E. C. photograph collection, circa 1907
1 envelope
The collection consists of postcard views of Comins, Michigan, as well as photos of farming, lumbering, and related activities.
1 envelope
The collection consists of postcard views of Comins, Michigan, as well as photos of farming, lumbering, and related activities.
2.5 linear feet (in 5 boxes)
The Ed Beach collection consists of photographic negatives (with some prints) and albums with prints of historic plaques and markers, statues of famous statesmen and their gravesites, early school buildings, historic houses, gristmills, sawmills, and county courthouses. Other subjects include tourist sites in Michigan (such as Greenfield Village or Mackinac Island) and state parks, especially those in the Upper Peninsula. His hometown of Howell, Michigan is also heavily documented.
The Beach collection is arranged into three series. In the Kodak series the negatives measure 2 3/4 by 4 1/2 inches in size and cover the years 1931 to 1948. The Leica series consists of 35-millimeter strips and were taken between the years 1936 and 1938. The third series consists of seven albums of carefully identified photographs.
An item-level listing of the contents of the Kodak and Leica series is available at the library. To aid researchers a geographic and subject index has been created and is attached to this finding aid. These indices provide the best introduction to the collection.
Beach created the photograph albums around broad topics, and each has a title. The albums include: "Michigan Historic Places," "Around Lake Erie in Ontario. Trip to Chicago Century of Progress," "Michigan Courthouses," "Michigan Ships, Monuments, Historic Places, Buildings, Creek Scenes," "Indian and Trail Markers," "Around Michigan: Historic Places, Buildings, Mills, Dams, Bridges, Masonic Buildings," and "Michigan Governors' Homes, Michigan Trees, Old Buildings of Michigan." The photos in the albums include Beach's negative number.
7 linear feet
The Edmund Love collection consists of diaries, 1955-1980, and writing journals containing plots, character names, dialog, etc. In addition, there are drafts of his writings, reviews of his books, and photographs.
0.6 linear feet — 1 oversize folder
The Elizabeth Margaret Chandler collection includes both the papers of this abolitionist poet as well as papers of other members of the Chandler family of Pennsylvania and Lenawee County, Michigan. Represented in the collection are letters to/from Elizabeth's parents Thomas and Margaret Evans Chandler; Margaret's sisters Ruth Evans and Jane Howell; Elizabeth's brothers Thomas and William, and William's wife Sarah Taylor Chandler. Following 1830, much of the correspondence of Elizabeth and Thomas Chandler and Ruth Evans is with family members in the East, Benjamin Lundy, and others, describing their settlement in Lenawee County, agricultural conditions, and local and national anti-slavery movements. Other correspondents in the collection include William Bliss, Darius Comstock, Isaac Crary, Abi Evans, Jane Howell, Darius C. Jackson, Benjamin Lundy, William M. Sullivan and Matthew F. Whittier.
In all, there are twenty-two letters, 1830-1834, written to members of her family, from Elizabeth Margaret Chandler. The earliest letter, June 14, 1830, written from Philadelphia, discusses the advantages of emigrating to Michigan. The later letters are written from Hazelbank, a farm in Lenawee County, between Adrian and Tecumseh, where Elizabeth Chandler settled with her brother, Thomas Chandler, and her aunt, Ruth Evans. The letters describe the clearing of the land, the building of a log cabin and its furnishings, the planting of the first crops, and give an account of the district around the farm, its settlers (chiefly Quakers), its trade and agriculture, land and commodity prices. They contain scattered references to abolitionist activities, such as the boycott of slave-produced commodities, to the Black Hawk War in Illinois and Wisconsin, 1832, and to other current events. Fifteen letters, 1830-1835, on the same subjects, were written by Thomas Chandler and Ruth Evans; two letters, 1834, 1835, enclose copies of obituary notices on Elizabeth Chandler's death.
