Schafer
University of Michigan-Flint
Frances Willson Thompson Library
Genesee Historical Collections Center
Name of the collection: Robert Grayson Schafer
Inclusive years: 1940 (bulk 1952-)-1989
Quantity: 4 linear feet
Acquisition: The collection (donor number 001) was donated to the Genesee Historical Collections in five accessions between 1979 and 1989.
Access: There are no restrictions on access to this collection.
Photographs: 166 positive prints, approximately 250 slides, and 68 negatives were removed from the collection and cataloged separately.
Processed by: Paul Gifford, October 1990.
BIOGRAPHY
Robert Grayson Schafer was born on April 15, 1923, in Wenatchee, Washington. After graduation from Wenatchee High School, he served in the U. S. Army Air Force. He entered the University of Washington, graduating with a B. A. in history in 1947, and then attended the University of California-Berkeley, where he received his M. A., in 1950, and his Ph. D. in 1954. His field of study in graduate school was British history.Schafer began his professional career as a lecturer in history at California Institute of Technology, from 1953 to 1954. He then taught at Stanford University in the 1955-1956 academic year. He accepted the position of assistant professor of history at the Flint College of the University of Michigan in 1956, the year the senior college was founded. He and Dorothea Wyatt taught all courses offered by the history department until 1965. Dr. Schafer was named associate professor in 1962 and professor in 1967. He retired in 1989 as professor emeritus and moved to San Clemente, California.
He was involved in all facets of university life. In addition to teaching, he served on numerous university committees, including the Executive Committee, and three times as chairman of the history department. During the school's early years, especially, he was an advisor to several student groups. One of his chief efforts was to bring speakers to talk about international understanding and foreign cultures. Towards the end of his career he organized the archives of the school and, in a large degree, was responsible for its funding.
His scholarly interests included the politics and industry of 17th-century England, roughly from the early 1950s to about 1973; computer-aided instruction, during the 1970s; and the history of Flint and Genesee County, from the late 1970s to about 1990. He spent several summers in England researching the career of James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos, and the history of the Foley ironworks, an important early industrial enterprise. He was also interested in East Asian history and was a guest lecturer at Hunan Normal University in April, 1985.
His most important community activity was his involvement with the International Institute of Flint. He served on its board of directors and as its president (1960-1962; 1971-1973), and on the board of directors of the American Council for Nationalities Service, from 1975 to 1981. He was an active member of the Genesee County Historical Society, the Sister Cities-Flint Committee, and the Flint Area Health Foundation.
SCOPE AND CONTENT
The papers of Robert G. Schafer have been divided into ten series: personal; research; University of Michigan-Flint; conferences and programs; International Institute; American Council for Nationalities Service; other organizations and activities; newspaper clippings; unpublished papers; and publications.Under the personal series are included vitae and other items of relevance to his appointment; general correspondence, both in-coming and out-going, on a variety of topics which may or may not concern topics in the other series; and material relating to various community talks and presentations.
The research series covers discrete topics he investigated. There is a typescript transcript of the voluminous journal of James Brydges, later Duke of Chandos, from 1697 to 1702, the original of which is in the Huntington Library. Much of the material on computer-assisted instruction, which developed from a project to transfer the records of the Foley ironworks to machine-readable format, consists of grant applications and correspondence and conference programs. There is also some documentation on the computer programs, which were developed for undergraduates as exercises for history classes. The remainder of the series deals with topics in the history of Flint and Genesee County. Most of the research resulted in the publications of the University of Michigan-Flint Archives series, including Schafer's Michael A. Gorman: Flint's Super Booster (1982); Charles Stewart Mott of Applewood: A Memoir (1984); J. Dallas Dort: Citizen Compleat (1986); and Producing a Human Mosaic: Immigration and Economic Change in the Development of Genesee County's Population, 1820-1987 (1989). Some of the files contain interviews with and correspondence from individuals who knew the some of the subjects well, including Arthur G. Bishop (1851-1944), the leading banker of Flint in his day, and J. Dallas Dort, the automobile manufacturer. Thus there is material useful for future researchers interested in those individuals.
Most of the general University of Michigan-Flint memoranda, committee minutes and reports, etc., which originally belonged to Schafer's records have been removed and integrated into the archives of the University. Those that remain relate to those official, largely individual, activities in which Schafer took a leading role or concerned him personally. Besides the files containing material on his many sabbaticals and trips abroad (primarily to England), the files relating to the establishment of the archives loom largest. Also of interest are the faculty and staff responses to questionnaires he circulated about 1978, which offer pointed opinions on the school's strengths and weaknesses as the faculty and staff felt them to be at that time.
The conferences and programs series has material concerning meetings he organized. These include several on international topics (United Nations Week, India Republic Day, the Middle East in Crisis) and several annual historic preservation conferences.
The International Institute series is particular useful for in documenting the activities of this organization, which existed to serve immigrants in the Flint area, in the 1960s and 1970s. Dr. Schafer first became associated with the Institute in 1957, but he collected its annual reports and certain other records from as early as 1940. There is considerable material concerning the fundraising and construction of a new building for the Institute. The American Council for Nationalities Service files consist of memoranda from the national office. This organization was an umbrella group and lobbying organization for International Institutes and other similar organizations around the country.
The remainder of the collection contains files from his activities in other organizations, newspaper clippings, unpublished papers and articles (some of which were later revised for publication), and offprints of journal articles.
