Collections

Chris Rizik is a Michigan-based venture capitalist and former attorney. His papers include legal documents, strategic planning notes, and presentation materials outlining the formation, strategies, and dissolution of the Ann Arbor, MI-based venture capital fund Ardesta, LLC. The collection's focus is Ardesta's interest in microsystems development.

The Chris Rizik papers document the lifespan of the Ann Arbor, Michigan based venture capital fund Ardesta. This collection includes legal documents, strategic planning notes, and materials presenting the company to various stakeholder groups. Prominent topics include Ardesta's interest in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and the creation of a campus to house Ardesta-funded start-ups.

Church originally established as Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, then later (date uncertain) as Christ Evangelical and Reformed Church. After 1961, the name became Christ Church, United Church of Christ. The church originally served the German community of Detroit. Church government documents; record books of marriages, baptisms, and funerals; and consistory minutes.

The records (most of which are in German prior to 1926) are arranged in three series: Church Government Documents, Record Books, and Consistory Minutes.

Church minutes, financial reports and budgets, and miscellaneous correspondence and newspaper clippings.

The records of the church go back to its founding in 1858. Included are minutes, parish registers, a scrapbook of events, and miscellaneous correspondence, reports and financial materials.

The Christian A. Burck photograph collection is comprised of photoprints made from glass negatives. Scenes include views of people, buildings, and activities in and near Monroe, Michigan, as well as student activities at the University of Michigan.

This collection consists of two folders. The first contains original correspondence (mostly from the Civil War) and typed transactions of that correspondence. The second folder contains a compact disc of digitally scanned images of the same correspondence. The letters date 1863, except for one, which dates 1898.

This collection consists of original correspondence, typed transcriptions of that correspondence, and a compact disk of digitally scanned images of the same correspondence.

The letters date 1863, except for one, which dates 1898. C.L. Leach wrote the 1898 letter to George Bush, and in it Leach notes that he is married and lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Leach mentions people that he and George both know and asks George to write with any news.

Frederick wrote some of the 1863 letters, and Christian, Jr. wrote the others. They’re all addressed to their father, Christian, Sr., and their brother, George. The brothers reflect on the war and describe their experiences. They reveal a disdain for both abolitionists and African Americans and seem to regard the abolitionists as a main cause of the war. The brothers describe some of their combat experiences. Gettysburg is among the battles described by Frederick. (Christian was apparently in the hospital at the time.) The brothers provide opinions about other enlisted men and officers, and on the progress of the war. They seemed to often feel that generals were too slow to attack. The brothers sometimes commented on medical care, their health and the weather, and expressed longings to return home.

This collection contains letters that German immigrant Christian August Weihe wrote to his parents and siblings in Herford, Germany, after he settled in San Francisco, California. He wrote regularly about his financial affairs and other aspects of his life in the United States between his arrival in California in 1849 and the year 1877.

The Christian August Weihe correspondence is primarily made up of 167 letters that Weihe, a German immigrant, wrote to his family in Germany after settling in San Francisco, California, in the mid-19th century. Also included are 2 money orders.

The Correspondence series contains Weihe's letters to his parents and siblings, who remained in Herford, Germany, after he moved to the United States in 1849. Though most of his letters are addressed to his father, Philip, Weihe also corresponded with his mother, Luise, and with his siblings, Louise and Theodor. He traveled from Germany to California between February and September 1849, and by December had settled in San Francisco, where he found work in a bank. He wrote of his life in the United States, discussing his life and finances and occasionally mentioning politics; in his letter of July 22, 1861, for example, he explained U.S. political parties. Weihe spent much of the Civil War era in Stockton, California, and later returned to San Francisco, where he became known primarily by his middle name, August. He continued to write regularly until the 1870s, then wrote less frequently through May 1897. One later letter addressed to Luise Weihe includes a brief greeting in English from his daughter Florence, who mentioned her sister's recent birthday and expressed her own desire to learn German (April 25, 1875). At least two letters were written on decorated stationery, including one from California's Highland Springs Resort, which includes a printed map with directions to the property (August 4, 1896).

