Search

Richard K. Beardsley was a professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan from 1947 to 1978 who served several terms as the director of the Center for Japanese Studies. The papers document his anthropological fieldwork in Japan, Spain, and California, and include research and field notes, interviews, questionnaires and surveys in English and Japanese, photographs, and a small amount of correspondence.

The Richard K. Beardsley Papers document Beardsley's anthropological fieldwork in Japan, Spain, and California, and include research and field notes, questionnaires, interviews, photographs, and a small amount of correspondence. The papers consist of three series: Topical Files, Research Files, and Photographs.

Professor of conservation and conservation education at the University of Michigan. Professional papers.

The Richard Weaver papers relate to his activities as college naturalist at Dartmouth College; as project leader of the National Association of Biology Teachers' program to increase emphasis on teaching of conservation in schools. There are also files concerning interest in conservation education and his participation in conservation workshops and conferences in the United States and abroad in Pakistan in 1961. The series in the collection are Biographical/Personal; Cornell Fellow in Conservation Education; College Naturalist, Dartmouth College; National Association of Biology Teachers; Workshops, conferences; Fulbright Fellowship: Trip to Pakistan; University of Michigan; Writings, etc.; and Photographs.

University of Michigan professor of engineering mechanics; papers include biographical information, writings, visual materials, and World War II letters of his two sons.

The collection of Richard Liddicoat is contained in four small series: Biographical Information/Personal Material, Writings, Visual Materials, and World War II Letters of his two sons Richard and William.

Professor of English at the University of Michigan, trustee of Washtenaw Community College, and Democratic Party worker. Correspondence, newsletters, leaflets and reports concerning Democratic politics at the state and local levels, platform hearings for the 1976 National Democratic platform; also papers relating to his activities with St. Clare of Assisi Episcopal Church, and Genesis of Ann Arbor.

The Richard W. Bailey Papers consist of four series: Democratic Party Politics, Episcopal Church Activities, Course Materials, and Miscellaneous.

Professor of philosophy at Glasgow University and University of Michigan. Extensive correspondence, scrapbooks, lecture notes, addresses, newspaper clippings and other papers relating to questions of philosophy and to his activities at University of Michigan; diaries, 1896-1927, relating to his European travels and career at the University; and photographs.

The Wenley papers have been divided into the following series: Correspondence; University of Glasgow/Queen Margaret College; Biographical and personal; Notes from University of Michigan and other courses and lectures; Speeches and addresses; Miscellaneous; and Scrapbooks.

University of Michigan Professor Emeritus of English whose area of expertise included Arthur Miller. Topical files containing correspondence, clippings, notes, and publications associated with various American figures. Also included are 14 sound recordings consisting of lectures delivered by and about, as well as interviews with, Miller.

The Robert A. Martin papers primarily consists of topical files containing correspondence, clippings, notes, and publications associated with various American figures, such as dramatist Arthur Miller and war correspondent Martha Gellhorn. Also, included are 14 sound recordings that include lectures delivered by and about, as well as interviews with, Miller.

Noted Michigan-based modern architect and former Professor and later Dean of the University of Michigan College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Metcalf's work includes over 150 buildings in Michigan and Ohio. The material in this collection spans the years 1942 to 2017, and includes architectural drawings, presentation boards, client files, photographs and slides, correspondence, newspaper clippings, journals, articles, and teaching material.

The Robert C. Metcalf papers include architectural drawings, presentation boards, presentation books, client files, photographs, slides, and negatives of Metcalf's work on residential, commercial, and community projects. The collection provides comprehensive documentation on virtually all of the projects undertaken by Metcalf. Projects are documented from design to construction and often subsequent additions and renovations. The materials in the collection are organized into three series: Project Files, General Files, and Visual Materials.

The General Files series includes personal material such as an audio interview with Robert Metcalf (2010), a date book (1974), and Metcalf's undergraduate student work from the University of Michigan (1942-1950).

Professor of sociology, University of Michigan; correspondence and other papers concerning Angell's work with UNESCO, American Sociological Society, and International Sociological Association; papers concerning published books and articles; unpublished manuscripts of writings.

The Angell papers document the life and professional activities of a renowned sociologist and university teacher. The collection dates from 1923 to 1984 though the bulk of the papers fall within the period of the 1940s through the 1960s. The collection has been arranged into five series: Biographical information/autobiographical essays; Correspondence; Books, articles, and other writings; Organizational Affiliations; and Topical Files.

Director of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan; co-head with Keiichi Oshima of the Joint United States/Japanese Automotive Study. Background files; reports; and records relating to meetings, surveys, and fieldwork of the joint study.

The Cole Papers consist of the records of the study comparing the United States and Japanese automotive industries. The collection is arranged under three broad headings: Background; Meetings, Surveys, and Field; and Reports of Study. Included are the final reports, working paper series (22 individual research projects), progress reports, interviews, surveys, meeting minutes, and materials relating to the structure and composition of the study. The collection also includes the published volume resulting from the study.

