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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.

Professor of forestry and forest economics and first dean of the School of Forestry at the University of Michigan, prominent conservationist, chairman of the U.S. Timber Conservation Boards in the 1930s and president of the Society of American Foresters. Records including correspondence and topical files, primarily document his participation in conservation organizations and professional associations and service on government boards and commissions. There is some material on his scholarly and administrative work at the University of Michigan, but the latter is more fully documented in the records of the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources.

The files document Dana's professional activities mainly from the period after his World War I service and concern his organizational involvements and his participation in forestry conservation projects. Dana's role as dean of the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources is less fully documented here as these materials were retained as part of that school's record group (also housed at the Bentley Historical Library).

Dean of the School of Education at the University of Michigan, 1969-1978. Earlier served in Franklin D. Roosevelt administration where he was a key figure in establishing the Social Security program and was Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under Lyndon Johnson. Records consist of Dean's files; working files, 1978, relating to his work with the Governor's Task Force on Prevention and Investigation of Abuse in State Institutions; papers relating to the Summit Conference on Inflation, 1974; and files concerning involvement with school desegregation cases in Detroit and Kalamazoo, Michigan; also photographs.

The Wilbur Cohen Papers provide documentation of his work as Dean of the School of Education at the University of Michigan and with the state of Michigan Task Force on the Prevention and Investigation of Abuse in State Institutions1977-1979, as well as files on school desegregation in Detroit and Kalamazoo. The papers are organized into five series: Cohen's Task Force on the Prevention and Investigation of Abuse in State Institutions, Public School Desegregation Files, two series of Dean of the School of Education files and Photographs.

University of Michigan teacher and administrator, economist, labor mediator, and member of boards of various universities, Jewish educational, social, and welfare agencies, and public official. Series in collection include: Biographical/Personal, Correspondence, Jewish Organizations, University of Michigan, Other Organizational Activities, Appearances, Writings, Newspaper Clippings and Press Releases, and University of Wisconsin Student Notebooks and Papers, 1924-1926. Subjects covered in collection pertain to his activities as economist and authority on matters of labor economics, social security, and unemployment insurance. Also documented is his involvement with various Jewish social and philanthropic organizations, including ORT, B'nai B'rith, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Hebrew University, and to his work as Advisor on Jewish Affairs to General Lucius Clay. Correspondents in the collection include public figures from government, labor, universities, Jewish organizations, and philanthropic agencies.

The papers of William Haber, covering the period since his education at the University of Wisconsin in the 1920s until his death in 1988, have come to the library in several accessions beginning in 1978. Because of the fullness of Haber's career and the fact that he worked out of different offices, this half century of documentation was surprisingly well organized although somewhat broken up because files had been retired at different times. In 1992, the collection was reprocessed and the opportunity was taken to bring together sequences of files that had been separated. There are still some inconsistencies in the filing but these have been explained and described in the Series Description that follows.

The collection has been arranged into ten series. Although Haber and his secretarial staff never classified his files in these terms, the series headings were given to draw like materials together and to provide a rational framework for thinking about and using the various Haber files. The series are: Biographical/Personal; Correspondence; Jewish Organizations; University of Michigan; Other Organizational Activities; Appearances; Writings; Scrapbooks, clippings, etc.; Miscellaneous; and University of Wisconsin Files.