Search

Zoologist, college professor, president of University of Michigan, 1929-1951. Professional files relating to his career with the University Museum and as a professor of zoology, and presidential files containing correspondence, reports, speeches, and other University materials, including budget and legislative files, material relating to changes in University administration, his relationship with faculty, students and alumni, and photographs.

The Alexander Ruthven papers consists of two series of records. The first is the papers of Ruthven as president of the University of Michigan, 1929 to 1951. The second, and smaller, series is the files maintained by Ruthven as a zoologist with the University Museum and as professor of zoology. This latter series dates largely from 1908 to 1929 but also includes collected earlier files from the 1870s.

Edward Bruce Williamson was a noted entomologist and botanist in the early part of the 20th century. He spent most of his career as an amateur, but active and well-respected, scholar of odonata (dragon and damselflies) and served as the curator of odonata for the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology from 1916 to his retirement in 1933. He also owned and maintained the Longfield Iris Farm in Bluffton, Indiana where he propagated award-winning irises. The collection includes correspondence, drawing, field notes and reports from his collecting trips, and photographs.

The Edward Bruce Williamson collection contains material dating from 1891 and spanning the next forty years until his death in 1933. Most of the collection focuses on Williamson's activities as an entomologist, though also it includes some personal correspondence and photographs. The collection is divided into four series, Correspondence, 1891-1935, Drawings, Miscellaneous, Notes and Paper Drafts, and Photographs.