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First president of the Detroit chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and chairman of the defense fund during Dr. Ossian Sweet trial. Co-founder of the Great Lakes Mutual Life Insurance Company at Detroit, Michigan.

Correspondence concerning the Plymouth Congregational Church of Detroit, Michigan, local politics, social issues, and civil rights; and partial transcript of the Ossian Sweet Murder Trial. Correspondents include Prentiss M. Brown, Wilber M. Brucker, James J. Couzens, Clarence Darrow, Frank Murphy, and George Murphy.

Also, a portrait circa 1940s (photonegative).

Republican U.S. Senator from Michigan; advocate of the United Nations and bipartisan foreign policy. Correspondence, scrapbooks, diaries, and visual materials.

The Arthur H. Vandenberg collection consists of 8 linear feet of materials (available on microfilm), 25 volumes of scrapbook/journals, and assorted audio and visual materials. The collection covers Vandenberg's entire career with a few folders of papers post-dating his death in 1951 relating to the dedication of memorial rooms in his honor in the 1970s. The collection is divided into four major series: Correspondence; Speeches; Campaign and Miscellaneous Topical; Clippings, Articles, and Scrapbooks; Miscellaneous and Personal; Visual Materials; and Sound Recordings.

Detroit, Michigan lawyer and banker, and alumnus of University of Michigan. Correspondence, essays, and newspaper clippings concerning the Detroit banking crisis of 1933; and biographical and genealogical information on the Church, Benedict and Mahon families; also photographs.

The Orla B. Taylor collection consists of correspondence, essays and other writings, and biographical and personal material. Many of the writings relate to banking in Detroit in the 1930s.

Major general in the U.S. Army, physicist, and inventor. Correspondence, personal account books, reports, military orders, student notebooks (U.S. Military Academy and Johns Hopkins University), notes and other material largely related to his scientific interests, particularly in telegraphy and trans-oceanic cables; also diaries kept while a West Point cadet, one of which contains a family history and autobiography; Ph.D. thesis in physics from Johns Hopkins University; and photographs.

The George Owen Squier papers include correspondence, personal account books, reports, military orders, student notebooks (U.S. Military Academy and Johns Hopkins University), notes and other material largely related to his scientific interests, particularly in telegraphy and trans-oceanic cables; diaries kept while a West Point cadet, one of which contains a family history and autobiography; Squier's Ph.D. thesis in physics from Johns Hopkins University; and photographs.

The Squier collection has been arranged into the following series: Correspondence; Inventions and Research; Military Career; Miscellaneous / Personal; and Education (West Point and Johns Hopkins).

Republican member of the state house and the state senate; president of the University Musical Society. Legislative and campaign files, 1919-1935, detailing his election campaigns, his activities within the legislature, and his various responsibilities as a member of the Republican State Central Committee; general correspondence files, 1922-1960, largely pertaining to his work with the University Musical Society and other civic activities; topical files; family history and memoirs; diaries and appointment books; papers of wife Alva Gordon Sink; and visual materials.

Pacifist, participant in World War I peace movement and later peace activities, member of Fellowship of Reconciliation, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and Women Strike for Peace. Papers include Correspondence, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, periodicals, reports, photographs, and other materials relating to the International Congress of Women, 1915, the Ford Peace Ship, the American Neutral Conference Committee, the Emergency Peace Federation, and the People's Council of America.

The papers of Rebecca Shelley (1887-1984) were donated by Shelley in several accessions between 1964 and 1984. The papers make up twenty-one linear feet of materials and cover the years 1890-1984, though only a few photographs and printed items predate 1910. Her anti-war activism, legal battles, writing career, and courtships with Franz Willman and Felix Rathmer are all well-represented. In addition to her personal papers, there are groups of material belonging to Emily Balch, Richard Olsen, Felix Rathmer, Paul Shelly, and William A. Shelly.

Many peace organizations are also documented in these papers through flyers, pamphlets, periodicals, newsletters, and correspondence. These include the American Neutral Conference Committee, Emergency Peace Federation, People's Council of America, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Women Strike for Peace, and many others. As Shelley served as an officer in the Michigan Fellowship of Reconciliation (F.O.R.) through the 1950s and 1960s, many of the organization's official papers came to be in her possession. Therefore, an effort was made to remove most of these official papers to the separate Michigan F.O.R. collection.

The collection is arranged in eleven series: Biographical; Newspaper Clippings; Correspondence; Topical Papers; Miscellaneous Papers; Papers Of Other Individuals; Printed; Periodicals; Diaries And Notebooks; Photographs; and Writings.

