The Biographical series contains two folders. One contains a bibliography of Allen's published works from 1941 to 1998 as well as a résumé from 1997. The other folder contains two short biographies (an obituary from the Chicago Tribune, and one written upon Allen being named the Edson R. Sunderland Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Michigan.)
2.5 linear feet
The Francis A. Allen Papers are composed of professional and personal documents spanning 1940-2006, with the majority of the documents dating between 1950-2000. The bulk of the papers (roughly 50 percent) are correspondence, including professional, academic, and personal documents. The next biggest sub-set is a sampling of some of his published works as well as unpublished works. There are also documents from court cases he was involved in, speeches he delivered over the course of his career, and samples of student examinations he gave while teaching as a law school professor.
The Correspondence series, 1.5 linear feet, is arranged in alphabetical order. The types of correspondence range from personal letters, letters of recommendation, opinions on law matters or academia, and personal or financial business letters. For subjects (either individuals or institutions) with a large amount of correspondence, their materials were separated out into individual folders. Examples of these subjects include Allen's brother William, his brother Clark, various departmental units at the University of Michigan (the Law School, University Press, etc.), his close friend and colleague Norval Morris, and personal correspondence. Allen indicates on the upper right hand of most correspondence pages the name of the individual that the document pertains to, but his schema of doing this is at times inconsistent. Although the majority of the papers are organized by last name, sometimes they will be organized by the organization he was writing to instead of the individual to whom the letter was actually addressed (examples being the Harvard Law Review or the University of Chicago Press). In these cases the Harvard Law Review correspondence would be placed in the "H" folder, and the University of Chicago correspondence in the "C" folder. When there was a large number of documents pertaining to one individual or unit, care was taken to place the documents in reverse chronological order (in most cases, this was the original order that Allen used).
The personal correspondence folder includes information regarding the publishing of Allen's works from various university presses (fax receipts, contracts, etc.), any documents containing Allen's social security number, and letters and cards of a personal nature. Although documents of this kind are also in other correspondence folders, the respect of the original order has been maintained.
Common correspondents include: