Maitland Family papers
About
This collection contains records from Alexander Few Maitland (1875-1939) and his children John Maitland (1914-2007) and Dorothy Maitland Sanders (1902-1995) of Negaunee, Michigan. The bulk of the collection documents the efforts of Alexander Few Maitland and John Maitland to manage the Maitland Mine. The Maitland Mine was located in Marquette County, Michigan, near the town of Palmer and the present-day Tilden Mine (Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Mining Company). The collection offers a remarkable view into early twentieth century mining activities by a single family during a time when three-four mining conglomerates dominated the Marquette Iron Range. The collection includes extensive correspondence between Alexander Few and his siblings, legal agreements, tax records, audit reports, lease agreements, and production records. The collection also includes a large number of maps and plans of the Maitland Mine. The remaining bulk of the collection documents the life of Dorothy Sanders Maitland. Of particular note is Dorothy’s scrapbook from her student days at the University of Michigan, a diary documenting a tour of Europe and the Middle East in 1925, and a daily journal (1927-1931; 1946-1979) that offers a detailed account of Dorothy’s life as a suburban homemaker during the height of the Cold War and the tumultuous decade of the 1960s and 1970s.
For a more detailed history of the family and account of the collection's contents, see the finding aid. The only portion of the collection that has been digitized is World War I correspondence from family friend Kellogg Speed (1879-1955). Speed was an Army surgeon stationed near the western front in France during World War I. He survived the war and went on to become a nationally noted orthopedic surgeon living in Chicago. Most of Speed's letters are addressed to Alexander's wife, Fanny Sommerville Maitland, and his children, Dorothy and Alexander Maitland III. A few letters in the collection are from Speed's family and friends to the Maitlands, and there are also some poems and articles written by Speed.