Zoologist, college professor, president of University of Michigan, 1929-1951. Professional files relating to his career with the University Museum and as a professor of zoology, and presidential files containing correspondence, reports, speeches, and other University materials, including budget and legislative files, material relating to changes in University administration, his relationship with faculty, students and alumni, and photographs.

The Alexander Ruthven papers consists of two series of records. The first is the papers of Ruthven as president of the University of Michigan, 1929 to 1951. The second, and smaller, series is the files maintained by Ruthven as a zoologist with the University Museum and as professor of zoology. This latter series dates largely from 1908 to 1929 but also includes collected earlier files from the 1870s.

Ann Arbor, Michigan banker and commissioner of the Michigan Banking Department during the depression. Correspondence and other papers concerning his activities as banking commissioner and officer of the Michigan Bankers Association; includes letters from Mrs. Christine Reichert to her children while touring Europe, mainly Germany, on the eve of World War II, 1939; also letters between Reichert and British manufacturer in which British-American foreign policy is discussed, 1939-1945; and photographs.

The Reichert papers span the period 1907-1965 but bulk largest for the years 1927-1936. The collection deals with Reichert's career as Commissioner of the State Banking Department of Michigan, his activities as a local bank president in Ann Arbor, an officer in the Michigan Bankers Association, and a stockholder in the Argus Corporation. There are a few scattered items of a personal nature, in short, such personal correspondence as was handled through his business office.

The papers are rich in materials on the financial crisis in Michigan during the Great Depression when he was Banking Commissioner. Reichert was also active until the early 1950's in the framing of both state and federal legislation dealing with banks, federal deposit insurance, etc., and he carried on a full correspondence with Congressman Earl Michener and Senator Arthur Vandenberg on these legislative matters. Considerable material exists on the Michigan Bankers Association, especially for the years 1941-1944, when he was an officer of the group. There is some material on Republican party matters, but it is not very full.

Ann Arbor's business and financial life is well covered for the whole period, including material on Argus, Inc. for the post-war period. The effect of both the depression and the war on small town economic life is particularly well documented. There is an interesting series of letters, 1939-1945, between Reichert and a British rope manufacturer named Hendy, in which British and American policy in foreign affairs and the conduct of the war is argued at length.

The collection has been divided into the following series: Professional Papers; State Banking Department and related; Biographical/Personal; and Photographs.

Chairman of the department of political science at University of Michigan. Correspondence, reports, manuscript articles, book reviews, lecture notes, and miscellaneous papers concerning family affairs and his academic interests in political science and international law.

The Reeves papers largely concern JSR's activities as professor (also chairman) of the University of Michigan Department of Political Science from his appointment in 1910 until his retirement in 1937. The great bulk of the collection consists of Reeves' correspondence. With this is a smaller series of such other materials as lectures, research materials, professional organizational materials. As an aid to accessing the correspondence, a selective index of correspondents and subjects has been prepared and is appended to the following containing listing.

University of Michigan professor of political science, special advisor to the U.S. Military Government in Germany after World War II, participant in numerous government commissions; papers include correspondence, working files, speeches, course materials, and visual and sound materials.

The James K. Pollock papers represent an accumulation of files from a lifetime of academic teaching and research and an extraordinary number of public service responsibilities to both his state and his nation. The files within the collection fall into two categories: types of document (such as correspondence, speeches and writings, visual materials, etc.) and files resulting from a specific activity or position (such as his work as delegate to the Michigan Constitutional Convention or his service with the Office of the Military Government in Germany after World War II).

The collection is large and of a complicated arrangement because of Pollock's many activities. When received in 1969, the files were maintained as received; very little processing was done to the collection so that an inventory to the papers could be quickly prepared. The order of material is that devised by James K. Pollock and his secretarial staff in the U-M Department of Political Science. Recognizing the anomalies within the order of the collection, the library made the decision to list the contents to the collection while at the same time preparing a detailed card file index (by box and folder number, i.e. 16-8) to significant correspondents and subjects. While there was much to be said for this method of preparing a finding aid expeditiously, it also covered up some problems in arrangement. Thus series and subseries of materials are not always grouped together as they were created by Pollock. Files on the Hoover Commission and the Michigan Constitutional Convention, for example, come before Pollock's work in Germany after the war. In 1999, effort was made to resolve some of the inconsistencies and obvious misfilings of the first inventory but because of the numbering system used in 1969 and the card index prepared for the files, there are still some problems. Researchers should be alert to these difficulties and take time to examine different parts of the collection for material on a similar topic.