MSS 0100 <. Archival Collections

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This collection of pamphlets on Israel, Jewish theology, and the Jewish experience in the twentieth century was compiled by Rabbi Herbert E. Drooz, leader of the Congregation Beth Emeth of Wilmington, Delaware, from 1947 to 1982.

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Fleda Brown (born 1944) is an American poet, scholar, and educator, and was poet laureate for the state of Delaware from 2001-2007. The Fleda Brown papers, spanning circa 1950-2014 (bulk 1963-2014), comprise early works, poem drafts and notes, journals, correspondence, and materials related to Brown’s professional life as a poet and professor of English at the University of Delaware.

Abstract The Williams family papers concern the business and personal affairs of prominent Delaware politician and landowner James Williams (1825-1899), and his son Nathaniel J. Williams (1857-1943), who was also a prominent politician and landowner. In addition, the collection contains documents relating to the business of Parvis & Williams, a Middletown-based fertilizer manufacturing company headed by James Williams once he joined John Parvis in 1885. The collection comprises correspondence,...

Abstract Harold Brayman (1900-1988), a political journalist and former director of the Public Relations Department of Du Pont Company for 21 years, helped establish a concept of public relations which was widely emulated throughout the United States. The Harold Brayman papers supplement, spanning from 1914-1992, contains substantial editions to the original collection, documenting Brayman's dual careers in the fields of journalism and public relations. The collection includes correspondence,...

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The George Wolkind papers document the involvement of native Delaware activist George Wolkind (born 1945) in the Newark and Wilmington, Delaware, counterculture and music scenes in the 1960s and 1970s.

Abstract The Littleton and Jane Mitchell papers document the life and career of the Delaware-based civil rights activist and educator Littleton P. Mitchell (1918-2004) and his wife Jane E. Mitchell (1921-2004). The collection contains material relating to his education, activities as a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, his three decades-long leadership of the Delaware NAACP, his career as a teacher and counselor at Governor Bacon Health Center in Delaware City, and his involvement in a number of...

Abstract Virginia Tryon Smilack is the daughter of the late Dr. Sager Tryon, former Vice President of the Claymont, Delaware School Board. During his tenure, the school board was the first in the state to desegregate a public school in 1952, two years before the 1954 Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education. These cases were part of a total of five lawsuits that were part of Brown v. Board, and were used as an example that integration...

Abstract Voices of 1968 is an oral history collection focused on Delawareans to capture local stories of that pivotal year in American history. Interviews were conducted by Library staff, partners in the Wilmington Archive Project, and other project volunteers. The topics covered in the interviews include campus politics and student activism in Delaware (particularly through the Students for Democratic Society chapter at the University of Delaware campus), reactions to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s...

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Peter Strickland (1837-1922) was a shipmaster, merchant, and U.S. consul in the French colony of Senegal. The diaries and letter books of Peter Strickland date 1857 to 1912. While varying in content, the diaries center around Strickland’s life as a merchant, both on the sea as well as in Senegal. Issues of two French colonial weekly newspapers contextualize the events of the French colony during Strickland’s time there.

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The League of Women Voters of Greater Newark (LWVGN) was established in Newark, Delaware, in 1952 as the local branch of the national, non-partisan women’s organization which promotes citizen education and encourages participation in government. This archive, spanning the dates 1949-1998, highlights local and national issues, as well as providing information about the organization itself.

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Henry Clay Trumbull (1830-1903) was a noted author, editor, and Sunday-school missionary. The collection contains 120 letters written by various members of Henry Clay Trumbull's family. The majority of the letters are between Trumbull and his parents and siblings.

Abstract Delaware environmental activist Dorothy Miller (1931-2016) led a coaltion of citizens, conservation-minded organizations, the DuPont Company, and the state governments of Delaware and Pennsylvania to acquire and preserve open space to protect the entire White Clay Creek Watershed. Spanning the dates 1965-2010, this collection documents community efforts led by Miller to preserve the White Clay Creek Watershed and her further work on water resources, residential/commercial and transportation...

