The collection was originally received by the Museum on September 7, 1993. Images were added to the collection through 2007. The collection reflects the work of a committee that was founded to compile Black history. Not all images in the collection have been digitized. Access to the full collection is available in the Sloan Museum of Discovery Research Room by appointment.

The collection depicts scenes of Black life in Flint, Michigan including people, buildings and objects. The images feature ordinary and prominent members of the community as they went about their daily lives.

These documents represent the academic and career accomplishments of Beatrice Welzel who worked for the Central Foundry Division of the General Motors Corporation.

Bea Munson was born in 1910 in Flushing, Michigan. She graduated from Flushing High School in 1927. She began working at the General Motors Corporation the same year. According to census records, she married George Welzel, a salesman in the hardware industry. Their son, George P. Welzel, was born in October of 1949. The family resided in Saginaw. She celebrated 25 years at General Motors in 1952. She died in 2008.

The collection includes letters from the General Manager J.H. Smith, a history of the Central Foundry Division written by the Public Affairs office, a certificate of achievement and a booklet explaining employee benefits document life as a General Motors employee in the Central Foundry Division-Financial Department. The collection also features pamphlets, photographs, souvenir programs, seating charts for the Annual Quarter Century Banquet, buttons, a souvenir coin, a ruler and a GM branded Table of Frequently Used Units card.

Butler Funeral Home was the first black-owned funeral home in the city of Flint. It first opened its doors in 1932 as Robinson & Chandler Funeral Home by owners Charles H. Robinson and Robert C. Chandler at the address 3115 St. John St. With the death of both Robinson and Chandler in 1956, the funeral home came under the ownership of Robinson’s widow, Ailene R. Butler.

Robinson & Chandler Funeral Home was renamed Butler Funeral Home in 1957. Likely due to the looming land acquisitions by the State of Michigan for the construction of I-475, Butler Funeral Home moved out of the St. John St. building and relocated 2 miles northwest to address 4915 N. Saginaw St. in 1964. In 1970, Butler Funeral Home relocated 1.5 miles West to 906 W. Park Blvd, replacing the Lenczycki Funeral Home that previously occupied the property. Butler Funeral Home remained at this location until its closure in 1986. In 1987 the property was purchased, renovated and reopened as Lawrence E. Moon Funeral Home which remains at this location as of the date of this finding aid.

Fourteen box collection with two different sets of boxes, a numbered set and lettered set. The collection’s first eleven boxes are numbered and individual files in these boxes are listed alphabetically by surname of the deceased. The boxes are listed in the order as follows: 1-57, 58-119, 120-178, 179-193, 225-280, 281-304, 305-348, 349-383, 394-440, 441-482, 483-507.

The collection’s additional three boxes are listed by letters: A-H, J-M, N-Z. Individual files are listed in these boxes alphabetically by surname of the deceased along with their date of death. Files in this collection include various documents necessary for funeral services and burial: Obituaries published by Butler Funeral Home, funeral home receipts/billing for services offered, obituaries written by family of the deceased for the funeral home to produce funeral programs, funeral notice order forms for publication in the Flint Journal obituary section, death certificates, funeral memorial service cards/programs produced by Butler Funeral Home. Consistent features in each file are funeral home internal purchase orders and invoices, newspaper clippings of obituaries, copies of life insurance policies, correspondence in cases of non-payment between the funeral home director/owner Ailene R. Butler and clients. Some files also contain I.D. or insurance cards of the deceased and photographs provided for reproduction on funeral programs.

Sales catalogs of three Whiting automobile models and carriages for the Flint Wagon Works.

The scrapbook contains clippings from Barron’s Weekly that record business dealings and personal episodes from the life of William C. Durant. The clippings come from articles written from January to February 1926.

The records largely reflect the constitution, by-laws, and regulations of Genesee County Freemasons. Others are the 1873 Flint ordinances and an issue of “The Michigan Teacher.”

Little was researched about them due to mold damage. Contents will be retained due to uniqueness of materials for digitization in the future.

Two scrapbooks compose the collection. Both reflect the activities of the Flint Junior Woman’s Club from the early to mid-1970s. These activities included meetings, philanthropic ventures, sales, raffles, and gardening among others.

Records contained in both scrapbooks reflect these activities. They were recorded or commemorated in photographs, minutes, newsletters, memorials, programs, and flyers.

The collection contains numerous books, diaries, and documents relating to the life of John H. Carey and his descendants. Those concerning him predominantly come in the form of thirty-six diaries written between 1871 and 1909 excepting 1900, 1905, and 1906. Enclosed documents removed from the diaries had been placed into non-archival plastic bags and identified to specific diaries. These were removed from the bags and placed into folders. Other records include several yearbooks from 1899, 1900, 1908, and 1942, and programs for events at the old Flint High School.

