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Professor of English at University of Michigan. Correspondence, diaries, and topical files relating to his interest in English grammar and usage, his evaluation of various dictionaries, his interest in Polish-American relations, and the controversy surrounding Henshaw Ward's denial of Peary's discovery of the North Pole.

The Wells collection is comprised of the following series: Subject file; Personal diaries; Robert E. Peary; and Other papers.

The Terry family papers contain correspondence, documents, and other items pertaining to the family of James Terry, Jr., who was curator of the Department of Archaeology and Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History in the early 1890s. The materials concern Terry's lawsuit against the museum regarding his private collections, his archaeological career, and life on the Terry family farm in the 1830s.

The Terry family papers (0.75 linear feet) contain correspondence, documents, and other items pertaining to pertaining to the family of James Terry, Jr., who was curator of the Department of Archaeology and Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History in the early 1890s.

The James Terry, Sr., Diary contains 27 pages of daily entries about Terry's farm and the progress of his crops between July 17, 1838, and September 16, 1838. The diary entries are followed by 7 pages of notes about the 1838 hay, rye, and turnip harvests, with additional references to wheat and corn. One note refers to crops planted the following spring (March 21, 1839).

Items pertaining to James Terry, Jr. , are divided into 5 subseries. The Correspondence and Documents subseries (235 items) contains letters, legal documents, and financial records related to James Terry's archaeological career, as well as drafts of letters written by Terry. From 1879 to 1891, Terry received letters from archaeologists and other professionals, such as Albert S. Bickmore and R. P. Whitefield of the American Museum of Natural History, about his work and personal collections. Correspondents also shared news related to the American Museum of Natural History and to archaeological discoveries. Receipts pertain to items shipped to the museum.

Items dated after 1891 relate to Terry's work at the American Museum of Natural History, including an agreement regarding the museum's acquisition of, and payment for, Terry's personal collection of artifacts (June 5, 1891). Correspondence from Terry's time as a curator at the museum (1891-1894) concerns the museum's internal affairs and relationships between Terry and members of the Board of Trustees; one group of letters pertains to the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 (July-August 1893). Terry received notice of his dismissal on March 21, 1894. From 1897-1898, Terry was involved in a lawsuit against the museum, and the collection contains court documents, correspondence, and financial records related to the case; the suit was settled on June 22, 1898, when the museum paid Terry $18,000. Five receipts dated 1906-1908 concern Elmira's Terry's purchases of household items. Some items were once collected in a letter book; a partial table of contents is housed in Oversize Manuscripts.

The James Terry, Jr., Diary contains 86 pages of entries from June 2, 1891-January 26, 1894, concerning Terry's work at the American Museum of Natural History. Pages 4-8 have a list of items "liable to moth destruction," including each artifact's catalog number and a brief note about their condition. The final pages contain notes related to Terry's curatorship and a copied letter from Terry to the archaeologist Marshall H. Saville (December 9, 1893). Terry's Datebook (January 1, 1883-December 31, 1833) contains notes about his daily activities. The final pages hold records of Terry's expenses.

Drafts and Reports (14 items) relate to Terry's work at the American Natural History Museum, the museum's history and collections, archaeological expeditions, and the early history of Santa Barbara, California. The series contains formal and draft reports, as well as notes.

Newspaper Clippings (50 items) include groups of items related to a scandal involving the pastor of a Congregational church in Terryville, Connecticut; to a controversy raised by German archaeologist Max Ohnefalsch-Richter about the integrity of Luigi Palma di Cesnola's collection of Cypriot artifacts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; to controversial behavior by Columbia University president Seth Low; to a meteorite that Lieutenant Robert E. Peary transported from the Greenland to New York in October 1897; and to novelist John R. Musick's alleged plagiarism. Individual clippings concern topics such as Yale College, a dispute between Harvard and Princeton constituents (related to a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes), and religion in New England.

The James Terry, Jr., Ephemera and Realia subseries (14 items) contains business and calling cards, promotional material for the American Natural History Museum, a black-and-white reproduction of a painting of African-American agricultural laborers, metal nameplates and decorative plates, and an engraving of the Worcester Town Hall pasted onto a block of wood.

The Terry Family series is made up of 2 subseries. The Terry Family Account Book contains 11 pages of financial records related to the estate of George Terry (April 9, 1889-June 7, 1890). An additional page of accounts is laid into the volume, and 3 newspaper obituaries for Terry are pasted into the front cover. A tax bill is affixed to the final page of accounts.

The Terry Family Photographs (90 items) include formal and informal portraits and photographs of scenery. One photograph of a summer home called "Rocklawn" is mounted onto a card with a calendar for the year 1899. Another photograph shows the post exchange at Thule (now Qaanaaq), Greenland, in September 1953.

The Letters, Documents, and Other Manuscripts of the Duane Norman Diedrich Collection is a selection of individual items compiled by manuscript collector Duane Norman Diedrich (1935-2018) and the William L. Clements Library. The content of these materials reflect the life and interests of D. N. Diedrich, most prominently subjects pertinent to intellectual, artistic, and social history, education, speech and elocution, the securing of speakers for events, advice from elders to younger persons, and many others.

