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The University of Michigan Department of Mechanical Engineering dates from 1868, and it existed under various designations resulting from shifts and mergers in engineering, including at one time industrial engineering and applied mechanics. Records include minutes of faculty meetings, 1922-1941, and 1984-2007; advisory committee minutes, 1997-2007; and material on the 125th anniversary in 1993. Extensive visual materials document departmental activities and research including color and black and white photographs, contact sheets, slides, and negatives. The departmental website, as of June 2001, also forms a part of this record group.

The Department of Mechanical Engineering record group is comprised of manuscript and visual materials transferred between 1995 and 2001. The materials are arranged in eight series Minutes, E-Mail to Faculty, Office Files, Contact Sheets, Photographs, Panoramic Prints and Slides, Negatives, and Website. The manuscript material covers the periods 1922 to 1941 and 1993 to 2007 while the visual materials are mainly from the time period 1985-2000. The earlier accessions include a series of faculty minutes covering the period from 1922 to 1941 and 1993 to 1999. The earlier accessions also include a small group of electronic mail correspondence (printout) that was sent from the central departmental office to the departmental faculty from 1993 to 1996. Subsequent accessions include a small selection of office files alphabetically arranged and additional faculty minutes.

Visual materials, documenting departmental activities ca. 1985-2000, form the bulk of the record group. The departmental website, as of June 2001, also forms a part of this record group. The visual materials in the record group include color and black and white photographs, contact sheets, slides, and negatives. The visual materials are either arranged by a numerical sequence or alphabetically by topic or last name. Materials in the numerical sequence filing system include 4 x 6 prints, contact sheets, and negatives. While the materials in the numerical sequence are categorized by format, the materials in this sequence were designed to form one system. That is the 4 x 6 prints, contact sheets, and negatives reference each other.