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The collection consists primarily of printed materials, and a few letters of correspondence. Gershom Hyde or James Langdon Hill authored the bulk of the collection. Most of their works are in the form of pamphlets, small books, and occasionally typed manuscripts.

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.

Consists of one letter from I. B. Mc., Mexico, Missouri, to Dr. C. Blish, Hampton, Pennsylvania describing the Iowa Territory.  Written before 1846.

The Fraker collection of postcards consists of approximately 7,000 cards, depicting 501 Iowa cities and towns. The cancellation dates on the postcards range from the beginning of the 20th century to the 1960’s, although most cards date from circa 1910. The collection is arranged alphabetically. All towns with two or more cards are filed individually, while towns with only one card are filed at the beginning of their letter group. In box 17, there are several miscellaneous cards, including book cards, military cards, and unidentifiable cards. The book postcards of Iowa feature either towns or the state as a whole. There are also several postcards from military institutions across the United States. The unidentifiable cards are handmade, but were never sent through the mail and do not indicate their town. These cards depict a wide range of subjects, including people, homes, and businesses.

There are also approximately 1,200 postcards of Des Moines, as well as 1,000 views of Davenport. In addition, Ottumwa has three postcards of double length that portray panoramic views of the city. These are in box 14.

There are two scrapbooks in the manuscript collection; one is of the county courthouses of Iowa and the second is filled with postcards from Des Moines. These are both located at the end of the collection.

Contains records, finance material, and publications from throughout the history of Grinnell's United Church of Christ-Congregational, roughly 1850-2000s.

(Information gleaned from the UCC's Centennial Booklet, published in 1955, and Memories, Legacies Challenges: 150 Years in the Life of Grinnell's United Church of Christ-Congregational):

In 1854, almost immediately upon their arrival, J.B. Grinnell and the other settlers in the area began worship services. Though they were held as Congregational events, settlers of any faith or creed were welcome at these meetings. One year later, the First Congregational Church of Grinnell was founded. The first permanent church building was constructed in 1860, and the years that followed saw the congregation growing steadily in size. In 1877, the cornerstone for what is now known as the Old Stone Church was laid, and over the next 74 years it would expand to hold 1,000 and host events as prominent as the General Association meeting of the Congregational Christian Church. In 1953, the new church was dedicated, and the UCC has been flourishing there since.

The growth of the church and the town are closely intertwined. The founding members of the church, listed below, were instrumental in developing the town's abolitionist spirit, helping the needy of the town, and bringing Iowa College from Davenport to Grinnell. The character and leadership of the church helped ensure the college's early success, and when the tornado of 1882 struck, the church proved vital to the recovery effort. In the history of the town of Grinnell, it would be difficult to argue that any institution has played a larger role than the Congregational Church.

The charter members of the First Congregational Church of Grinnell:
Rev. J.B. Grinnell, Mrs. Julia A. Grinnell, William R. Ford, Mrs. Lydia W. Ford, Thomas Holyoke, M.D., Mrs. Marc C. Holyoke, Gideon Gardner, Mrs. Naomi Gardner, Anor Scott, Mrs. Harriet B. Scott, Emory S. Bartlett, Sumner Bixby, Mrs. Sarah H. Bixby, Miss Lucy Bixby, Abraham Whitcomb, Mrs. Mary Whitcomb, Levi H. Marsh, Mrs. Charlotte Patterson.

Douglas Klein Papers contain various school publications, mostly from the years 1964-1970. The publications include the NOUS Literary Review, the Alumni S&B, misc. programs and directories, the High and Mighty, the Militant, the Second Battle of Chicago, various political flyers, the Grinnell Reporter, the Montage, and the Ptero. Besides the publications, the Douglas Klein Papers include calendars, student handbooks and the Grinnell Phi Betta Kappa directory, as well as "The Past of Our College" (1895) and the 1892 cyclone. They also contain the seminar notes "Ecology on Economics," as well as the first two draft's of Klein's Calculus textbook.

Consists of photocopies of clippings, photographs, and letters and a journal.

The records consist of ledgers and notebooks documenting financial information, minutes of Church meetings, members and pastors including their responsibilities and actions within the Church. There is also a file of guest attendance.

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 bulk of the collection contains correspondence and reports concerning Reed's work of the American Home Missionary Society of the Congregational Church in the 1845-1869. Among the topics addressed are slavery and how the church should regard congregations in slave-holding states, founding of churches in Iowa, church finances, and founding a college in Iowa. This is a rich collection for the study of early Congregationalism in Iowa.

The James Norman Hall papers at Grinnell College span the years 1906-54.  About half the collection is correspondence, clippings, photographs, and notebooks, the other half is manuscripts of his writings, including his autobiography, novels, short stories, essays, and poems, published and unpublished.  The 665 letters and post cards are arranged chronologically.  A small portion are from Hall's four years in Boston before World War I, nearly half are from World War I and post war years, and the rest from the last 25 years of his life.  Much of the correspondence is with his family and two Boston friends, George Courtright Greener (1911-53), Director of the North Bennet Street Industrial School, and Roy Cushman (1914-50), Probation Officer in Juvenile Court.  Other correspondence includes letters and cards from Hall to his former Grinnell professors, Charles Payne (1916-44) and George L. Pierce (1911-50), from his college roommate, Chester C. Davis (1910-19), newspaperman, head of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in the 1930's and president of the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis, and a few letters from Ellery Sedgwick, editor of Atlantic Monthly.  The Atlantic Monthly-Hall-Nordhoff correspondence is on 14 rolls of microfilm, and the Sedgwick-Hall correspondence is on one roll in the Archives.  A few letters are exchanges between friends with comments about Hall.  Some letters are typed, some are carbons, most are handwritten.  A typed version of selected war letters is included.  The Archives does not have Robert Dean Frisbie's letters on which Hall's story "Frisbie of Danger Island" is based, nor correspondence with Nordhoff.

Most of the newspaper clippings are reports of Hall's war experiences and reviews of his books, a few are about Hall, Tahiti, and the South Seas.  Most photographs are from World War I and his Iceland trip, a few are of his family in Tahiti.

Twenty-eight small handwritten notebooks, some of which record Hall's travels and outlines of stories and poems, a diary of the 1909 Grinnell College Glee Club tour to the west coast, and Hall's Grandfather Young's small Civil War diary (1864) are also in the collection.  Two rolls of microfilm in the Archives contain war letters, pages of notebooks and other items selected from the Grinnell collection by Paul Briand Jr., who wrote a biography of Hall.

Over half of the collection consists of typescripts, some with revisions or several versions of sections, of nine of the twelve books Nordhoff and Hall co-authored (manuscripts of the first three, published before 1930, are not in the collection), of parts or all of seven of the seventeen books Hall published alone, of scripts of two of Hall's plays, of typescripts or holograph versions of 19 of the more than 80 published magazine pieces, and of about sixty unpublished poems, stories, and essays, most undated.  The Archives owns 28 books Hall wrote by himself or coauthored with Nordhoff, including foreign language editions of some titles.

The Hall papers at Grinnell College are a valuable resource for anyone studying his career as a writer, his travels, experiences, ideas, and the sources of some of his stories.  Hall's war correspondence is particularly enlightening for the World War I scholar interested in the human aspect of the war.

Consists of two diaries written by S. (Sammy) M. Wright of Knoxville, Iowa, during the Civil War. He and his brother William served in Company B, Third Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry.

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.