The collection consists of three main series of materials that supplement other cataloged holdings relating to Mary Aldis, her family, her estate, her literary work, and her Lake Forest Players/Playhouse. The first series consists of a small group of five large format photographs, plus one smaller view, of plays at her playhouse. The second series is a collection of unpublished translations of French one-act plays, written for production and acting by amateurs. The third series is a reel of microfilm of two scrapbooks of the Aldis Playhouse, the originals held by the Chicago History Museum.
Aldis, Mary, b. 1872, 1872-1949The collection consists of correspondence, family scrapbooks, yearbooks, legal documents, awards, Clifford Barnes's own personal memoir manuscript, group pamphlets/programs and photographs that all originate from the Barnes Reid Family. Overall, the artifacts of this collection shows the family's shared dynamic of moral beliefs and devotion to a life of service.
The collection is split into 3 distinct series-1) Lilace Reid Barnes Documents, 2) Clifford Webster Barnes Documents, and 3) Assorted Reid Barnes Family Documents.
For more information, contact the Lake Forest College Archivist and consult the biographical sketches of the creators/main family members also provided on this page.
This collection documents the work of Garrett H. Leverton, who was a professor of speech and drama in addition to being a theater director. The collection contains play scripts that Leverton collected from various sources, potentially for an anthologized publication. The collection also contains curriculum and course notes that Leverton created for the instruction of speech, acting, and stage production in the 1920's and 1930's. Topics represented in the collection include dramatic arts, theater production, acting, and instruction in theater. Also included are prompt books, reports, and production notes for student productions at the Northwestern University Theatre from the 1930's. These reports include costume design sketches, crew member reviews, stage design, and playbills. Leverton's personal papers include correspondence, the bulk of which was exchanged with Barrett Clark, as well as his diplomas from DePauw University, Northwestern University, and Columbia University. There are many photographs included in the collection, both of scenes on stage as well as potraits of Leverton and other individuals, some identified.
Leverton, Garrett H. (Garrett Hasty), 1896-1949Alfred S. Austrian and Paul M. Godehn, both of the Chicago law firm of Mayer, Meyer, Austrian & Platt, corresponded for the purpose of acquiring rare books and manuscripts with many significant and knowledgeable dealers in the trades. The collection consists of letters, telegrams, invoices, etc. exchanged with the major U.S. and U.K. book and manuscript dealers of the period, particularly those of Chicago, New York, and London and extending into the 1930s and 1940s. It is not immediately clear if they were acting for a client, not named, or for themselves. Neither appears among the names of the membership of Chicago’s Caxton Club, a book collectors group. Among the dealer names included in the correspondence, typically with typed letters signed, are Walter Hill, Chicago; A.S.W. Rosenbach, Philadelphia; Thomas Madigan and Walter Benjamin, New York; and Dawson’s and Maggs, U.K.
Alfred AustrianThis collection consists of five travel narratives by George R. Beach (ca. 1903-1990), a long-time Lake Forest resident, mayor of the City, and chair of the College's Board of Trustees from 1971 to 1974.
These journal-type narratives, which foremost are full of personal insights and stories of George Beach, also prove in displaying the spirit of the era of elite jet travel between the 1960s and 1980s. This stretch of time, as made clear through the Beach's words, shows a distinct evolution of how people traveled.
The early journals are characterized by discussing the easy ability to move about the globe and the greater availability of jet travel compared to other methods such as train and ship travel. Still, as time goes by, the reader will see how the Beaches covered a large array of countries and places to visit even as the act of travel changes and progresses. Overall, these diaries complement an equal number of other such writings by the Beaches that are cataloged.
Beach, George R. (George Raimes), Jr., ca. 1903-1990The collection consists of literary works and stage play scripts, many of which were written by Louis E. Laflin, Jr.; some of these were performed by members of Lake Forest College's acting clubs. The collection also includes Mrs. Bentley's papers and collected media and journal articles on ecological conservation and civic activity, including the city of Lake Forest, the Illinois and Indiana Dunes, and other areas of the United States. Of note are the 340 stereo travel photographs from Europe and the United States, and a photo-illustrated travel diary and scrapbook by Mrs. Cyrus Bentley, recounting a Yale reunion for the class of 1882 and her voyage across the Atlantic in 1891 (including stops in England, France, Spain, and Italy). The entire collection spans a range of dates from 1891-1975.
