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The collection includes writings of Herron from the 1890s, correspondence from and to college officials regarding Herron and his work at the college, published articles and unpublished papers about Herron, and extensive set of clippings regarding Herron, his philosophy and teaching, and his relationship with Carrie Rand.

Items in the Treasurer's Office record group span the years 1847-1980.  Records from the 19th Century (Series 1 and 4) consist chiefly of ledgers, journals, and donor lists.

Prior to 1887 the college had no office force, and a Trustee served as Treasurer (without salary). Several local bankers serves as treasurers and auditors during the Gates' administration, The first salaried Treasurer was H. H. Robbins.

H. H. Robbins, 1869, was Secretary and Treasurer of Iowa College 1887-1906, and was a Trustee 1890-1906. Prior to 1887 he was a Congregational minister and a railroad engineer. He was the son of Iowa Band Member A. B. Robbins, who was the first president of the Board.

H. W. Somers, 1882, became Business Manager and Secretary in 1907. His duties were to direct the financial and accounting system of the college and to direct fund raising. In 1916 his title changed to Secretary and Treasurer, and Louis Pyelps became Business Manager. Somers served until 1919.
Louis Phelps came as Business Manager in 1916, was college Treasurer 1919-1949. He was Secretary of the Grinnell College Foundation 1917-ca. 1954. Prior to coming to Grinnell he was a construction engineer, and was involved in construction of the women’s quadrangle 1914-1916.

Rupert Hawk, Treasurer, 1949-1956
Charles Kaufman served as Accountant 1942-1956 and as Treasurer 1956-1966
Donald Lambie, Treasurer, 1966-1972
Robert Anderson, Treasurer, 1972-1988
Waldo Walker, Treasurer, 1988-1990
David Clay, Treasurer, 1990-

From about 1913 to 1940 the college expanded its facilities dramatically.  Louis Phelps, College Treasurer 1919-1949, and Grinnell College Foundation Secretary 1917-ca.1954, preserved most of the papers which expedited the financing and construction of the dormitories and a few other buildings during this period.  Series 3-5 are from his files.

Providing on-campus dormitores for students was a new phenomenon in the early part of the twentieth century, and financing their construction called for considerable ingenuity.  Grinnell was a pioneer in this, and other colleges and universities studied the example.  One officer of the General Education Board, a Rockefeller philanthropy which contributed significantly to the College, praised President Main for pioneering in the social and educational experiment; another officer feared that war or pestilence might create serious problems in dormitories (RG-T, Ser. 3.4, folder 2, Phelps to Arnett, 6/22/30),.  The College Trustees created Grinnell College Foundation to raise the funds.  Details of their activities are in Series 6 and Series 3.4 of this record group.  Dormitory construction records are in Series 4.

Part of the financing involved owning, managing, and selling farms and other real estate.  Correspondence between Mr. Phelps and the farmers and farm managers (in series 5) records on a day-to-day basis the myriad problems farmers faced during the 1920s and 30s in the midwest.  Text books describe the agricultural situation, but this correspondence brings home what it was like to live and cope with falling market prices, crop diseases, pernicious weather patterns, and personal tragedies.  The correspondence includes such details as building and equipment repairs; livestock sales; plant and animal diseases; when to castrate the pigs; planting windbreaks; inability to get crops to market because of muddy roads; government farm assistance programs; trial planiting of the new hybrid corn seed.  Phelps was involved in all of these details.

The collection is arranged in three series: Personal papers; Published work, course outlines, lectures; and Unpublished manuscripts and research notes. It reflects Margaret’s work as a writer, but except for her writing on women, does not reflect her active role in such women’s organizations as NOW and the League of Women Voters nor her work with activist’s groups such as Grinnell Peace Links.

