Search

Ann Arbor, Michigan, attorney and local Democratic Party activist. Political files relating to his various campaigns for office (Ann Arbor city council, Michigan House of Representatives, U.S. Congress, and Michigan State Senate among others); papers relating to his service in the state House, 1955-1958; his activities with Washtenaw County, Michigan, and Second Congressional District Democratic affairs; also letters received from Lt. Lee M. Cecil, 1952-1954, describing his experiences as a soldier during the Korean War; and photographs.

The George Wahr Sallade papers, although limited in quantity (five linear feet), are of interest to the researcher of Michigan politics in the post-World War II era. They can be used to gather information on the "Young Turks," a group that in the 1950s foreshadowed the more moderate nature of the Michigan Republican party of the 1960s and 1970s. They provide insight into issues that were of concern to the Washtenaw County and Second Congressional District Democratic parties - including Vietnam, race, party reform, and the economy - in the troubled years of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The ideological positions of the two local parties, relative to the state party as a whole, can be determined by comparing the resolutions they passed with those of the state party and its platform. Finally Sallade's campaign files can be used to determine the issues of concern to the local electorate in the years in which he ran for public office. His 1968-1972 campaigns are fairly well documented from an issue standpoint (particularly his 1972 race for county prosecutor), and, therefore, can be used to determine whether and to what extent national events affected the conduct of state and county races. Sallade's papers should be supplemented by use of the Detroit News - Lansing Bureau index; the papers of Governor G. Mennen Williams; and those of the state central committees of the Michigan Democratic and Republican parties. All of these are at the Michigan Historical Collections. The Collections also has a complete run of both Good Morning Michigan and "Michigan Around and About."

The Sallade papers have been arranged in three series: Personal; Political: and Photographs.

Governor of Michigan 1949 to 1960, under-secretary of state for African Affairs from 1961 to 1965, and Michigan Supreme Court justice from 1970 to 1986 and leader in state and national Democratic Party. Papers document his public career and aspects of his personal and family life and include correspondence, subject files, staff files, speeches, press releases and news clippings, photographs, sound recordings, films and videotapes.

The G. Mennen Williams Papers consist of official and personal files arranged into six subgroups: 1) Gubernatorial papers, 1949-1960 (681 linear ft.); 2) Non-gubernatorial papers, 1883-1948 and 1958-1988 (107 linear ft.); 3) Visual materials, ca. 1911-1988 (ca. 25 linear ft.); 4) sound recordings, 1950-ca. 1988 (5 linear ft.) Scrapbooks, 1948-1987 (43 vols.) and State Department Microfilm, 1961-1966 (23 reels).

As part of its own control system, the governor's office maintained a card index to the correspondents in many of the subgroups and series within the gubernatorial papers. This card file is located in the library's reading room. In addition, Nancy Williams and her staff compiled an extensive and detailed run of scrapbooks covering the Williams years. There is a separate inventory to these scrapbooks in a separately bound volume.

Strategy for Use of the Gubernatorial Papers: Although the Williams gubernatorial collection consists of hundreds of linear feet of material, the file arrangement created by the governor's staff is a fairly simple one to understand and to use.

The bulk of the collection falls within specific functional groupings, corresponding to the various activities and responsibilities that Williams performed as governor. Thus, if the researcher is uncertain of what portions of the collection might be relevant to his/her research, he/she is advised to think in terms of gubernatorial function. Does the proposed research concern the workings or area responsibility of a state board? If so, the Boards and Commissions series would be the most likely place in which to find material. The election of 1954? Then Democratic Party/Campaign Papers should be first choice. The passage of a specific piece of legislation? Here, Legislative Files is an obvious choice. The possible choices (called subgroups and series) that the researcher has are listed in the Organization of the Collection section. A description of the contents of each of these subgroups/series is provided below.

If, at first, unsuccessful in finding material on any given topic, the researcher might consider these additional strategies:

1. Refer to the Williams card index (located in the library's reading room). Sometimes, the name of an individual associated with a subject provides the easiest point of access into the collection. This file is arranged alphabetically and lists the dates of letters between an individual and the governor's office. This file only indexes the larger series and subgroups in the collection. It does not index the staff files, or parts of the Democratic Party/Campaign subgroup. Nevertheless it is an invaluable tool, and can uncover important material otherwise buried.

2. Refer to the various series of staff papers. Staff members were often closely involved in a specific subject areas (Jordan Popkin and aging, for example) and thus their files are frequently rich in source material.

3. If only partially successful in locating desired material, the researcher should think of an alternative subgroup or series. The governor's office, for a variety of reasons, often filed related material in different locations depending upon the source of a document. Thus, information relating to a strike might be filed both under the Labor Mediation Board in Boards and Commissions, and Strikes in General Subjects. Furthermore, if the strike influenced a specific piece of legislation, there could be material in the Legislative Files.

