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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.

Professor of anthropology at University of Michigan, student of the culture of the Pueblo Indians of the southwestern United States, and of the career of early American anthropologist, Lewis H. Morgan. Correspondence files, articles and reviews relating to all phases of his anthropological interests, research notes on Lewis H. Morgan, and field notes pertaining to his trips among the Pueblo Indians, and collection of scholarly publications.

The Leslie A. White papers document the fifty-year career of one of America's most distinguished and influential anthropologists. The collection documents through correspondence and other materials the development of modern anthropological theory and practice, particularly the concept of cultural evolution and his theory that the control of energy is basic to the evolution of culture. The collection has been arranged into the following series: Correspondence; Course Work; University Career; Biographical/Personal; Writings; Speeches and Lectures; Miscellaneous; Field Notes and Research Trips; and Published Materials.

Orchard Lake, Michigan, family, with various business interests, including lumbering and land transactions (in Michigan, California, West Virginia, and British Columbia), and also active in the development of the Orchard Lake area, especially from the 1920s to the 1940s; Correspondence files of individual family members, subject files detailing family interests and activities, business and legal records, maps, blueprints, and photographs.

The majority of the Ward Family collection is comprised of materials generated by Willis Ward and his son, Harold, and thus reflect the life of the family in the twentieth century. The strengths of the collection rest on materials which document upper-class family life in the first three decades of this century; the development of the Orchard Lake area in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s; the extensive Michigan land holdings of the Ward family; and the history of the lumber town of Deward, Michigan. The researcher should be aware that there are only limited materials in the collection which document either David Ward's business pursuits in Michigan or his personal life. The researcher should supplement those materials with use of Ward's published autobiography.

There are six series which comprise the Ward collection: Personal; Correspondence; Land Holdings; Photographs; Architectural Drawings; and Maps. Whenever possible the original order of materials in the first three series has been maintained.