The Letters, Documents, and Other Manuscripts of the Duane Norman Diedrich Collection is a selection of individual items compiled by manuscript collector Duane Norman Diedrich (1935-2018) and the William L. Clements Library. The content of these materials reflect the life and interests of D. N. Diedrich, most prominently subjects pertinent to intellectual, artistic, and social history, education, speech and elocution, the securing of speakers for events, advice from elders to younger persons, and many others.

For an item-level description of the collection, with information about each manuscript, please see the box and folder listing below.

These albums contain photographs taken during Robert Peary's expeditions into the arctic regions. Volume 1 represents the 1897 trip to present-day Nunavut and Greenland on the ship Hope. The photographs feature arctic scenery, members of Peary's crew, the Hope, Inuit dwellings and American camps. The Inuit adults and children pictured include some of those who returned with Peary to the United States. Volume 2 represents one of the later Peary expeditions from 1905-1906, or 1908-1909. The images in this volume were removed from the original housing and are without identification. A vessel resembling Peary's ship from the later expeditions, S.S. Roosevelt, appears in several photos, as does a man resembling the Roosevelt's Captain, Robert Abram Bartlett.

Volume one contains 100 9cm x 9cm photographs taken during Robert Peary's expedition to present-day Nunavut and Greenland on the ship Hope in the summer of 1897. Each page (17cm x 29cm) contains two items; most include brief captions identifying places and people pictured. The volume's original covers are missing.

Many of the photographs feature scenery along Baffin Island in present-day Nunavut, including icebergs and glaciers; views of the Hope; small boats; Inuit boats and kayaks; Inuit huts and American tents; and natural features such as waterfalls, glaciers, and icebergs. The photographer also took pictures of Inuit adults, children, and crew members onboard the Hope; captions identify Robert Peary, his daughter Marie and her African American nurse, members of the expedition, and Inuit persons named "Kishu" and "Minnie". Kisuh may be Qisuk, and Minnie is very likely Minik, who were both taken to New York by Peary. A group photograph taken onboard ship may include Matthew Henson, Peary's African American assistant, although not identified as such. A few pictures were taken inside what appears to be a small wooden structure, and crew members occasionally posed outdoors with deer and caribou they had killed. One photograph of a "Fossil Bed" appears to have been printed from a broken glass plate negative.

Volume 2 is comprised of 92 12cm x 18cm and 10cm x 13cm photographic prints, likely taken on the Peary expedition of 1905 or later. The prints have been removed from the no longer extant original album pages, and are currently housed in a dark green ring-binder in a tan cloth sleeve measuring 34cm x 31cm. The images include scenes of northern settlements and camps; ice flows; crew-members on board ship; the hunting of a walrus, displaying a polar bear's head; men with bear cubs; and Inuit people, their dwellings, kayaks and boats. Several vessels appear including one that is likely the SS Roosevelt; also a fishing schooner; and an unidentified steamship. There are many portraits of crew members, all unidentified. Several are of a man resembling the Roosevelt's Captain, Robert Abram Bartlett.

Three magazine clippings from the mid-20th century are included that refer to Captain Bartlett.

Professor of geology at the University of Michigan; Correspondence, journal, photographs, film and other materials relating to the University's 1926-1933 scientific expeditions to Greenland.

The Belknap collection consists primarily of material documenting the 1932 expedition to Greenland and the efforts to establish a memorial to Arctic explorer Admiral Richard E. Peary at Cape York, Greenland. The papers include correspondence, journal, photographs, other materials. Also included is a film of the 1926 voyage to Greenland. activities of the first expedition in Greenland.

Professor of Geology at the University of Michigan, also chairman of the Ann Arbor Branch of the National Security League during World War I. His papers contain correspondence and other materials concerning his activities with the National Security League, a dispute over the political views of Charles Lindbergh, polar expeditions, and his work in the fields of geology, seismology, and meteorology. The collection also includes manuscripts of published and unpublished books and articles, biographical material, scrapbooks and notebooks detailing the University of Michigan expeditions to the Pacific and Greenland, and travel notes of trips to the Near East, Spain, the West Indies, Switzerland, and Russia.

The William Herbert Hobbs papers, 1880-1955, is comprised of correspondence, scrapbooks, manuscripts, printed material, and photographs documenting Hobbs' professional, political, and personal activities. Correspondence and other materials concern his activities with the National Security League, a dispute over the political views of Charles Lindbergh, opinions and reviews of his writings and those of other scientists, communications with newspapers and colleagues regarding various expeditions, and his work in the fields of geology, polar exploration, seismology, and meteorology. The collection also includes manuscripts of published and unpublished books and articles, biographical material, scrapbooks and notebooks detailing the University of Michigan expeditions to the Pacific and Greenland, and travel notes of trips to the Near East, Spain, the West Indies, Switzerland, and Russia.