Personal papers contains correspondence with family members, close friends, and letters that relate to her writing. There are many tributes written to her family on her death. Of significance is a poem, “The misbehaving feet,” written by James Norman Hall that Margaret had found in her mother’s papers. It is an unpublished poem written in 1936 for Margaret’s father. Also included is correspondence between Margaret and an editor at The Atlantic Monthly about possible publication of the poem.

Published work contains the research materials, notes, related correspondence, and drafts of her published articles. Although she wrote on a variety of issues, the most significant items are those relating to Grinnell College and published in The Grinnell Magazine, The Annals of Iowa, and Iowa Woman. She wrote fine articles about Herrick Chapel and Mears Cottage and a series of articles about Hallie Flanagan. Her work on Ruth Suckow was quite extensive and led to her participation in the Ruth Suckow Memorial Association; papers from that group are included in this collection.

Unpublished manuscripts includes stories and articles from early in her career and the drafts and research materials from her book on Grinnell women on which she was working when she died. Her extensive writing, her interest in Grinnell, and her strong feminist leanings may have made this last work the pinnacle of her career.

Professor Kleinschmidt amassed countless photocopies, copies of microfilm and Sanborn maps, copies of newspaper articles, correspondence, and black and white photographs of local buildings (residences, commercial, college).  In the 1990s, Professor Kleinschmidt expressed his interest in having his collection deposited with the Grinnell College Archives.  Members of the Grinnell Historic Preservation Commission (Lisa Adkins, Don Irving, Cheryl Neubert), conducted interviews with him to access much of his accumulated knowledge about this history of the town, the occupants and the buildings.

Consists of manuscripts of talks, articles, correspondence, photographs, and slides.  Most relate to chemistry and chemists at Grinnell College in the early and mid-twentieth century.

Consists of photographs, programs, and other materials from the Girls Glee Club trip in 1912 and from the Class of 1914 reunion.

Consists mostly of correspondence relating to Mr. Stiles. The material is both business related and personal in nature, including several articles written by Stiles, a series of request and thank you letters for copies of his book, Manual of Public Archives of Iowa, work recommendations, literature relating to the American Historical Association, general correspondence and a paper written by Fleming C. Fraker, Cassius C. Stiles and the Public Archives of Iowa.

Consists mostly of correspondence relating to Mr. Stiles. The material is both business related and personal in nature, including several articles written by Stiles, a series of request and thank you letters for copies of his book, Manual of Public Archives of Iowa, work recommendations, literature relating to the American Historical Association, general correspondence and a paper written by Fleming C. Fraker, Cassius C. Stiles and the Public Archives of Iowa.

The collection consists primarily of letters written to John Nollen from members of his family 1906-32.  Correspondents include his parents, his wife, Louise, brother Henry, and his sisters Hanna and Sara.  The two sisters taught 1929-33 at Anatolia College, Salonika, Greece.  The collection includes their letters to John as well as typed copies of their letters to other members of the family and contain descriptions of their travels during those years.

The collection includes notes taken by Noun as she researched her book:  correspondence, clippings, and photocopies from various sources; other background material; and negatives of photographs for the book.

The collection contains correspondence between Macy and several people from the 1870s to 1919, including a letter from Woodrow Wilson thanking Macy for a gift and for his congratulations on the 1910 New Jersey gubernatorial election. There are a number of miscellaneous family documents, Macy’s diary from 1864-65 in Savannah, Georgia, and sixty letters of tribute at the time of Macy’s death.

James McNally collected photographs, both black-and-white and color, that depict buildings and Grinnell scenes from about 1857-1961.  The collection of photographs has been donated to Stewart Library.

Copies of outstanding and representative pictures in the collection were made into slides and the slides donated to the archives.  Vera provided the descriptions of the photographs in 1983.  There are two sets of slides: the original slides and another set that are loaded into a carousel.  The latter set may be borrowed with approval of the College Archivist.

The collection contains “historical manuscripts, notes and correspondence of Professor L.F. Parker in regard to material for his History of Poweshiek County.  Most materials are handwritten, although a few of Parker’s manuscripts are typed.