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Owen J. Cleary was an attorney, president of Cleary College in Ypsilanti (1940-1960), Michigan secretary of state (1953-1954), and chairman of the Republican State Central Committee (1949-1953). The collection includes correspondence, scrapbooks and clippings, organizational files, and Republican Party files.

The collection documents the later period of Cleary's life, mainly from 1945 to 1959. The series include Correspondence; Scrapbooks and clippings; Organizational interests; and Political files.

The great bulk of the collection consists of correspondence dated from 1945 to 1959 and documenting his work as Republican State chairman (1949-1953), his tenure as Michigan secretary of state (1953-1954), and his various other civic, political, and business involvements. There is included with this finding aid a selective index to Cleary's correspondents.

Minutes, 1888-1919, including; correspondence, newspaper clippings, and scrapbooks concerning party affairs; also papers, 1929-1970, concerning Prohibition Party in Michigan; papers, 1918-1930, concerning prohibition in Great Britain; papers, 1951-1958, concerning the National Temperance and Prohibition Council; and minutes, 1872, of the State Central Committee of the Prohibition Party of Michigan; also photographs and films.

The Prohibition National Committee record group is arranged into the following series: Correspondence; Minutes and other papers; Press and printed; Sound recordings; Other organizations; and Visual materials. Except for the significant minute books of the party's national executive committee in the 1880s, most of the record group dates from the 20th century after the passage of the 18th Amendment. Information regarding the earliest years of the Prohibition Party in unfortunately missing in this record group.