, photography firm. Photonegatives, and some photoprints, of images largely relating to Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan, but including Ypsilanti and other Michigan cities: buildings, businesses, houses, street scenes, community activities, and organizations; also photos of automobiles, storm damage, etc. taken to support insurance claims.

The Ivory Photo collection consists of an impressive array of negatives and prints taken by Ann Arbor photographer Mel Ivory from the 1920s to the early 1970s. Most of the photographs were taken by Ivory for customers, whether the University of Michigan, local businesses, or private citizens. The collection is probably most valuable for its extensive documentation of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan, the two areas in which it bulks largest. However, because it spans a relatively long time period, the collection is also useful for illustrating changes in photography as an art and as a business, and for documenting social trends in twentieth-century America. Finally, the collection documents the career of a commercial photographer.

As a photographer for the University of Michigan in the 1920s and 1930s, Ivory took the standard pictures of campus events, buildings, and people, but the value of many photographs from this period is as much aesthetic as informational. Producing cover art for the Michigan Alumnus allowed him to experiment with unusual angles, lighting, and subject matter. (See, for example, photographs of the Clements Library and of students strolling through the Diag in the 1930s.) In stark contrast to these images is a large group of photographs of car wrecks that Ivory took for insurance companies between 1937 and 1969.

Besides providing thorough documentation of the physical plant of the University of Michigan, the Ivory collection evokes the flavor of life on campus in the 1930s and 1940s through photographs of football games and crowds, dance bands, social events, professors at work in laboratories, the Michigan Daily staff at work, and students in classrooms, libraries, and dormitories.

The Ann Arbor subseries includes numerous photographs of houses and businesses, filed by address to facilitate research into a particular building or site, as well as a rich assortment of photographs depicting life in Ann Arbor through more than four decades. There are numerous photographs of men and women at work in factories, stores, and other settings. Some show women at work in unusual settings (as cab drivers for Ace Cab Company, for example) while others depict women in stereotypically female occupations (as secretaries, store clerks, and ditto machine operators). Photographs of drug and department store display windows and of products in grocery stores illustrate trends in merchandising.

The Ivory collection is also remarkable for its documentation of social mores. Wedding photographs taken from the 1930s to the 1960s depict a variety of settings, fashions, wedding rituals, and even fads, such as a 1940 wedding at a roller rink. There is also a small group of photographs of funerals and an extensive series of portraits of children, families, and individuals.

Photographs of a depression-era hobo cooking near a railroad car, of lawn parties and country clubs, of the soap box derby and sports teams reflect diverse aspects of life in Ann Arbor. The home front during World War II is documented in views of an aluminum drive, a blitzkrieg game in a local tavern, a commuter bus with a female conductor, and the Judge Advocate General's school exercises in the Law Quad.

Although the Ypsilanti subseries is considerably smaller than the Ann Arbor and University of Michigan subseries, it contains a number of valuable photographs, such as the Cleary College photographs showing rows of students at typewriters, students relaxing on boarding house steps and in Cleary lounges and recreation rooms, and annual graduation processions. The Washtenaw County subseries contains rural scenes such as farms, country roads, and a county fair. The remaining subseries consist of businesses, street scenes, railroad stations, and a variety of other photographs representing Michigan towns and counties.

A few copy negatives made by Ivory from existing photographs are scattered throughout the collection. A late nineteenth or early twentieth-century anatomy lesson in the Medical School, for example, is filed in the "Colleges, Schools, and other Divisions" section of University of Michigan 5"x7" negatives.

The contents of the various subseries and sub-subseries are for the most part self-evident, but a few words of explanation about the Ann Arbor subseries are in order. "Buildings and Views" consists largely of exterior views of buildings. However, there are many interior scenes of people and activities in the "Churches," "Hospitals," and "Schools" sections. For example, photographs of Ann Arbor churches include views of the pastor and congregation, choirs, recreation rooms, meetings, and athletic teams in addition to interior and exterior views of the buildings. "Schools" contains photographs of sports teams, classroom scenes, social events, and buildings representing Ann Arbor public and parochial schools, but also Ann Arbor Secretarial School and Concordia College.

Researchers seeking images of commercial enterprises will find material in the "Buildings and Views" sub-subseries (listed under the street address in the "Houses and Businesses" section) and in the "Businesses" sub-subseries (under the name of the enterprise).

The "Houses and Businesses" negatives within the "Buildings and Views" sub-subseries are arranged alphabetically by street name and then numerically by address. Most of these photographs are exterior views, but interior scenes of businesses have been filed here in order to keep exterior and interior views of a particular business together. Photographs of products, equipment, people at work, and special events are filed in the "Businesses" sub-subseries when no building exteriors exist or when the address of the business was unknown. Researchers should look both places for photographs of businesses. Although some "see also" references have been added, they are by no means exhaustive. Researchers may also wish to examine the "Motor Vehicles" sub-subseries, which contains photographs of trucks owned by Ann Arbor businesses.

In the University of Michigan subseries, "Buildings and Views" consists of exterior and interior views of buildings, whereas "Colleges, Schools, and Other Divisions" contains photographs of professors and students in laboratories and classrooms as well as group photographs of staff and students.

Administrative files, including board and finance minutes, agendas, fund-raising and promotional materials, scrapbooks, articles of incorporation, and other miscellanea; also files of the Ypsilanti, Wayne, and Brighton, Michigan, councils of the Girl Scouts.