Abstract Major David Lenox (1753-1828) served in the Revolutionary War and later became a successful merchant, Federal marshal, diplomat, and banker in Philadelphia. This collection consists of one linear foot of correspondence relating to David Lenox's career following the Revolutionary War. In particular, these letters focus on land speculation, duties in the Whiskey Rebellion, executorship of estates, banking, personal business and household receipts, and records relating to the settlement of his...

Abstract Founded in 1979 by Richard and Karin Florschutz in Wilmington, Delaware, Graphic Design Associates, Inc. (later GDA Companies, Inc.) was a communications and design business that ceased operation in 2016. The collection comprises administrative and organizational files as well as numerous design samples created for largely Delaware-based corporate clients, including major pharmaceutical enterprises, between 1979 and 2000. The records reflect adoption of electronic communication and digital...

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The Helen Howard Wilson work book collection represents samples of work completed utilizing Freidrich Froebel’s “System of Gifts and Occupation” for early education.

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The Delaware Miscellany collection includes three large, green buckram-bound volumes compiled by William Ditto Lewis, which contain various documents pertaining to the history of Delaware and the surrounding region, and the University of Delaware.

Abstract The Truxton W. Boyce genealogical research and family papers contains twenty-six three-ring notebooks and nine folders of genealogical research notes, family photographs, correspondence, and other ephemera related to nineteenth- and twentieth-century generations of Boyce's family lines from Delaware and Virginia. Boyce's research includes the Boyce, Justis, Morrow, Shreve, Wright, Brownley, Lawrence, Sebree, Adams, and Tuley families, as well as the family lines of his wife, Doris Jolls...

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Gérard Charrière (1935- ) is a Swiss book artist and painter. The Gérard Charrière papers consist of correspondence, artists' books, catalogs, brochures, periodicals, postcards, artworks, sketches, and printed ephemera collected and created by Charrière. The bulk of the collection comprises correspondence and materials from Charrière’s artist friends and colleagues.

Scope and Contents The Roxana Arsht Papers consist of materials spanning the dates 1910-2002. The collection comprises personal and professional papers, as well as Cannon family papers. Travel files contain books, pamphlets, brochures, photographs, clippings, newspapers, itineraries, maps, notes, postcards and ephemera collected during her travels to Bermuda, the Caribbean, USSR, South America, Portugal, Spain, Egypt, Africa, Mexico, England, Scotland, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Canada, France, Germany,...

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The Mergenthaler Linotype Company developed and manufactured the first modern, functional "line casting" machine. The company records include correspondence, promotional material, histories, chronologies, photographs, drawings, patent records, and assorted parts and supply catalogs.

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The Rowell family papers, spanning the years 1846 to 1894 (bulk dates 1849 - 1853), preserves the letters exchanged by a Quaker family of Loudon, New Hampshire, recording their responses to significant social and political issues of the period leading up to the national crisis over slavery and states’ rights.

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Richard F. Heck (1931-2015), namesake of the Heck Reaction, was an American chemist awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work with palladium to catalyze organic chemical reactions. The Richard F. Heck papers, 1931-2012, comprise personal documents, photographs, professional honors and citations, publications, and material related to his 2010 Nobel Prize, including his Nobel diploma and a doctoral hat from Uppsala University (2011).

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The papers of Edward L. Cairns reflect the interest of this longtime resident of the greater Elkton, Maryland, and Newark, Delaware, area and citizen activist in regional highway planning, local environmental issues, traffic patterns, and growth concerns for the region, since the early 1970s.

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The papers of the American writer of the political left Meridel Le Sueur consist of typescripts of Le Sueur’s poems and stories, sixty-three letters to her friend writer and journalist Doris Kirkpatrick (1902-1984), letters written to Le Sueur by others, photos and other images, news clippings and a periodical.

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Chris Oakley was a longtime resident of Newark, Delaware, a community organizer and a strong advocate for media democracy. The Chris Oakley collection of alternative press consists of alternative press newspapers, community newsletters, magazines and ephemera related to from local to international communities, women's activism and local writers, as well as some personal papers.