The Money Orders series includes 2 money orders sent in 1854 from Goddefroy, Sillem, and Co., in San Francisco, California, to Philip Weihe via the Hamburg firm J. C. Godeffroy and Son.

Christian Hoffman, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Newport, Kentucky, compiled this 201-page book of poetry, largely in the German language, with eight poems in English. Hoffman's selections include poems or poem fragments by Henry Kirke White, Lord Byron, Agnes Franz, Friedrich Rückert, Christian Hoffmann von Hoffmannswaldau, Friedrich von Sallet, August Henrich Hoffmann, and others. Christian Hoffmann apparently included several original spiritual poems, such as "Des Kinder schwingender Geist" (pages 18-24) and "Die Absched des Prindes Gottes" (pages 169-170). Several blackletter script titles, decorative initials, and illustrations are present. The three illustrations include an urn with flowers (page 69), an angel with a harp (page 168), and a vignette of three maidens holding a banner with the words "O laube", "Liebe und" and "Hoffman" (page 76).

Christian Hoffman, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Newport, Kentucky, compiled this 201-page book of poetry, largely in the German language, with eight poems in English. Hoffman's selections include poems or poem fragments by Henry Kirke White, Lord Byron, Agnes Franz, Friedrich Rückert, Christian Hoffmann von Hoffmannswaldau, Friedrich von Sallet, August Henrich Hoffmann, and others. Christian Hoffmann apparently included several original spiritual poems, such as "Des Kinder schwingender Geist" (pages 18-24) and "Die Absched des Prindes Gottes" (pages 169-170). Several blackletter script titles, decorative initials, and illustrations are present. The three illustrations include an urn with flowers (page 69), an angel with a harp (page 168), and a vignette of three maidens holding a banner with the words "O laube", "Liebe und" and "Hoffman" (page 76).

This volume contains labor records regarding a farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (1851-1852), and recipes for medicines and food.

This volume (approximately 42 pages) contains labor records regarding a farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and recipes for medicines and food. The first 17 pages consist of daily records of the work performed on the farm between January 1851 and August 1852, including making hay, harvesting corn, and cultivating fields. Each entry lists a worker's name (frequently C. Lantz), the amount of time (expressed as a fraction of a day), the type of work done, and the amount of pay owed (calculated at a rate of $1.00 per day). The remaining 25 pages consist of recipes for baked goods, inks and dyes, medicines, and products called "Cattle Powder," "Blood Purifier," and "Mortification." On page, written in Pennsylvania Dutch, is laid into the volume.

A stalwart of the Moravian community in Salem, N.C., Christian Ludwig Benzien was connected in spirit and blood with some of the most prominent of American Moravians. The Benzien manuscript is a complex document comprised of occasional poetry, hymns, and songs written largely, but apparently not exclusively, by Christian Ludwig Benzien.

The Benzien manuscript is a complex document comprised of occasional poetry, hymns, and songs written largely, but apparently not exclusively, by Christian Ludwig Benzien. A Moravian minister, the son and step-son of ministers, Benzien was also a talented poet in German, and his work shows the evidence of a highly developed literary and musical aesthetic, deeply interconnected with an equally highly developed spiritual devotion.

Most of the works were written in celebration or commemoration of special days set aside throughout the year, including Christmas and New Years, birthdays, childbirths, arrivals and departures, Lord's Suppers, and Love Feasts. The volume provides insight into the Moravian religious world view, and perhaps even more into their social and familial relations through sensitive depictions of the nature of friendships between men (and women), family members, and members of church organizations -- particularly the various choirs with which Benzien was associated.

The manuscript appears to have been transcribed in about 1810-1815 by Dorothea Sophia Bötticher, and is written in two hands, entirely in old script German.

Photographs, 1905 and ca. 1955-1965, and film, 1938, relating to Scandinavian-American activities and organizations in Detroit, Michigan; also photos, 1905, of National Tea Company, a Danish-owned Detroit business.

The Feddersen collection consists of photographs and a motion picture relating to the organizations and activities of Scandinavian Americans in Michigan. The motion picture is entitled "Scandinavian Midsummer Festival, June 12, 1938." A videocassette has been made of the film.