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Professor of political science at Michigan State University and at the University of Michigan; director of the U-M Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies; specialist in communist ideology and the Soviet political system. The collection is composed of four series. The personal series consists of biographical information including autobiography detailing flight of his family from Nazi Germany, his education, and his academic career; the series also contains files relating to his education and to the history of his family; including extensive family correspondence, partially in German, primarily in the period of 1924-1945. The other, smaller, series in the collection pertain to his career and to his writings.

The Alfred G. Meyer Papers richly document both Meyer's personal and family history and his professional career, while providing considerable insight into the effects of Nazism and World War II on a German-Jewish family. The collection is arranged into four series: Personal (ca. 1860-1998); Professional (1956-1997); Writings (1952-1998); and Audio-Visual (1998).

Fred E. Schwab was an influential member of the plastics community in the Detroit area. A German immigrant, he opened and ran several plastic manufacturing businesses, including Schwab & Frank and Schwab Plastics, which focused on styrofoam products and later automotive parts. He was also a founding member of the Society of Plastics Engineers. The collection includes personal materials, photographs, and professional files relating to his association with various plastics firms.

The Fred E. Schwab collection has been divided into three series: PERSONAL LIFE, PLASTICS, and PHOTOGRAPHS. The collection documents Schwab's professional endeavors in the plastic community in addition to elements from his personal life.

International fraternal temperance lodge. Records of the National Grand Lodge and local lodges in Illinois, New York and Washington (including numerous Scandinavian-American lodges) containing correspondence, minute books, financial ledgers, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, proceedings, and periodicals; also photographs.

Although the record group does include some correspondence, the bulk of the records consist of minute books and financial ledgers, mainly from the 1880s up to 1920. Many of these are for lodges in Illinois and Washington State. In addition, there are published materials, such as temperance books, pamphlets, and issues of periodicals. The proceedings of annual meetings are from many more states and provide detailed information on the national importance of the organization. The photographs are mainly of various group meetings.

Environmental, population control, and immigration reform advocate; organization and litigation files relating to his various interests and activities; includes correspondence, legal documents, memos, topical files, and miscellaneous photographs.

The papers of Dr. John Tanton consist of materials documenting his work as a political and environmental activist from 1960 through the 2000s. The portion of the collection open without restriction is divided into the following series: Personal/Biographical; Population and Immigration Organizations and Issues; Conservation Organizations and Issues; Topical Files and Activities; Correspondence; Politics and Government; and Social Issues. The portion of the collection closed to research until 2035 includes the continuation of several series: Correspondence; Personal/Biographical; Population and Immigration Organizations and Issues; Conservation Organizations and Issues; and one new series, Public Interest Organizations and Issues.

Grand Rapids, Michigan family, involved in furniture making and other businesses, also active in local state and Republican Party politics and businessmen's associations. Papers include family papers and correspondence, business records, scrapbooks and visual materials.

The Sligh family collection consists of the personal and business papers of the four generations of Slighs mentioned in the biographical introduction: James W. Sligh, Charles R. Sligh, Charles R. Sligh, Jr., and Robert L. Sligh. Although there is some overlap, the files have been arranged into seven series, one for each of these three Slighs, one for the Sligh Furniture Company and related family businesses, and one each for Newspaper clippings and Scrapbooks, and Visual Materials.

The Finnish Collection consists of 100 reels of microfilm concerning Finnish-American Churches, Labor Societies, Temperance Organizations, and other materials from the United States and Canada. The collection is the result of a joint project between the Bentley Library, Suomi College (now Finlandia University), and the University of Turku, Finland, coordinated in 1974-75.

The Suomi College Finnish-American Collection is comprised of 100 reels of microfilm containing records from 151 separate organizations (68 of which are located in Michigan). These organizations are comprised of the following kinds of records:

1. Church materials: 62 record groups (32 from Michigan)
2. Labor societies: 9 record groups (0 from Michigan)
3. Temperance materials: 61 record groups (26 from Michigan

Other organizations, including educational, relief, musical, athletic, national, historical societies, publishing companies, and some personal: 19 record groups (10 from Michigan)

Because the materials have been filmed in a random order, an index at the end of the container listing has been prepared to guide the researcher to specific kinds of records: church, temperance, etc.