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Bishop of the Michigan Diocese of the Episcopal Church, 1906-1923, and advocate of the "social gospel" views of Walter Rauschenbusch. Papers consist of correspondence, notebooks on labor and social issues, and biographical material.

The papers of Charles D. Williams, Episcopal bishop of Michigan, include correspondence concerning personal and church affairs and the social gospel movement, including correspondence with Walter Rauschenbush, Samuel Mather, and Lucretia Garfield; also sermons and addresses, 1885-1923, journals of European trips, 1896, 1917, and 1921, notebooks on social and labor problems, material on the 1908 forest fire at Metz, Michigan (Presque Isle County), and material on the Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland, Ohio in 1898; biographical writings by his sons, Benedict Williams, his wife Lucy V. Williams, and his secretary, Charles O. Ford; letters of condolence from fellow clergy, including Reinhold Niebuhr; also photographs.

University of Michigan office established in 1973 to counsel students in matters of faith and morality, successor to several organizations concerned with student religious activity. Records are mainly of predecessor organizations, the Student Christian Association (1860-1937) and the Student Religious Association (1937- 1956), but does include some records of the Office of Religious Affairs (1956- 1973) and of successor organization, the Office of Ethics and Religion (1973- 1991); also records of component and related organizations, including the University of Michigan chapters of the Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Women's Christian Association and the Association of Religious Counselors.

Although the name given to this group of records is the University of Michigan Office of Ethics and Religion, the researcher should note that the records consist primarily of predecessor organizations, the Student Christian Association (SCA), the Student Religious Association (SRA), and the Office of Religious Affairs, as well as component and ancillary organizations such as the University of Michigan Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Association of Religious Counselors, and the Christian Federation Advisors.

The record group begins with a summary history of the organization written by C. Grey Austin and entitled A Century of Religion at the University of Michigan (1957). Covering the period up to the establishment of the Office of Religious Affairs, this history provides solid information about the role of religion at the university and the activities and restructuring of the SCA and the SRA. Written by the same individual who wrote the sections on the two organizations in The University of Michigan; An Encyclopedic Survey, this volume is more detailed than those summaries and should be consulted first for background information.