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Professor of zoology at the University of Michigan, scientist for the Rockefeller Foundation, and scientific writer for both professional and popular publications. Correspondence, journals, manuscripts of writings, and class materials, including papers detailing his work with the United Fruit Company in Central America, 1928-1931, his later activities with the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, especially his interest in mosquito research and malaria control programs during the 1930's and 1940's, and his demographic studies of the people of the Ifalik Atoll in the South Pacific in 1953; and photographs.

The Bates papers cover the period 1913-1974 and include material relating to all phases of his career, including his research in Guatemala and Honduras with the United Fruit Company, his studies of mosquito biology and malaria control programs during the 1930's and 1940's in Albania, Egypt, Colombia, and elsewhere and his later investigations into problems of demography and human ecology. The collection includes correspondence, personal and scientific journals, miscellaneous entomological notes, manuscripts of many of his books, articles, and book reviews, copies of the scripts of his television appearances, and University of Michigan class notes. The collections also includes personal photographs and photographs relating to his scientific research.

The collection has been arranged into six series: Correspondence; University of Michigan; Journals, diaries, research; Writings; Notes/miscellaneous personal; 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.