Between August 1964 and December 1968, the Rand Corporation, under contract to the U.S. Department of Defense, conducted approximately 2,400 interviews with Vietnamese who were familiar with activities of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. Reports of these interviews, totalizing approximately 62,000 pages, constitute a rich source of information about political and military upheaval in a developing country, Vietnamese rural life, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese armed forces and many related subjects. The documents describe conversations with prisoners captured by South Vietnamese or U.S. forces, defectors who voluntarily left the Viet Cong or the North Vietnamese Army as well as refugees from battle areas. Many of the reports have a poignant, human quality; nearly all are informative about conditions in Vietnam. In December 1971, action was initiated to make these interview reports available to the public. The decision to provide access to these documents entailed a scrupulous double reading of all the reports and blocking out of information that might enable identification of the respondents.
The University of Miami holds approximate 1,780 (48,000 pages) out of the 2,400 interviews conducted under this study.
The Lester L. Evans Collection contains U.S. newspaper clippings of cartoons and caricatures published during World War II. Many of the clippings are from the Chicago Sun-Times, the Times Herald, the Times-Picayune from New Orleans, the Kansas City Star, the Detroit News, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the New York Post, and the Los Angeles Times.
This collection contains one sound reel of Robert Frost speaking at Plymouth Congregational Church, Coconut Grove, Florida, March 3, 1959. It was recorded from a radio replay broadcast by a local radio station.
Dr. L. A. Hodson was a Miami ophthamologist who had a strong interest in zoology. Dr. Hodson, a friend of professor of zoology and University of Miami president Jay F. Pearson, ventured on a number of trips to the Bahamas (a few times with Pearson) where he discovered a number of new species and collected hard to find species. These he donated to the University of Miami.
The L. A. Hodson collection contains clippings about these expeditions; correspondence; much of which concerns the securing of his visit, the donation, and an exhibit on the Cat Turtle that was set up at Tufts College Medical School; a photograph of Hodson taken by Pearson, and two typescripts: "The Discovery of the Cat Turtle," and "Notes on the Discovery and Biology of Two Bahaman Fresh-water Turtles of the Genus Pseudemys," the latter of which was co-written by Pearson.
The Tomás Estrada Palma Collection contains materials from a scrapbook donated by the great-grandson of TEP, Tomás Douglas Estrada Palma III. Items that were preserved in the scrapbook include photographs, letters, personal documents, and newspaper clippings. They document primarily the Tomás Andrés Estrada Palma II branch of the Estrada Palma family tree, including some materials related to his wife, Helen Douglas Browne, and her family.
Correspondence includes letters written by TEP, TEP II and other members of the Estrada Palma family. Clippings largely cover the 1906 resignation of TEP from the Cuban presidency and the consequent US military occupation, TEP's death in 1908, as well as events honoring TEP in the years after his death. Also amongst the clippings are articles relating to TEP II's marriage to Helen Douglas Browne in 1910. Other items include documents such as TEP II's report card, marriage certificate, and passport. There are also photographs of TEP, TEP II, and TEP III, as well as photos of other members of the family such as Genoveva Guardiola de Estrada Palma, Candelaria "Candita" Estrada Palma, and Helen (Douglas Browne) Estrada Palma. Of special interest is a photograph of the presidential convoy that traveled with TEP from Bayamo to Havana for his inauguration in 1902 and photographs of the Presidential Palace in Havana taken during TEP's presidency.
Included in this collection is the citizenship certificate of José Guimunde y Martínez, which was signed by TEP. This document was donated by Mirtha Alberto in August 2000 and added to the Tomás Estrada Palma Collection at that time.
This collection contains a wide variety of posters advertising events, political elections, travel destinations, organizations, and corporations, pertaining in particular to Florida, South America, Central America, the Caribbean, Spain, and Vietnam.
The Latin American and Caribbean photograph collection brings together various photographic materials owned by the University of Miami that depict these two regions. Currently, the collection holds a 1929 photograph album of the Bahamas made by Dr. and Adelande Dolley; a 1913 photograph album of Costa Rica, Panama, and Jamaica; a two-volume photograph album set of the Roxana Petroleum Corporation's activities in Mexico, dated 1920-1923; a set of 88 photographs of various parts of the Dominican Republic; and a collection of 739 photographs (most of which are in two photograph albums) from 1925 to the 1940s documenting the family and social life of Mr. & Mrs. E. W. Monroe and their three children while living in suburban Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1925 to 1929, and subsequently back at the family homestead in Monticello, Indiana.