Material which was removed from the collection includes duplicates; first drafts; letters of recommendation; letters concerning grades; current budget reports; and most routing slips. Dr. Schafer's university records form the basis of many of the archives' university records and are not treated as his personal papers. The records of the University of Michigan-Flint History Department are a closely related collection.
FOLDER LIST
BOX 1
PERSONAL
Vitae and other personnel concerns, 1961-1989
Correspondence
General
1952-1969
1970-1983
1984-1989
About publications, 1968-1989
Laro, Joseph, 1982
Talks and presentations, 1957-1989
Awards
RESEARCH
James Brydges. Journal, 1697-1702 (typescript copy, with
introduction)
Foley iron works
Administrative and grant applications, 1966-1973
Computer-assisted instruction
Manuals, description, paper
Correspondence, 1972-1989
Grant applications
1973-1976
National Endowment for the Humanities, 1979-1980
Conferences
American Historical Association
1974
1976
Madison, Wisconsin, 1976
Community College Social Science Association, 1979
Flint-Genesee County history
Bishop, Arthur G.
(1 of 2)
(2 of 2)
Stock gift, 1941
BOX 2
Dort, Dallas
Notes and correspondence
(1 of 2)
(2 of 2)
Photocopies
Durant-Dort Carriage Company minutes, 1910-1922
(photocopy)
Gorman, Michael
Notes
Interviews and correspondence, 1978-1979
Finding aid of papers at Sloan Museum
Immigration to Genesee County
Administrative
Notes
(1 of 2)
(2 of 2)
Mott, Charles Stewart
Correspondence and interviews
Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous, 1980-1982
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-FLINT
Memoranda, 1970-1988
Loving Fund, 1962
Gilkey Gulch Review, 1964
Students for Black Action, 1969
Oral history transcripts, 1975, and faculty and staff
questionnaires, 1978
Study abroad and sabbaticals
England, 1966
Proposals, 1966-1967
England, 1967
Sabbatical, 1969-1970
Sabbatical, 1977
Extension class: "Travelling in England," 1981
England, 1981
Sabbatical - China, 1983-1984
Japan Center for Michigan Universities, 1989
Library and Archives
Crapo historical marker dedication, 1979, and Crapo Room,
1982
Library
Archives
1975-1981
1982-1988
Brownell Fund, 1980-1989
Copeman exhibit/Archives opening, 1984
Stockton gift and reception, 1983-1988
BOX 3
Chinese visitors
Lin Zengping, 1985-1989
Shaobo Xie, 1986-1987
Receptions, miscellaneous, 1984-1988
Dorothea Wyatt Award, 1989
CONFERENCES AND PROGRAMS
United Nations Week, 1959
Anglo-American Conference of Historians, 1963
India Republic Day, 1965
Michigan International Week, 1971-1972
"Victoria's World" (exhibit), 1972-1974
Conference on Preservation and Restoration, 1983
Carriage Town workshop, 1983
Conference on Preservation and Restoration, 1984
Flint Historic Preservation Conference, 1985
The Middle East in Crisis, 1986
Miscellaneous
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE
Constitution and bylaws
Board of Directors - minutes and agenda, 1960-1976
Annual reports
1940-1963
1964-1985
Annual meetings, 1959-1978
Correspondence
General, 1959-1985
Red Feather Fund, 1960-1971
Programs, bulletins, brochures, 1962-1989
Operating statements, 1949-1975
Friends of the International Institute, 1980-1981
Building fund campaign, 1971-1976
Auction, 1974-1975
Board and committee membership rosters, 1957-1977
Committees, 1961-1986
Council of Social Agencies Workshop Committee, 1964
BOX 4
AMERICAN COUNCIL FOR NATIONALITIES SERVICE
Correspondence, 1960-1976
General
1974
1975-1976
1978-1981
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS AND ACTIVITIES
American Association of University Professors, 1972
Flint Area Health Foundation, 1978-1979
Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning, 1978-1979
Genesee County Historical Society
General, 1981-1986
Clarence H. Young Memorial Essay Contest, 1981-1985
Whaley Historical House, 1980-1981
Sister Cities-Flint, 1988-1989
NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS
Personal, 1966-1989
General, 1976-1989
PAPERS
In Search of Power: the Early Political Career of James Brydges,
Duke of Chandos
(1 of 2)
(2 of 2)
Colonel Stewart's Silver
Michael Gorman: Flint's Super Booster
The Man Who Made the Wheels Turn [about Arthur G. Bishop]
The University of Michigan-Flint, 1971-1980
PUBLICATIONS
"A By-Election in a Rotten Borough," Huntington Library
Quarterly 17 (August 1954): 397-405
"The Making of a Tory," Huntington Library Quarterly 22
(February 1960): 123-144
"Cannons no Canon: Pope's Epistle to Burlington," Papers of
the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters 45
(1960): 403-410
"Mrs. Tofts Goes Abroad," Huntington Library Quarterly 25
(November 1961): 69-70
"The Parliamentary Influence of the First Duke of Chandos,"
English Historical Review 77 (April 1962): 318-320
"A Visit to Cannons," Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists'
Field Club of Herefordshire 38 (1965), pt. 2: 151
"Robert Harley and the Weobley By-Election of 1691,"
Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club 39
(1969), pt. 3: 456-462
"Genesis and Structure of the Foley `Ironworks in Partnership' of
1692," Business History 13 (January 1971): 19-38
"Development of a Question Processing Subsystem," On-Line
5, no. 4 (July 1976): 4-6 (with T. W. Hertzog)
"Michael A. Gorman: Flint's Super Booster," Forward (Flint
Area Chamber of Commerce Publication), vol. 3, no. 3