The Huron Valley Girl Scout Council record group documents the administration and activities of a growing Girl Scout Council in Michigan. It is comprised of such records as Board and Council minutes, by-laws, annual reports, newsletters, financial material, various committee minutes, district files, promotional material, annual agendas, membership information, and staff position descriptions. Included in the records are the files of the Ann Arbor, Plymouth and Washtenaw County Girl Scout Councils. In 1958 these agencies combined to form the Huron Valley Girl Scout Council. The records cover the years 1940 through 1965 with the bulk covering 1958-1962. Only a portion of the records have been processed. Those materials which have been processed consist of the following series: Ann Arbor Girl Scout Council, Plymouth Girl Scout Council, Girl Scout Council of Washtenaw County and Huron Valley Girl Scout Council.

Ann Arbor, Michigan businessman and surveyor general of the Dakota Territory; correspondence and business papers.

The George D. Hill papers consists of correspondence and financial papers relating to his Ann Arbor business interests and to his service as surveyor general of the Dakota Territory in the 1860s. Some of the additional topics covered in the collection include the Free Homestead Association of Central New York, lumbering activities (1854-1857), the Michigan militia (1858-1861), the removal of President Henry P. Tappan from University of Michigan, and Hill's role in Republican Party politics (1856-1857). Hill numbered among his correspondents Cyrus Aldrich, Henry J. Alvord, Moses K. Armstrong, Kinsley S. Bingham, Philemon Bliss, W. W. Brookings, Walter A. Burleigh, Zachariah Chandler, Frederick W. Curtenius, Mark W. Delahay, Charles H. Dennison, James M. Edmunds, Newton Edmunds, Alpheus Felch, James S. Foster, Orrin N. Giddings, Bradley F. Granger, William Jayne, Whitney Jones, Francis R. Stebbins, Henry P. Tappan, T. J. Townsend, Jerome M. Treadwell, Seymour B. Treadwell, and Benjamin F. Wade.

Naturalist, professor of zoology and physiology at Eastern Illinois State Normal College and Michigan State Normal College, and researcher for state conservation departments in Michigan and Ohio. Correspondence, reports, and field and laboratory notes concerning his studies of the fish of Michigan, Illinois and New York; also photographs.

Hankinson's papers are contained in five boxes. Types of materials in the collection include correspondence; topical files on fish studies from Michigan, Illinois, and New York; materials on the Michigan Audubon Society; and field notes (loose leaf, bound volumes, and card files). The time period of these materials ranges from 1899 to 1935.

The archives at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan has additional papers of Professor Hankinson.

Professor of German at University of Michigan. Correspondence, articles, speeches and research notes.

The Florer papers have been arranged into the following series: Correspondence; Personal; University of Michigan; Education and the Teaching of German; and Articles and research materials. Some of Florer's correspondents include James B. Angell, Wilber M. Brucker, Fred W. Green, Harry B. Hutchins, and Harry F. Kelly. Some of the other files of interest concern his interests in Louis Kossuth, Gustav Frenssen, Hermann Kiefer, and the Schilling family of Scio township, Washtenaw County, Michigan. There are also materials on early German settlers of Michigan, and the firing of members of the German Department of the University of Michigan during World War I.

Manchester Township, Washtenaw County, Michigan, farmer. Material concerning farming activities, English's work with the Southern Washtenaw Farmers' Club, local Democratic Party affairs, his work as clerk of the Iron Creek (Manchester Township) Free Will Baptist Church; correspondence; miscellaneous account books of family members, notebooks containing reference information, and reports of the overseer of highways for Manchester Township; and photographs. Correspondence includes a letter from Thomas English of West Virginia, who was formerly an enslaved person. The collection also includes a diary of Lucy English, Albert D. English's sister.

The English collection documents different phases of his life and provides the researcher with material for the study of Manchester, Michigan between 1880 and 1910. In addition to correspondence, the collection includes notebooks containing the newspaper columns on local affairs which English wrote for several county newspapers. There are also 18 "Ready Reference Books" containing lists of local, state, and national political candidates and office holders, Manchester property owners, lists of school teachers and graduates, church leaders, as well as other information gleaned from almanacs and newspapers over the years. Included are also several farm journals of Albert English and his father Benjamin English, and a personal diary and a scrapbook of Albert's sister Lucy English (in marriage, Lucy Simmons). Much of the correspondence files concerns the Free Will Baptist Church. Correspondence includes one letter from Thomas English of West Virginia, a formerly enslaved person, whom Albert English apparently contacted in regard to the family genealogy. There is no record of continued correspondence on this subject.

Founded in 1970, the Ecology Center of Ann Arbor is a grassroots community organization committed to increasing environmental awareness. Records include meeting minutes, financial statements, correspondence, news clippings, photographs and publications relating to the activities and functions of the organization, especially in the areas of recycling, energy conservation, and ecology.

The records of the Ecology Center document the efforts of this grassroots community organization to increase environmental awareness through the establishment of recycling and energy conservation programs, and by publicizing the need for pesticide control and responsible solid waste disposal among other issues. The series in the record group are: Administrative Files, Topical Files, Printed Materials and Publicity, and Visual Materials.

Collection of photographs and other material documenting various locations, communities, and organizations in Michigan.

Collection of materials (mostly photographs) that document social, cultural, religious, and daily life in the state of Michigan and at the University of Michigan. Photographs depict locations throughout the state and groups of people. Materials are in the following categories: graduating classes, social societies and clubs, University of Michigan, views and scenes.