Chicago designer and calligrapher, founding head of the Department of Printing Arts of the School of the Art Institute, and Custodian of the John M. Wing Foundation on the History of Printing at the Newberry Library, 1931-1947. Collection focuses on Detterer's career before he came to the Newberry Library, and includes notes, memorabilia, correspondence, drawings, sketches, rubbings, and a few finished art works, including many by his Art Institute students.

Manuscript autobiography and related notes by Eugene E. Prussing (interleaved with photographs and clippings). Also clippings and letters relating to Prussing’s two books on George Washington, genealogical information about the Peltzer family, and a biography of father Ernst Prussing.

Photographs of productions staged by the Original Ballets Russes (aka the Ballet Russes du Col. W. de Basil) and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo between 1935 and 1941, taken by Chicago businessman and balletomane Eugene Olshansky. Also, two operatic portraits, a few personal photographs, and several pieces of ephemera.

Scrapbook and loose material from the scrapbook documenting the dance career of Chicago dancer-actress-musician Evelyn "Evie" Martha Atkeisson (b. 1906). Atkeisson performed with the European Ballet School, Chicago, taught at the Lyon & Healy Music Building, and danced at the formal opening of the Drake Hotel.

Correspondence, clippings, manuscripts, photographs, and memorabilia relating to the life and work of Chicago literary critic and author, Fanny Butcher.

Administrative, promotional, and legal materials, correspondence, photographs, and artifacts of Field Enterprises, the umbrella conglomerate under which the Chicago Daily News, the Chicago Sun and Times company, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Field Communications Corporation eventually fell.

Chicago-based writer Finley Peter Dunne’s correspondence, essays, and memoirs. Collection also includes a photograph of Dunne, an etched stamp, and an adaptation of Dunne’s “Mr. Dooley” series for the stage, by his son, Hollywood screenwriter, film director and producer Philip Dunne.

Scrapbooks, memorial books (1915), photographs, and family and business papers relating to Edwin G. Foreman and the Foreman family. The Foreman family founded the first Jewish bank in Chicago in 1862, under Gerhard Foreman.

Chicago Woman’s Society founded in 1873 by Kate Newell Doggett. Records document the founding, operations, and activities of The Fortnightly of Chicago and its members. Includes historical materials, meeting minutes (restricted), scrapbooks, notices, member biographical information, members' and guests' papers, photographs, yearbooks, and other administrative and activity records.

Miscellaneous materials relating to the historic Pullman company town and Pullman Manufacturing Company, 1881-2001.

Correspondence, manuscript and typewritten, by amateur historian Frank Grover to and from members of Antoine Ouilmette’s family inquiring into the ethnicity of Ouilmette. Also includes two copies, one with annotations, of Grover's Some Indian Land Marks of the North Shore.

Publications, official documents, song books, and other materials created by and related to the Industrial Workers of the World, an historic union and labor organization.

Research notes, photocopies, drafts, proofs, photographs, and correspondence comprising the papers used to research and produce the Haymarket Scrapbook, edited by Franklin Rosemont and Dave Roediger (Charles H. Kerr Pub. Co., 1986). Also materials related to the activities commemorating the centennial of the 1886-1887 Haymarket Affair.

Correspondence between Frederic Warde and William A. Kittredge with a few related items.

The Frederick John Rank papers contain his diaries from 1875-1939, which record his daily life and touch upon his work as a packer for Montgomery Ward. A bound volume about Rank's diaries, compiled by Rank's great-granddaughter Janet Rank Spaletto, is also present. Additionally the papers contain family correspondence, some of which relates to Rank's son's attempt for an assistant postmaster general appointment.

Seventeen mounted photographs of opera stars, many autographed to Frederick Setzler (1904-1983), who volunteered and then worked at the Chicago Civic Opera in the 1920s and 1930s. Also includes a Chicago City Opera Company season announcement from 1939-1940, an advertisement from the Chicago booking agent Frederick Barnes featuring names of musicians represented, and a 1967 clipping remembering the soprano Mary Garden.

Book drafts, illustrations, and publicity about the children's and young adult books, stories, and verse written by Fredrika Shumway Smith, wife of banker and Northern Trust president Solomon A. Smith.

Correspondence and papers of Frederick W. Clark, Chicago building contractor and construction company president. Includes business and some personal correspondence, plus account books and trusteeship papers.

Professional and some personal papers of Chicago and California designer and photographer, Gene Dekovic, who worked as a freelancer for most of his life. These files include professional papers relating to design and publishing ventures, and to a lesser extent his career as a photographer and author.

Correspondence, works, newspaper and magazine clippings, photographs, miscellaneous pictorial items and memorabilia documenting the literary and personal life of George Ade, Midwestern journalist, humorist and playwright, best known for his Chicago Record column, "Stories of the Streets and of the Town," and for his innumerable fables in slang.