Phoebe Wrenn Norcross Bentley (Mrs. Richard)The collections consists of one folder containing a compiled scrapbook of different newspaper clippings that all relate to the publicity needs of the North Shore Alumnae Panhellenic or as it was later called the Chicago North Shore City Panhellenic Association. This newly named association then became an affiliate Member of the National Panhellenic Conference in July of 1959 as well.
The clippings are glued down onto individual scrapbook pages and come from a number of different newspapers such as Wilmette Life, The Evanston Review, Chicago Sunday Tribune, Deerfield Review, and Northbrook Star.
Overall, the newspaper clippings discuss the group's upcoming meetings, times, locations, dates, and speakers presenting between the years of 1958 to 1969. There is also a small envelope of loose materials that include photographs, additional articles on past events, and 2 pamphlets titles "Theta Sigma Phi Publicity Handbook" and "Speaking of Sororities to High School Graduates Going to College."
These clippings are found to have been collected by the Publicity Chairman Lois C. Cesner. However, the presence of a stamped name of Mrs. Richard E. Gauen on the cover of the scrapbook and also the general number of sororities/collaborated events discussed, it should be reasonably concluded that the collection assuredly has a wider number of contributors present throughout the scrapbook as a whole.
For more information, contact the Lake Forest College Archivist.
Cesner, Lois C. (Mrs. Cassell A.)This collection, divided into 4 series, primarily contains the written play scripts of Louis Ellsworth (Ells) Laflin Jr. (Series One). The additional material within the collection include the written and visual materials of PlayReaders Theatre Group (Series 2) and a more general assortment of both B&W and Color photographs (Series Three) capturing the different facets of the greater Lake Forest community. Alongside the creative and graphic documents, the last series shows June Kennedy Laflin's, Ells Laflin's wife, small assemblage of travel scrapbooks. Overall, this collection shows the dramatic impact the Laflin family has had on Lake Forest College and the community as a whole.
Laflin, EllsThe collection consists of railroad timetables from across the United States and some from Canada. Many were collected by James Sloss. They are organized by name of the railroad.
This collection contains the personal, but also official papers written by or connected with James R. Getz. It is a large collection that is split into three distinct series of 1) Personal and Early Life Writings of James R. Getz, 2) Documents involving the all Lake County Historical Society Work by Getz, and 3) Documents connected with the creation and Getz's role as founder of Mettawa, Illinois.
The papers consist of a variety of formats including correspondence, journals, interior design measurements and all kinds of handwritten notices, pamphlets, photographs, academic work, memorabilia, newspaper drafts, clippings, and published works, and a plethora of city planning documents showing the widespread process of establishing a town. Overall, the Getz collection equally shows the thoughts and ideas of a single family man and also a number of groups working to create a stronger community.
Getz, James R., 1910-1986The collection consists of a thick three ring binder of plastic covers with construction-paper pages to which archival family and Ragdale photographs are affixed. The photos are labeled in Alice Hayes's handwriting with short captions. There are also some articles, copies of architectural plans and a late 1930s planting plan for the ca. 1912-created Howard and Frances Shaw garden. A large b & w photograph of a plan of the Ragdale estate by students of the Foundation for Architecture and Landscape Architecture is in the tall Hollinger box with the binder. In the early 2000s student Sharon Milroy (Reid) and Arthur Miller met with Mrs. Hayes and the scrapbook to go through it to flesh out from her memory more about the photos and other items. These recollections were transcribed by Sharon and a new list of the Scrapbook contents was prepared then.