Carey wrote in cursive brief entries in ink and pencil often no more than a dozen words long of his days as a farmer and other events in his life. Some entries include more than a dozen words but none take more than one page. Entries occurred on a daily basis. No entry reveals details of his life before beginning the diaries. Some writing in diaries from the 1870s is faded. Misspellings are common throughout many entries. Illegibility is another common problem, though most entries may require an examination of a few minutes to understand how Carey wrote.

Carey’s entries reflect his life as a farmer of land in Clayton Township, just north of the city of Swartz Creek. His responsibilities were many. Planting and harvesting of crops were two mentioned often, but usually during seasons when both activities occurred. Carey chopped and sawed wood, sowed oats, shelled corn, oiled harnesses, drew out manure, slaughtered hogs, and occasionally hunted as time allowed. These were done in all kinds of weather and throughout the year, including holidays. Carey usually refrained from working on Sundays. He often traveled to Flint to make purchases and to sell crops and slaughtered animals. He wrote frequently of receiving help from neighboring farmers and traveling to their farms to help them. The work involved was usually labor-intensive, such as sowing or harvesting crops or aiding in construction of buildings. Stories in the Flint Journal from the 1890s mention what could have been an unofficial compact of farmers in Clayton Township to assist one another. Or the practice could have been a custom among farmers. The lack of details in many entries makes it difficult to know.

Carey was spare in providing personal details of his life beyond farming. He traveled to Flint for the occasional fair or for meetings of what he called the “covenant.” He was a regular fixture at church and participated in Sunday school. He was elected the assistant supervisor of Sunday school in 1881. He voted Republican, though never provided reasons why. He was married with children, but rarely mentioned either his wife or his children beyond that one had performed a chore, baked or cooked a meal, was sick, or had attended school for at least part of the day.

The yearbooks represent student activities from the old Flint High School. Those from 1899, 1900, 1903, and 1908 show numerous similarities in content: portraits of faculty and editorial student staff, poems and short stories, reminiscences of events, calendars of events, and coverage of school sports. Of the final, baseball and football receive the most coverage. The yearbook from 1942 is more expansive. Every student of every grade has a photograph. Student clubs are listed and photographed with students identified. African American students maintained their own club, “Booker T. Washington.” Their advisor, Robert Richardson, was white. Other clubs were white with the occasional African American present. Sports teams were integrated. The yearbook also mentions the formation of the War Council, founded by students to do projects in support of the war effort.

Other records include an account book kept by Lucy Chase in 1887, a booklet detailing ownership of a property in Flint from 1819 to 1916, and a program of events for the graduating class of 1903 from Flint High School.

This collection contains four political campaign posters and an invitation to the “Presidential Express” that was held at the Amtrak station in Flint, Michigan in May of 1976. The posters were created by members of the local Republican Party Committee. The collection also contains two photos depicting members of the Jaycees as well as patches from the organization. Finally, the collection contains two patches from the Commonwealth of Flint.

The manuscript is a handwritten account of early Flint history from 1819 with the arrival of Jacob Smith to cultural, infrastructure, and political developments in the mid-1850s. It was either dictated or written by Mrs. C.M. Clarke, one of the early settlers in Flint. Events were often described in brief sentences, sometimes no more than one to three in length. Events experienced by Clarke were described in much greater length.

She detailed how Smith acquired property for his trade post and relations with local Native Americans. Coverage then shifted to 1833 when Clarke began describing other early homes, such as a log tavern kept by John Todd and Lyman Stowe, who resided in Smith’s old cabin. She recorded the construction of the first bridge over the Flint River, which occurred in 1834. Travelers had previously been ferried by canoes operated by Native Americans.

Other firsts were described, such as the first meeting of Flint Township officers in 1836, when Beach and Wesson established the first store in Flint, the creation of the first mill dam in 1836, and the construction of the first saw mill by Rufus Stevens on Thread Creek. Clarke gave extensive coverage to the development of schooling. Early schooling began in the 1830s with a private school for boys. Parents paid the teacher, Daniel Sullivan, 10 cents weekly. Boys had to follow an old Native American path to Second Street to reach the school. A girls’ school later opened in 1841 with Sarah Bush teaching at the Presbyterian Meeting House. Public schooling later improved, which included free graded schooling, and private education declined.

Events from the 1850s include the incorporation of Flint, the establishment of the Michigan School of the Deaf, various newspapers, and the founding of the Ladies Library Association, which Clarke described as energetic.

Clarke wrote in great detail about her family’s journey to Michigan in 1839. Her father, mother, and six children including herself left Syracuse, New York, traveling by wagon, the Erie Canal, the steamer Constitution across Lake Erie, and wagon again from Detroit to Flint. She described the road between Grand Blanc and Flint as the worst part of the journey.