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Chicago attorney; correspondence, speeches, articles, and subject files relating to his public career.

The Laird Bell collection consists of a single series of Personal and Professional papers. Included are speeches, articles, written, and subject files pertaining to his various organizational activities, especially his work as alternate U. S. delegate to 10th Assembly of the United Nations in 1955. There are also various material pertaining to the life of his grandfather, Wisconsin lumberman, W. H. Laird.

Professor of forestry and forest economics and first dean of the School of Forestry at the University of Michigan, prominent conservationist, chairman of the U.S. Timber Conservation Boards in the 1930s and president of the Society of American Foresters. Records including correspondence and topical files, primarily document his participation in conservation organizations and professional associations and service on government boards and commissions. There is some material on his scholarly and administrative work at the University of Michigan, but the latter is more fully documented in the records of the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources.

The files document Dana's professional activities mainly from the period after his World War I service and concern his organizational involvements and his participation in forestry conservation projects. Dana's role as dean of the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources is less fully documented here as these materials were retained as part of that school's record group (also housed at the Bentley Historical Library).