The scrapbook grew out of two events, Alice's late 1980s effort to develop a guidebook to Ragdale (published 1990) and her decision to move out of the house into the nearby cabin in the 1990s. She put the book together following the order in which material appeared in the guidebook, and conveyed it to Arthur Miller when he was her immediate successor as president of the Ragdale Foundation in the early 1990s.
Hayes, Alice Ryerson, 1922-This collection is a small group of materials relating to R. Hunter Middleton and his work. In addition to one engraved Bewick wood block, there is a group of discarded (and rescued) proofs of Bewick prints from blocks, a small group of prints and correspondence, a Caxton keepsake "Alphabet in Process" (1984-85), and a file of reference material.
Middleton, R. Hunter (Robert Hunter), 1898-1985This collection contains the personal papers of Ernest A. Johnson, the 9th President of Lake Forest College, donated by his wife, Edith Johnson. The papers mostly consist of documents such as personal correspondence, photographs, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, Lake Forest issued Bulletins, several different awards and honors given to Ernest Johnson, programs such as those given at the opening of the Ernest A. Johnson Memorial Science Center, and additional collected memorabilia by the Johnson family showing the changes that emerged on the Lake Forest College Campus. All these materials are held within a single archival box and in 14 titled folders.
Johnson, Ernest A.The collection consists of thirty-eight legal documents that Chief Justice Warren E. Burger gave to Marion Musser Lloyd, wife of Chicago attorney Glen A. Lloyd. The collection includes many handwritten notes including the legally difficult 1974 opinion on the Nixon Watergate tapes.
Burger, Warren E., 1907-1995This collection contains two letters from Nelly (Eleanor) Kinzie Gordon to Mary Williams Blatchford (Mrs. Eliphalet W.) in the summer of 1910, a duplicate copy of 1914 second edition of her mother's, Juliette Kinzie's narrative of her mother-in-law Mrs. Kinzie's account of the 1812 Battle of Fort Dearborn, and a short reference file granting a brief overview of Kinzie family background. Mrs. Nelly Gordon was the spouse of General W. W. Gordon II of Savannah, Georgia, and the mother of Juliette Gordon Low, founder in 1912 of the Girl Scouts in the U.S.A.
Gordon, Eleanor Lytle Kinzie, 1835-1917This collection consists of bound formal City of Lake Forest reports pertaining to the late 1950s and early 1960s. The main subjects presented in the collection are financially concerned including the annual budget, audit reports, and written reports by the City Manager.
The collection is an assortment of personal papers and non-book materials that were donated to the Lake Forest College Library by Marion Musser Lloyd, the wife of Glen Alfred Lloyd.
Overall, these personal papers show the different lives, accomplishments, and intellectual pursuits of the Lloyd family. The types of documents and materials within the collection include newspaper clippings, scrapbook pages, photographs and postcards, lists of books, course notes and academic papers, a Honorary degree, and the various pieces of documentation about the different social events attended and hosted by the Lloyd Family.
Lloyd, Marion Musser (Mrs. Glen), 1910-2005The collection consists of records of the Lake Forest Water Company when it was founded in 1891, the papers of its subsidiaries through 1921, and when it became the City of Lake Forest's Water Works unit in 1921 to 1938, with some records as late as 1955.
The records include a very detailed ledger book listing early estates, indicating the scale of listings of equipment/outlets, and it also lists owners, locations, and changes of ownership in that period. Other major materials in the collection include studies carried out for the city of of Lake Forest by the Chicago-based engineering firm of Pearse, Greeley & Hansen, local correspondence, records, and documents for the city department in the 1920s-1930s, and in one case in 1955.
The collection additionally shows the relationships with state and federal authorities, including the WPA and relates the general growing need for water from the lake by the increasing number of estates and North Shore suburbs.
Lake Forest Water CompanyThe collection consists of a diverse assortment of newspaper and magazine publications that consider the many issues and debates found with the discussion of women's rights and the concept of the Feminist ideology. The various works are written for both local and global audiences alike on subjects like equal gender rights, abortion, perception of sexual orientation, and etc. The dates of the different publications, 77 titles in total, range as early as 1970 to the late 1980s.