The David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography consists of over 120,000 images in a variety of formats including daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, cartes de visite, cabinet photographs, real photo postcards, stereographs, and mounted and unmounted paper prints. The collection is primarily made up of vernacular photographs of everyday life in Michigan taken by both professional and amateur photographers from the 1840s into the mid-twentieth century. The real-photo postcard series has been digitized and is available here. Compiled by Tinder, this reference work contains biographical information about virtually every known commercial and significant amateur photographer in the state of Michigan from the first known appearances in the 1840s into the early twentieth century.

The Michigan collection contains approximately 300 miscellaneous items relating to present-day Michigan during the 18th through the 20th centuries. Spanning 1759 to 1947, it comprises letters and documents pertaining to Native American activities, French settlement, trade, politics, town growth, agriculture, and land surveying. Of note, this collection contains the May 12, 1781, deed by which the British forces at Fort Michilimackinac (Mackinaw City) acquired Mackinac Island from the Ojibwa people.

The Lewis Cass papers contain the political and governmental letters and writings of Lewis Cass, who served as Governor of the Michigan Territory (1813-1831) and U.S. Senator from Michigan (1849-1857), among other roles. Items include letters, speeches, financial documents, memoranda, literary manuscripts, newspaper clippings, and a travel diary. The collection contains 55 letters from Cass’ tenure as Governor of Michigan Territory and approximately 278 letters from his time as Michigan’s Senator. It also contains material concerning relations between the United States and Native Americans.

The Lucius Lyon papers contain the public correspondence of Lucius Lyon, United States representative and senator from Michigan, and surveyor general for Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. Letter writers include Michigan governors, legislators, postmasters, physicians, and other local politicians, as well as residents of Michigan, Wisconsin, northern Illinois, and Indiana, and national Democratic Party leaders during the years Lyon served in Congress.

The Harriet DeGarmo Fuller papers consist of four bound volumes of records and eight miscellaneous receipts of the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society, kept between 1852 and 1857, when Harriet DeGarmo Fuller was a member of the executive committee of the Society. The albums have been digitized and can be accessed here.

The Black Bottom Collection consists of 58 pieces of ephemera, 67 photographs, and 1 hand-written note relating to nightclubs (particularly Lee’s Club Sensation), social institutions, and other African American-owned businesses once located in Detroit’s Black Bottom Neighborhood.

The Samuel Williams papers contain the correspondence, mainly business-related, of the chief clerk in the office of the surveyor-general of the Northwest Territory. William’s letters touch on, among other things, the difficulties in establishing the boundary between Michigan and Ohio and in surveying the terrain of Michigan amid snow and fallen timber. The Survey Records series contains 30 undated records for the Michigan Territory, which include latitude and longitude calculations and comments on trees and soil for various areas of the territory.

This collection is made up of letters that Brigadier General James Wilkinson sent to Major Henry Burbeck from Ohio and Michigan in the late 1790s. He discussed logistical affairs related to the Northwest Territory, mentioning roads, trade, relations with Native Americans and Europeans, events in the Mackinac region, and other subjects.

This journal reflects the experiences of Hiram B. Crosby, a New York City lawyer, during his trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in the fall of 1872. As part of a prospecting party, Crosby analyzed the potential for iron mines near Iron Mountain, Michigan. He recorded his impressions of local scenery, commented on his daily activities, and described the area’s Native American settlements and peoples. The volume contains 24 pen and ink drawings.

This collection contains the correspondence, legal documents, and financial records of Edward H. Thomson, a lawyer who lived in Flint, Michigan, in the mid-1800s. Many items pertain to Thomson’s involvement in mining ventures in the Lake Superior region of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

The Asa Waldo Wildes daybook contains an account of his 1857 trip from Detroit to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula via Lake Huron and Lake Superior, as well as poetry, financial accounts, and a draft of an 1857 survey report.

The Travel Ephemera collection consists of approximately 2,500 items related to travel in the United States and elsewhere spanning the 19th and 20th centuries. Materials mainly include travel brochures, pamphlets, schedules, and maps for various modes of transportation as well as travel guidebooks. To find items related to Michigan, you may browse Series I: Destinations by region (i.e. North Central) or by state (i.e. Michigan).

• David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography (Real-Photo Postcard Series)
• James Sterling letter book, 1761-1765
• John Porteous letter book, 1767-1769
• Michigan in the War by John Robertson, Adjutant General (1882)

• Online Exhibit: “No, not even for a picture”: Re-examining the Native Midwest and Tribes’ Relations to the History of Photography
• Online Exhibit: Framing Identity: Documenting Communities: African American Photographers in Michigan
• Online Exhibit: American Encounters: Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin) Texts
• Article in Quarto #37, First Series: Mackinac Island Deed is Returned to Michigan (page 1)
• Quarto #15: Detroit’s 300th
• Quarto #27: The Old Northwest
• Article in Quarto #32: “To Bring the Tribes Together There” (pages 6-7)
• Article in Quarto #56: “Detroit, The Airship City”
• Bookworm #16: Outdoor Photography from the Upper Peninsula
• Bookworm #22: French and Native Americans in Early Detroit
• Bookworm #33: Detroit’s Hidden Channels: The Power of French-Indigenous Families in the Eighteenth Century
• Bookworm #34: Michilimackinac, “Where archaeology and history meet”
• Bookworm #45: Classic Food and Restaurants of the Upper Peninsula
• Blog Post: Today in History: Michigan’s 175th Anniversary
• Blog post: Today in History: Fort Mackinac Captured by British
• Blog post: Today in History: William Hull Surrenders Detroit
• Blog post: Today in History: Remember the Raisin
• Blog post: Clements Library Acquires Previously Unknown Plan of 1790 Detroit
• Blog post: Empire and Encounter at Detroit
• Blog post: Empire and Encounter at Detroit: “Habitants,” Hired Labor, and the Enslaved
• Blog post: Empire and Encounter at Detroit: Native Nations, Native Labor
• Blog post: Book Review: “Frontier Metropolis: Picturing Early Detroit, 1701-1838”
• Blog post: Joseph Cabay, or Kewakezhig: A Home in the Skies
• Blog post: Clements Library acquires rare hand-drawn map of Detroit from 1761, pursues crowdfunding
• Blog post: Breaking into the Past: An Instance of Code Cracking in the Tinder Postcard Collection
• Blog post: Mapping Michigan
• Occasional Bulletin #2: The David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography
• Occasional Bulletin #5: “Rough Scetch of the King’s Domain at Detroit”
• Catalog: One Hundred Michigan Rarities by Colton Storm and the William L. Clements Library (1950)