The Eugene Dynner collection contains photograph albums, photographs, slides, negatives, and prints depicting historical Mayan sites such as the Altun Ha ruins in Belize, the Copán ruins in Honduras, the Quiriguá archeological site in Guatemala, various sites in the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. The focus is on the sculpture and architecture found at these sites. Also depicted are the landscape, cities, and people of those countries in general.
Along with the photographic materials are a typescript by Eugene Dynner titled "Chinese Elements in Maya Art," and two issues of a periodical titled Muse News containing essays by Dynner.
This collection contains 1949-1950 case records for the "Before the Indian Claims Commission, Docket No. 73, Seminole Indians of Florida Versus the United States." Also included is a pamphlet containing the lyrics for a song by William D. Knowles titled "You'll Never Know."
The papers consist of typescripts and hand drawn maps for her biographical work on telegraph innovator Cyrus W. Field, stage actor Joseph Jefferson, the pirate Sir Francis Drake, U.S. governor Sam Houston and civil war officer David Glasgow Farragut to name a few.
Edison Marshall was an American adventure and fiction writer active during the 1920s to the 1960s.
The Edison Marshall collection contains six typescripts and an undated photograph inscribed to Dr. Archie McNeal, former dean of the University of Miami Libraries. The typescripts are as follows: A publisher's copy of The Conqueror (1962), a publisher's copy of Cortez and Marina (1963), an original and corrected copy of Cortez and Marina which is titled "The Serpent and the Sword," a publisher's copy of The Heart and the Hunter (1956), a publisher's copy of The Inevitable Hour (1957), and a publisher's copy of Princess Sophia (1958).
The James A. Michener Papers consist of correspondence, notes, research materials and drafts of manuscripts created and compiled by best-selling author James A. Michener (1907-1997) in the course of his work on the novel Caribbean (1989).
Correspondence and memoranda found within the files provides information concerning the intellectual preparation required to compose an historical novel that spans more than four hundred years. Michener chose to preserve the results of his research and editorial efforts "... so that aspiring writers can see what work lies ahead for them if they finally succeed. Stated better, what work they will have to do if they want to succeed." Exchanges with editorial staff members throughout the stages of manuscript preparation, and the concurrent suggestions, recommendations and revisions to the manuscript noted on various "copies" of the manuscript illuminate the internal aspects of the modern publishing industry.
The author includes notes and correspondence concerning the logistical, financial and personal decisions that influence the creative process. The pervasive degree of experimentation, discovery and change inherent in the process of creative writing appears throughout the stages of this manuscript. The very title of the novel, Caribbean, is a reflection of this evolutionary process, for the author first conceived on calling the volume Lost in the Sun.
This collection consists of archival materials, primarily photographs, slides, research files, academic administrative documents, and lectures, that relate back to American author and biologist Julia Francis McHugh Morton. Julia F. Morton was Research Professor of Biology and Director of the Morton Collection at University of Miami, a research and information center devoted to economic botany. She was an internationally recognized authority on economic plants, particularly ornamental, edible, medicinal, and toxic species. She was also the author of 10 books and co-author of or contributor to 12 others; she wrote 94 scientific papers and co-authored 27 others.
This collection features the personal papers, theses, research, teaching materials, and writings of former University of Miami Spanish Language and History Professor, Jacob Riis Owre, who was an integral part of forming the University of Miami's Hispanic-American Studies program in 1937.
Dr. Vincent A. Jablon was a podiatrist and professor of Roentgenology, who received from the University of Miami in 1931. While at the University of Miami, he worked for the Curtiss Airplane and Motor Company and was part of the Omicron Phi fraternity, which was based on the interest in aviation. The Vincent A. Jabon papers contain materials pertaining to these topics, in the form of scrapbooks of Omicron Phi activities, photographs of Curtiss airplanes, clippings, Jabon's mechanic identity card, letters, photocopies, Jabon's 1930 class schedule, and his jacket, goggles, and pilot hat.
Dr. Lee Kjelson, a longtime Coral Gables resident, was director of choral activities at the University of Miami from 1967 until 1993, when he became professor emeritus. He also founded the Civic Chorale of Greater Miami in 1970, and served twice as its conductor.
The collection contains one phonographic record titled "Miami Beach Rhumba," assorted sheet music and lyrics, a document titled "Decreto Supremo No. 21060" by Victor Paz Estenssoro, former president of Bolivia, and an article titled "Les Marranes Espagnols et Portugais Les Communautes Juives Issues du Marranisme dans L'Historiographie Recente (1960-1975)" from Revue des Etudes Juives, vol. 136, regarding Jews in Latin America.