Also part of the collection are sixty letters, 1830-1842, written to Elizabeth and Thomas Chandler, and Ruth Evans, from Ruth Evans' sister, Jane Howell, Philadelphia, Pa. Several of these letters refer to slavery and to anti-slavery leaders, such as William Lloyd Garrison, Benjamin Lundy, Evan Lewis, and Charles C. Burleigh, coeditor with his brother, William Henry, of the abolitionist newspaper The Unionist; a few refer to the financial and mercantile disruption caused by President Andrew Jackson's monetary policy, resulting in the panic of 1837; two letters, 1835, mention the boundary dispute between the State of Ohio and Michigan Territory (the Toledo War); others refer to a controversy between the Hicksite Friends and the Orthodox Friends in New York, the danger of a cholera epidemic, Indian difficulties, the increase of settlers in Michigan Territory, and other contemporary topics; one letter, 1832, encloses a certification of Thomas Chandler's membership in the Society of Friends, and one letter, 1834, encloses a poem on the death of George Dillwyn (1738-1821), Society of Friends preacher.
Twenty-eight of the letters received by Elizabeth and Thomas Chandler and Ruth Evans in Michigan (1830-1852) were from other relatives and friends. Seven of these, 1831-38, were from Benjamin Lundy concerning a trip to Mexico, anti-slavery activities, and the first edition of Elizabeth Chandler's poems, which Lundy published in 1836; two letters, 1851, 1852, were from I. Prescott, publisher and bookseller of Salem, Ohio, discussing a republication of Elizabeth Chandler's poems; one, 1837, from Darius C. Jackson, delegate from Lenawee County to the Second Constitutional Convention of Assent, Ann Arbor, 1836, mentions the revision of Michigan laws, the Internal Improvement Bill, and the General Banking Laws Bill; one, 1837, from Isaac E. Crary, Michigan's first member of Congress acknowledges receipt of Thomas Chandler's petition against the Annexation of Texas, which Crary had presented to the House of Representatives; one, 1838, from William Bliss of Blissfield, lists the names of officers and members of the Anti-Slavery Society of Blissfield; one, 1839, from William L. Sullivan, Jackson, discusses Methodist anti-slavery meetings; one, 1838, describes the anti-abolitionist riots in Philadelphia, Pa., and the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, built in 1837 by anti-slavery societies for public meetings; three, 1837, are from Mathew Franklin Whittier (brother of John Greenleaf Whittier), Amesbury, Mass.
A calendar arranged by name of correspondent is available in the reading room card files.
12 linear feet — 2 oversize volumes
The Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad record group consists of minutes, correspondence, annual reports to regulatory agencies, and various business and legal documents, including payrolls, stock transfers, dividends paid, and check registers.
1 envelope
The collection consists of photographs relating to the activities, people, and buildings of a nearby lumbering camp.
1.3 linear feet
The Huddleston photographic slide collection consists of images primarily documenting the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The color slides have been arranged in alphabetical order by geographical location. Huddleston provided identification on each slide. The images are of trains, train stations, train trestles, railroad yards, etc.
4.3 linear feet — 17 oversize volumes
This record group includes financial records, records of land purchases, and other miscellaneous business materials. There are also some photographs detailing scenes of lumbering activities. Although described here together, these are the records of separate Fletcher family companies: Fletcher, Pack Company and the A. F. Fletcher Company. The relationship between these two companies is not clear.
20 linear feet (in 34 boxes) — 1 oversize folder
The papers and photographs of George R. Swain mainly document Swain's accomplishments as university photographer at the University of Michigan from 1913 to 1947. Researchers should note, however, that this is only a sampling of the photographer's work during these years. The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan has an extensive collection of Swain's archaeological negatives and prints, and researchers interested in his full career will want to also look at the Kelsey collection. The Bentley Library material, while including several folders of fine photographs Swain made on his travels with Professor Frances Kelsey, for the most part documents Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan.
The collection at the Bentley Library consists of three series: Miscellaneous Papers; Photographers Log; and Photographs (prints; negatives; and lantern slides. Since the bulk of the collection is comprised of early twentieth century images of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan, the materials will be of most interest to researchers searching for visual documentation of this part of the state in that time period. There are very few materials beyond the visual, although the lengthy captions attached to many overseas images and the essays, diaries, and letters, are extremely interesting and offer insight into how Swain approached his craft, both as a professional photographer and in his personal work.
1 folder
The Grace A. Fry photograph collection contains photographs primarily of Saginaw, Michigan businesses.