Ann Arbor, Michigan, Landscape architect, speaker and lobbyist on behalf of conservation and beautification, president of the Michigan Parks Association, and member of the Citizens' Advisory Committee on Recreation and Natural Beauty during the Johnson Administration. Correspondence, reports, oral history interviews, and other materials concerning her interest in state and national conservation legislation; and photographs.
The Genevieve Gillette collection documents Gillette's concern for the development of Michigan's parks and outdoor recreation opportunities, and her work to promote scenic roads in Michigan and nationwide.
Among the issues most fully documented are the fight to establish and develop Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, acquisition and development of Sylvania Recreation Area and McCormick Experimental Forest, threats to wilderness in the Porcupine Mountains State Park, the controversy over the proposed Mill Creek Metropark, the financing of Michigan's state park system, especially the 1968 campaign to approve recreation bonds, and the development of the Rouge River floodplain near the University of Michigan--Dearborn.
The work of the Citizens' Advisory Committee on Recreation & Natural Beauty (1966-1968), the Michigan Parks Association (1959-1975), and the Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation Commission and predecessor organizations (1960-1974) are also documented.
The collection includes very little documentation of Gillette's professional work as a landscape architect, and includes almost nothing relating to her parks and recreation work before the late 1950s.
The collection is divided into three major series--Personal, Correspondence, and Topical file--and two small series--Photographs, Audio tape cassettes.