Correspondence-American Airlines, 1963

This series consists of the records of Rochester City Historian, Blake McKelvey, The materials date between 1898 and 2000, with a bulk of the materials dated between 1936 and 1980. The materials consist of correspondence, photographs, manuscripts, newspaper clippings, research notes, and personal papers.

The correspondence covers many subjects such as genealogy reference questions, publishing correspondence, family correspondence, and general correspondence that occurred during the daily operations of the City Historians Office. The publishing correspondence is correspondence between Blake McKelvey and many publishers. The correspondence contains manuscript rejection letters, contract negotiations, manuscript editing, and layout and design of Blake McKelvey’s books.

This series contains the manuscripts of Blake McKelvey’s books. The books that have manuscripts in the collection are:

A Panoramic History of Rochester

Snow in the Cities

Business as a Profession

Rochester on the Genesee

The manuscripts consist of drafts that contain annotations and handwritten and typed edits. They also contain picture layouts and chapter photographs.

The research notes sub-series consists of 37 boxes of research notes organized by Blake McKelvey during his research for the books:

Rochester, the Water Power City 1812-1854

Rochester, the Flower City 1855-1890

Rochester, the Quest for Quality 1890-1925

Rochester, the Emerging Metropolis 1925-1961

The research notes contain handwritten transcriptions of newspaper articles, diaries, and journals. It also contains newspaper clippings, and typed articles. The research notes are organized by subject.

The personal papers sub-series consists of family correspondence, genealogy, newspaper clippings relating to the McKelvey family that were collected by Blake McKelvey’s mother. It also contains McKelvey’s many awards, certificates, and degrees. The sub-series consist of some files of subjects that interested McKelvey such as America’s prisons, housing, crime, industry, and employment. There are two scrapbooks that were put together by McKelvey and include newspaper clippings of current events from the late 1930’s to the early 1950’s and a scrapbook of the City in American History.