- US US-IaGG MS/MS 01.179
- Colección
Papers detailing the personal and family history of Foster C. Rinefort Jr., Grinnell College class of 1956. Emphasis on athletics.
Foster C. Rinefort Jr.
Papers detailing the personal and family history of Foster C. Rinefort Jr., Grinnell College class of 1956. Emphasis on athletics.
Foster C. Rinefort Jr.
Harry Waldo Norris Papers 1920-1931
These papers are notes, reminiscences, and correspondence of Norris regarding science clubs, science teachers, and presidents of Grinnell College.
Norris, Harry Waldo
Hill Family Papers and Publications
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.
Hill, Sarah Harriman
United Church of Christ - Congregational (Grinnell, Iowa) records 1850-2009
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 (Class of 1970) Collection of Grinnell College Memorabilia
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.
Klein, Douglas
Preston Family History 1869-1962
Consists of photocopies of clippings, photographs, and letters and a journal.
Preston Family
Lenabel Courtney Oral Interview
Lenabel Body Courtney was interviewed by her grandson, J. Courtney Wilson, in January, February, August and December 1977. The collection consists of 15 cassette tapes and transcripts of approximately 230 typed pages, the transcript for each tape having an index of topics discussed.
Wilson, J. Courtney
George Washington Cook Letters 1857-1860
The collection consists of twenty-six letters, one land deed, and three loose envelopes.
Letters are written between George Washigton Cook and Electa C. Cook to family and friends, particularly Sarah E. Cook, Collins Cook, and Henry W. Cook. The letters detail life in Grinnell, IA, during the 1857-1860 time period.
The land deed is dated January 1, 1859 and is signed by J.B. Grinnell.
Cook, George Washington
This collection contains correspondence, clippings, materials from conferences and organizations, photographs, a family tree, and materials about her retirement and memorial.
Gardner, Evelyn
This collection is organized into four series: Biographical, Correspondence, Military, and Photographs.
Series 1: Biographical (1924-1981)
The Biographical series includes personal items including Ley’s birth certificate, framed high school basketball letter, and Catechism bible, as well as a handwritten copy of a poem composed by his mother for his funeral service. The series also includes an extensive scrapbook including photos, personal and educational documents, and newspaper clippings from early childhood until after his death.
Series 2: Correspondence (1939-1946)
The Correspondence series consists of three sub-series: letters written by Jimmy Ley, letters written to Ley and returned to his parents, and letters written to his parents after his disappearance. Ley’s letters are almost exclusively addressed to his parents and date from between just before he first attended Grinnell College in the fall of 1939 until his disappearance in February 1944. Ley’s letters are organized chronologically and divided into folders by location, mostly military camps where Ley was stationed. Mostly written by the families of other missing men in Ley’s flight crew, the letters to Jimmy’s parents after his death date from between November 1944 and August 1945 and are arranged alphabetically by sender’s last name.
Series 3: Military (unkown-1948)
The Military series consists of Ley’s official certificates and awards, bomb squadron yearbook, air force patch, and framed medals (Distinguished Flying Cross, 3 Oak Leaf Clusters, and Purple Heart).
Series 4: Photographs (unknown-1945)
The Photographs series includes fifteen unframed photographs, a portrait in a display folder, a framed photo collage documenting the medals Ley earned, a large framed portrait displayed at Ley’s funeral, and a large framed artistic collage of Ley’s plane and flight crew.
Ley, James
Selden Lincoln Whitcomb Papers
Seldon Whitcomb spent most of his life in Grinnell, IA. He was born here, graduated from Iowa College in 1887, and returned to teach English from 1895-1905. In this collection are two personal journals, a poetry manuscript, and a notebook of nature observations with a few specimens pressed between the pages.
Whitcomb, Selden Lincoln
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.
Hall, James Norman
Leonard F. Parker. Notes for his book, History of Poweshiek County
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.
Parker, Leonard F.
Grinnell – Chapin Genealogical Material
The collection consists of genealogical charts 1480 - 1919. Correspondence circa. 1898-1908. 32 portraits, some unidentified, copies of cemetery inscriptions, Family Association publications for the Chapin (4 books, 1862, 1908, 1908, 1927) and Alden (1 book, 1916) families, sixty Chapin family deeds and documents from Massachusetts 1674-1851, and a 114-page handwritten notebook by E. F. G. of Stockbridge, 1848, family history of Chapin ancestors Dudley, Woodbridge, Jones, and Eliot.
The papers have detailed information about a few branches of the family, little or no information on other branches. The researcher might consult U.S. Library of Congress, Genealogies in the Library of Congress to identify more complete sources.
Genealogical charts in this collection trace part of the Grinnell family from Pierre Grenelle, born about 1480 in France. A descendant, Matthew, born 1602, became a Protestant and moved to Newport, R.I., in 1630, beginning the American line of the family. Matthew’s son married a granddaughter of John and Priscilla Alden. Other charts trace various branches of the Chapin family from about 1576 to Mary Grinnell’s birth about 1857.
Grinnell, Josiah Bushnell
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.
Oelke, William C.