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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.

Detroit Free Press outdoor writer and later faculty member in the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources. Files of Detroit Free Press outdoor pages and conservation articles, clippings, and photographs, correspondence, and notes on Michigan conservation history, pesticides, pollution, plants and animals, hunting and fishing, parks, rivers and lakes, conservation writing, and ecology; also manuscript of history of conservation in Michigan with background information; and materials gathered for intended biographical study of Michigan conservationists.

As a long-time observer of the Michigan conservation scene, Van Coevering collected a wide range of materials to document the history of hunting, fishing, and wildlife management, the development of state parks and forests, political development of the Department of Conservation and Conservation Commission, concerns about pollution and pesticide poisoning, and other conservation and environmental matters in Michigan. This collection is made up of his writings and background materials on all these topics.

The collection contains only a part of Van Coevering's papers. His "personal" papers were destroyed by his widow after his death. Included here are "historical" papers collected in the course of his work as an outdoor writer. The papers include press releases, clippings, memoranda, reports, and other documents collected by Van Coevering as well as correspondence. Van Coevering's outgoing correspondence is generally of the information-seeking type, and provides little insight into his ideas.

The collection is divided into five major series: Publications, Reference file, School of Natural Resources file, Michigan conservation history file, and Photographs. There is also a small folder of obituaries and other personal information in Box 1. In 1996, the library received an addition to the collection. This 1996 accession from Frank Angelo includes the manuscript of "A Brief History of Conservation in Michigan," and the accompanying research as well as background research for a proposed history of prominent Michigan conservationists.

Professor of law at the University of Michigan; director of the Legislative Research Center; president and executive director of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. Biographical and personal materials; subject files relating to his association with the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and his work in the drafting of uniform legislation among the states in specific areas.

The Pierce papers document his work for the preservation of state parks, most notably in correspondence with Genevieve Gillette, and his work with the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL). The paper have been organized into two series: Biographical/Personal and National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.