Robert E. Lewis served as editor-in-chief of the Middle English Dictionary at the University of Michigan from 1982 to 2001. Before coming to Michigan Lewis was a professor of English at Indiana University where he co-authored A Guide to the Manuscripts of the Prick of Conscience. The Robert E. Lewis papers relate primarily to research into Prick of Conscience, the most popular English poem of the Middle Ages. The papers include correspondence, articles, notes and reproductions (photocopies and microfilm) of medieval manuscripts and texts of the poem and related material

History of Prick of Conscience Studies

The Prick of Conscience, to judge from the number of known manuscripts (120), was the most popular English poem of the Middle Ages, surpassing such popular poems as Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (its nearest competitor with 64 manuscripts), Piers Plowman (with 54), and John Gower's Confessio Amantis (with 51), and was itself surpassed in English only by the two versions of the Wycliffite prose translation of the Bible and the prose Brut. The poem exists in three versions: (1) an original or main version (in 99 manuscripts), which originated in the north of England, probably Yorkshire, with a preponderance of manuscripts from that area and the north midlands, but also extending into the west midlands and East Anglia and even into the southeast and the southwest; (2) a shorter, thoroughly revised recension (in nineteen manuscripts) originating somewhere in the south, with a more restricted distribution; and (3) a heavily revised and abbreviated version of the main version entitled Speculum Huius Vite (in two manuscripts).

The popularity of the poem is supported by other signs: eighty per cent of the counties of England can claim at least one copy of the poem, some have two or more, and three of the copies are written in the Anglo-Irish dialect; extracts circulated separately (twelve in eight manuscripts); the poem was quoted in a number of other Middle English poems ("Stimulus Consciencie Minor," "Desert of Religion," "Of the Flood of the World," "Wheel of Fortune," for example) as well as in a stained glass window at All Saints Church in York); there was a translation into Latin prose made in the 14th century (six manuscripts exist); and the poem appears in wills and book lists.

The Prick of Conscience is a long verse compilation (over 9,600 lines in rhyming couplets), divided into a prologue; seven books, which treat, in turn, the wretchedness of man's nature throughout his life, the world and the various conditions thereof, death and the fear of death, purgatory and its characteristics, the day of judgment, the pains of hell, and the joys of heaven; and a brief conclusion or epilogue. The poem has a great many sources: ultimately over twenty separate works, primarily Latin, including both well known ones like St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei, Honorius of Autun's Elucidarium, Pope Innocent III"s De Miseria Humane Conditionis, and Bartholomeus Anglicus's De Proprietatibus Rerum and not so well known ones like Robert Grosseteste's De Penis Purgatorii (in its French version) and Hugh Ripelin of Strasbourg's Compendium Theologice Veritatis.

For a long time the poem was thought to have been written by the well known hermit and mystical writer Richard Rolle (died 1349), to whom it is attributed in five manuscripts, but his authorship is now considered extremely doubtful. Three manuscripts attribute the poem to Robert Grosseteste (circa 1170-1253), Bishop of Lincoln, but he lived too early to be the author. A more recent suggestion is William of Nassyngton (died 1359), chancellor of the Diocese of York and the author of the Speculum Vite, but there is as yet no proof for this. In genre the Prick of Conscience is unlike any other Middle English work in verse or prose, though it has some similarities and has been compared to the Speculum Vite. Its primary function was probably as a compendium of knowledge from which a parish priest could instruct his flock or draw material for his sermons, and its wide circulation in the 14th and 15th centuries indicates that it must have fulfilled its purpose.

The poem is worth studying for a number of reasons and from a variety of points of view, and when Lewis came to Ann Arbor in 1982 he had just completed, with Angus McIntosh A Guide to the Manuscripts of the Prick of Conscience (Oxford: Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature), which they hoped, as they said in their Preface, would "stimulate and facilitate research into some of the important . . . questions connected with [the poem], such as its genre, the reasons for its popularity, its audience, and its influence in Britain in the later Middle Ages"; and Lewis himself was planning to spend whatever free time he had on various aspects of the poem. He had made good progress on two projects: the sources (and the manuscript tradition of the sources) of Book I and an edition of one of the short poems indebted to the Prick of Conscience, the "Stimulus Consciencie Minor." But the work of the Middle English Dictionary took precedence during his official working years, and because of other commitments he was unable to complete these projects during retirement. He deposited his Prick of Conscience materials in the Bentley Library in the hope that other researchers would consult them as a starting point either to complete the two projects he began or to study other aspects of the poem.

Scope and Content Note

The Robert E. Lewis papers relate primarily to research and study of the Prick of Conscience the most popular English poem of the Middle Ages. Prick of Conscience material includes reproductions (photocopies and microfilm) of medieval manuscripts and related Middle English texts as well as Lewis's correspondence, notes, and research files on the Prick of Conscience. Material relating to the Middle English Dictionary and his professional career is also present.

The Lewis papers are arranged in five series. The first four series relate to the poem Prick of Conscience: Prick of Conscience, Related Materials, Notes on Cards and Slips, and Microfilms of Manuscripts. The content of the first two boxes are all in standard archival folders and are arranged by subject. In box three the materials represent a variety of formats (4" x 6" cards, 5" x 8" cards and slips, and a paperback book), also arranged by subject, with a few microfilms in various kinds of containers. The final box consists of microfilms only.