Digital Media

Cranbrook Archives' Digital Media Database presents a wealth of photographs, documents, ephemera, oral histories and architectural records which document over 100 years of our heritage.  These collections are only a sampling of the breadth of our materials, and we continue to add to them.

Cranbrook Historic Photograph Collection 
The bulk of the collection depicts the changing faces and landscape at Cranbrook for over 100 years. Architecture, faculty, students, artwork, activities and events, clubs, athletics and more are featured in images taken by Cranbrook staff photographers from 1931-1970. From 1970 to present, various contract photographers also captured.

Cranbrook Architecture Slide Collection 
These slides were taken by architectural photographer Balthazar Korab who was a contract photographer with Cranbrook Educational Community from 1995-2005. Working with the Architectural Historian, Marsha Miro, Korab primarily documented the construction, repair and restoration projects that occurred during the ten year time period.

Cranbrook Architectural Drawing Collection 
The Cranbrook Archives has over 22,000 architectural drawings in its collection. These include drawings of campus architecture as well as projects designed and/or constructed off-campus by Cranbrook-related architects such as Eero Saarinen, Ralph Rapson, Hugh Ferris and others.

Cranbrook Manuscript Collection 
This collection consists of portions of significant manuscript and record collections. Various folders of materials have been identified, digitized and converted to pdfs for reference use only.

George Gough Booth Papers 
This is a collection of selected documents including correspondence, receipts and inventories, many of which help inform our cultural properties collections. In addition, the George Booth Sketchbook is included.

Pleasures of Life 
Pleasures of Life is a series of photograph albums compiled by Henry Scripps Booth from 1911-1940. They depict his life at Cranbrook with his family, his years at boarding school in Asheville, NC, travels around the world, and the growth of the Cranbrook campus.

Arthur Nevill Kirk Papers 
Arthur Nevill Kirk, a silversmith from Hampstead, England was persuaded by George Gough Booth to come to Detroit and teach at the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts. In addition, Kirk worked part-time designing ecclesiastical pieces for Christ Church Cranbrook. In 1929, he was appointed head of the Silver Shop at the Academy of Art, a

The Edward and Ruth Adler Schnee Papers 
This collection helps illustrate the life and career of textile artist Ruth Adler Schnee through drawings, diaries, correspondence and photographs. It includes her years in Germany, her immigration to the United States, and the role of her husband Edward in her design work and retail business.

Ephemera 
The term ephemera refers to anything short-lived or ephemeral, and is generally printed paper material that was meant to be thrown away. This includes printed matter such as brochures, handbills, memorabilia, pamphlets, tickets, timetables, etc.

Cranbrook Hand-Colored Lantern Slide Collection 
This collection consists of images taken primarily during the 1920s and 1930s of the various campus institutions. Many were taken by architectural photographers for inclusion in publications, and all were originally developed in black and white. The hand-painted watercolors were done at a later time by an unknown artist(s).

Cranbrook House and Gardens Collection 
The collection consists of digital images of the cultural properties in and around Cranbrook House. The images were taken as part of an IMLS-funded grant to inventory and catalog all of the works of art and furnishings acquired or commissioned by the founders, George and Ellen Booth. In addition to the object images, the collection includes primary source documentation relative to the works, including correspondence, purchase receipts, and inventories.

Travel Postcards 
This collection highlights travel postcards from a variety of manuscript collections, though the bulk of the images can be found in the Virginia Kingswood Booth Vogel Papers. Many of them illustrate places that the Ralph Harmon Booth family traveled to in 1921.