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Professor of geology and paleontology at the University of Michigan, director of the Michigan Geological Survey, and chancellor of Syracuse University, popular lecturer and writer on scientific topics and as a Methodist layman who worked to reconcile traditional religious beliefs to nineteenth-century developments in the fields of evolutionary biology, cosmology, geology, and paleontology. Papers include extensive diaries, field notes and maps from travels and geological expeditions, correspondence, speeches, articles and other publications and photographs.

The papers of Alexander Winchell are those of an orderly man who carefully documented his own life through well-organized correspondence, diaries, notebooks, and scrapbooks. Winchell kept thorough evidence of his activities, writings, lectures, and thoughts, for most of his life. The only area that seems poorly documented is his university teaching. The collection does not appear to include significant material relating to relationships with students in the classroom.

"Alexander Winchell, an editorial tribute," published in The American Geologist (Feb. 1892, MHC call number DB/2/W759/A512), includes a year-by-year account of Winchell's life, based on the papers, and probably written by his brother N. H. Winchell. Although there are no footnotes in this work, it provides a useful summary of Winchell's activities and clues to the existence of documentation in the collection.

The collection is divided into six major series: Biographical, Correspondence, Diaries and journals, Writings and lectures, Reference and research files, and Scrapbooks; and three smaller series: Visual materials, Processing notes, and Card files.

Winchell's bibliography is located in Box 1 (the most complete copy is in the "Permanent memoranda" volume), and drafts of many of his writings are found in Boxes 8-14. Copies of many, but not all, of Winchell's publications are found in the MHC printed collection. The card catalog includes details for all separately cataloged items. There are also three collections of pamphlets that are not inventoried: two slightly different bound sets prepared by N. H. Winchell after Alexander Winchell's death (MHC call numbers DA/2/W759/M678/Set A and DA/2/W759/M678/Set B) and a two-box collection of pamphlets collected by the University Library (MHC call number Univ. of Mich. Coll./J/17/W759).

American poet and novelist (some with anti-war themes), pacifist and women's rights advocate, participant in the International Congress of Women at The Hague in 1915 and subsequent activities of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. The author of numerous poems and other literary works, she "projected a clear vision of a new social order". Throughout her work runs the prophecy of the triumph of new moral values and a strong identification with the "downtrodden masses". The papers of Angela Morgan document her long career as a twentieth century writer and social reformer. Papers include extensive correspondence with leading pacifists, literary figures and women's rights activists, manuscripts of Morgan's poetry, novels and other writings, clipping and subject files on pacifist activities and photographs.

The Angela Morgan papers document her long career as a twentieth century writer and social reformer. The collection includes extensive correspondence files, biographical and personal files, drafts of writings, pamphlets, newspaper clippings and other papers relating to her activities as a pacifist and her literary interests; also material on World War I peace movement concerning International Congress of Women, Ford Peace Ship, American Neutral Conference Committee, Emergency Peace Federation, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Bureau of Legal First Aid, People's Council of America and New York City branch of the Woman's Peace Party; also scattered papers, 1861-1922, of her father, Albert T. Morgan, who came to Mississippi after the Civil War; and photographs.

The collection contains much information on organizations such as the General Federation of Women's Clubs, (she served as poet laureate of this organization in the 1930's), the League of American Pen Women (she served as president of the Philadelphia branch from 1929 to 1931) and the Poetry Society of America.

Throughout her long career Angela Morgan kept up a correspondence with ministers (such as Fred Winslow Adams, Charles F. Aked, Harry Emerson Fosdick, John Haynes Holmes, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Frederick Lynch, John Herman Randall and Arthur Weatherly), journalists and magazine editors (such as Kendall Banning, William F. Bigelow, Sewell Haggard, and Franklin B. Wiley) and literary people (such as Anita Browne, Ralph Cheyney, Edwin Markham, Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, Lucia Trent and Ella Wheeler Wilcox).

Another valuable aspect of the paper is the material on Angela Morgan's involvement in the peace movement, especially during World War I. Her involvement was apparently due both to the fact that she agreed with many of the ideas of the pacifists and the fact that her office was in the same building (70 Fifth Avenue in New York) which housed the headquarters of almost every significant peace group in New York City. Included in her correspondence are letters from Crystal Eastman, Margaret Lane, Rebecca Shelley, Norman Thomas, the American Neutral Conference Committee, the Bureau of Legal First Aid, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the Woman's Peace Party. One folder from 1915 contains notes on interviews with German pacifists conducted by Angela Morgan and Rebecca Shelley. The collection also contains much information on the International Congress of Women in 1915 (a meeting of pacifists to which Angela was a delegate) and the Ford Peace Ship.