Historian, manuscript curator, and the director of the Detroit Historical Museum; collected historical materials and various activities files.

The Henry D. Brown papers are divided into three series, the Collected and research materials series, the Personal and miscellaneous series, and the August 2017 Accession.

Republican U.S. Senator from Michigan, U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines; files relating to his various career responsibilities, photographs, sound recordings.

The Homer Ferguson collection has been divided into eleven series based primarily upon the important phases of his public life: Personal; Circuit Judgeship; Senate Career; Interregnum: November 1954 - April 1955; Hoover Commission; Philippine Ambassadorship; United States Court of Military Appeals; Inter-Parliamentary Union; Photographs, Sound Recordings, and Myrtle Ferguson Papers.

Grand Rapids, Michigan businessman and Republican politician. Correspondence, business records, speeches, and other papers relating to state politics, charitable and civic interests, banking issues, the Grand Rapids Varnish Corporation, the Michigan Trust Company of Grand Rapids, and the Ypsilanti-Reed Furniture Company of Ionia, Michigan; also materials on Albion College, the Methodist Church, the Ionia Free Fair, and Republican Party politics, especially the campaign of Arthur H, Vandenberg for the presidency in 1940.

The collection documents the business, civic, and political interests of Howard C. Lawrence. The series in the collection are: Correspondence; Speeches and speech material; Financial; Business Interests; Charitable and Civic Interests; Clippings; Miscellaneous; Photographs; and Notebooks.

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.

Newspaper articles and columns by Detroit News Washington correspondent, include extensive comment on national politics and foreign relations, particularly as they relate to Michigan

Scrapbooks, 1916-1965, of Jay G. Hayden, Washington correspondent for the Detroit News, contain extensive comment on national politics and foreign relations, particularly as they relate to Michigan. Personal subjects include: Sherman Adams, Smith W. Brookhart, Prentiss M. Brown, William Jennings Bryan, James F. Byrnes, Benjamin N. Cardozo, James Couzens, George Creel, Charles DeGualle, Edwin Denby, Lewis Douglas, John Foster Dulles, Dwight D. Eisenhower, James A. Farley, Henry Ford, Felix Frankfurter, John Glenn, James Hoffa, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev, Robert M. LaFollette, Douglas McArthur, Joe McCarthy, Andrew Mellon, James Meredith, Billy Mitchell, Frank Murphy, Truman H. Newberry, Richard M. Nixon, Sam Rayburn, Owen J. Roberts, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Frank L. Smith, Joseph Stalin, Harlan F. Stone, Harry S. Truman, Arthur H. Vandenberg, William S. Vare, Henry A. Wallace and Leonard Wood.

Republican Congressman from Ontonagon in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Correspondence, campaign materials, copies of bills introduced in Congress, and files concerning congressional reapportionment and the problems of the Upper Peninsula.

The John B. Bennett collection has been arranged into the following series: Correspondence; Election and political materials; Congressional papers; Biographical; Photographs; and Sound recordings.

Republican state senator, 1948-1950, from Kent County, Michigan, state auditor general, 1950-1954, unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate nomination in 1952, and member of the Republican National Committee. Correspondence, newspaper clippings, speeches and printed material relating to his political career, particularly his activities on the Michigan Commission on Aging, the Michigan Constitutional Convention of 1961-1962, and the Michigan Senate campaign of 1952.

The John B. Martin papers consists of correspondence, memoranda, clippings, and subject files relating to his political and organizational activities. The series in the collection are: Correspondence; Newspaper clippings; Political and Campaign Materials; Auditor General, 1950-1954; Aging organizations; Michigan Constitutional Convention, 1961-1962; Michigan Crime and Delinquency Council; Scrapbooks; Sound Recordings; Visual Materials; and Miscellaneous.

Prosecuting attorney, attorney general of Michigan, 1945-1946, and justice on the Michigan Supreme Court, 1946-1970. Correspondence and campaign material relating to his political interests, court agendas and topical files, and papers relating to the operation and activities of the state supreme court; also photographs.

This collection of John R. Dethmers papers, in addition to a few folders of correspondence and campaign materials from the 1930s, is comprised mainly of files from his service on the Michigan Supreme Court. Within the Correspondence series, there are letters from William W. Blackney, Mar. 19, 1942; Fred Bradley, Mar. 4, 1942; Albert J. Engel, Mar. 2, 1942; Bartel J. Jonkman, Mar. 6, 1942; Earl C. Michener, Mar. 2, 1942; Chase S. Osborn, Mar. 16, 1942; and Arthur H. Vandenberg, Mar. 4, 1942.