Family of Delos A. Blodgett, his son John W. Blodgett, and his grandson John W. Blodgett, Jr., residents of Grand Rapids, Michigan and owners of a series of logging companies active in Michigan, Mississippi, California, Oregon, and Vancouver Island. Correspondence, journals, cash books, ledgers, and maps of family businesses, including the Blodgett Company, Wright-Blodgett Company, Michigan-California Lumber Company, Michigan Timber Company, Hill-Davis Company, and Tidewater Timber Company; also personal correspondence and photographs.

The collection, although still largely unprocessed, has been grouped into different kinds of records. These include correspondence, business records, maps, and photographs.

Correspondence and miscellaneous business papers including Civil War letters exchanged between John C. Buchanan and his wife, Sophia Bingham Buchanan, while he was serving as first lieutenant in Co. D. of the 8th Michigan Infantry. Many of the letters are almost sermons and philosophical essays about his home and family, religion, his country and the war and its leaders. Others are detailed descriptions of camps and camp life, such as Seabrook plantation in South Carolina and its Negroes, James Island and its reptiles; his quarters and food; sea transports; marches, skirmishes and battles with the Army of the Potomac in the Maryland campaign and around Fredericksburg. The collection also includes letters from Claude Buchanan while he was a student at the University of Michigan; letters (1847-1858) of J. Irwin Beaumont of Mississippi and Minnesota to Angie Bingham (Gilbert); notebooks, speeches, business papers, and a diary of a trip to the South in 1884 made by Claude Buchanan.

Alpena, Michigan, family; correspondence, letterpress books, financial papers, and other material largely relating to the family's business enterprises in lumbering, sugar manufacturing, ferry and excursion lines, mining, and banking; contain record of business affairs in Alpena, Michigan, and other areas of northern Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri, Oregon, and Mississippi; family members represented in the collection include Frank W. Gilchrist and two of his sons, Frank R. and Ralph Gilchrist, also members of a related Fletcher and Potter families.

The Gilchrist Family Papers, which date from 1867 to 1945, reflect the business life of four generations of a prominent Alpena, Michigan family. The lives of four generations of Gilchrists are documented by the collection, but the bulk pertains primarily to Frank W. Gilchrist and his son, Ralph. Included in the collection is an assortment of correspondence, financial statements, inventories, reports, and cost estimates, pertaining to the lumbering, sugar beet, shipping, and mining industries.

The collection contains a considerable amount of material pertaining to Michigan business history, especially in the areas of lumbering, shipping, cement, and mining industries. Among the papers are financial statements, profit and loss records, invoices, lists of timber prices, salary records, blueprints of milling operations, and correspondence. They provide a documentary record of a family-owned business, which, when faced with declining lumber sales in northern Michigan, attempted to diversify its holdings in the real estate, mining, shipping, and sugar beet industries. Some of these endeavors proved successful for the Gilchrists; others did not. The papers record both the family's successes and failures.

Particularly useful for this study are the correspondence and financial statements of Frank W. Gilchrist and the early papers of his son, Ralph. The collection includes records of the Huron Sugar Company, the Alpena Portland Cement Company, and the Gilchrist Transportation Company, all of which failed to produce sufficient profit for the Gilchrists. The lumber and land companies were more successful.

The collection also serves to document the manner in which Ralph Gilchrist, Frank's son, carried the family industries into the 1920s and 1930s, managing to survive the effects of the Great Depression. The collection contains year by year, and in some cases month by month, financial statements, showing Gilchrist assets before, during. and after the stock market crash of October, 1929. The records of Gilchrist & Company Limited, the Detroit Trust Company; and Commonwealth Securities Incorporated are especially valuable for this study.

The Gilchrist Papers are not particularly useful for social history or for information on the family's private life. The collection does contain a travel diary of William H. Potter, dated 1883, in which a journey from Alpena to Detroit is described, but the bulk of the material reflects only the Gilchrists' official business functions. Correspondence usually relates information on stock acquisition, land purchases, lumber sales, and estate liquidation. The Potter papers are perhaps more personal in nature, containing some correspondence between the elder Albert Gilchrist and his daughter Ella, but these letters are few.

The researcher interested in Michigan business history, however, will find the collection useful for the above-named industries. Moreover, the collection also provides evidence for changes that took place from the 19th to 20th centuries within the office itself and the manner in which business was conducted. To some extent the papers reflect how the family reacted to early forms of office automation, as for example complaints that secretaries make too many typographical errors and that it is often easier to write letters by hand.

The collection remains in excellent condition, for the most part, although the letterpress books from the 19th century are faded and nearly illegible.