Jan

A New Collection: The Carl and Annetta Wonnberger Papers

Cranbrook Archives is pleased to announce that the Carl and Annetta Wonnberger Papers are open for research. The collection contains biographical materials documenting their early life and education, a large series of personal correspondence between Carl and Annetta during their courtship, materials relating to Carl’s tenure as teacher and administrator at Cranbrook School, their involvement in establishing and directing the Cranbrook Theater School, as well as Carl’s involvement in outside organizations.

Performance Poster, 1950. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

Carl and Annetta Wonnberger were fixtures at Cranbrook for well over half a century, raising two daughters on campus (Jo Anne and Nancy, Kingswood ’48 and ’53 respectively) and making significant contributions to Cranbrook School (Carl even wrote their fight song!) and community theater arts. They both received Cranbrook’s highest honor, the Founders’ Award, and Annetta had a day (July 17) named after her by the City of Bloomfield Hills.

They arrived at Cranbrook in September 1929 when Carl took the position of English teacher at Cranbrook School. The following year, Carl became the Head of the English Department, a position which he held until 1967 when he retired from Cranbrook and became Professor of English Language and Literature at Eastern Michigan University.

Carl and Annetta Wonnberger with Eva Le Gallienne and Joe Schildkraut. 1945. Harvey Croze, photographer.

Annetta helped Carl start Ergasterion (Cranbrook School’s drama club) in 1931. She created costumes, built and painted sets, applied make up, and played female roles in all boys’ productions. Annetta was also one of the founders, with Henry Scripps Booth and Brookside Schools Headmistress Jessie Winter, of St. Dunstan’s Theatre in 1932.

Carl and Annetta Wonnberger Papers (1991-14), Box 45, Folder 1. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

Together they founded Cranbrook Theatre School (CTS) in 1942 with the first season held in the Greek Theater. The mission of the school was to provide a full liberal education through theater training including voice and diction, phonetics and language, development and control of the body, literature, history, philosophy, design, and technical science. Carl and Annetta taught theatrical training so as to provide experience in teamwork, good sportsmanship, and dialog. They celebrated theatrical training as a wonderful developer of personality.

Carl and Annetta Wonnberger Papers (1991-14). Box 19 Folder 10. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

The bulk of the Wonnberger Papers relates to their involvement with Cranbrook Theatre School, comprising administrative materials as well as many scripts, announcements, and performance programs.

Alice Shaw, head director, discusses a staging problem with Carl Wonnberger. July 24, 1953. Harvey Croze, photographer. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

Theater performances, themselves, are well documented by audio-visual formats including photographs, slides, and motion picture film. This collection provides a rich study of a fascinating facet of Cranbrook’s performing arts legacy, and a theater program that is still going strong today.

–Laura MacNewman, Associate Archivist, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

May

It’s a New Collection!

The Archives to Launch Our Poster Collection Online!

Over the coming summer, Cranbrook Archives will release a brand new collection into its online digital database! While building our digital archive is a perpetual process, we are working steadily to upload images and manuscripts so that you, our remote users, can browse and search through our collections no matter where you live. This summer we will be celebrating a new addition: the Cranbrook Poster Collection!

Over the past eight months, my colleague, Laura MacNewman, and I collaborated to upload this collection for online access. The posters date back to the early 1900s with topics covering the scope of the entire Cranbrook Educational Community, emphasizing exhibitions from the Academy of Art and the Institute of Science, and theatrical performances from Cranbrook Kingswood Schools, St. Dunstan’s Guild, and the Summer Theatre.

Cranbrook Institute of Science poster, n.d. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

We created nineteen different series for the Poster Collection based on locations or departments on campus. We identified nearly 500 unique posters in our collection, and each one was given a distinct identifying number. Once the unique identifiers were established, we merged all the various poster inventories into one master inventory spreadsheet, and arranged them in chronological order by series.

The next step was sorting through the physical posters folder by folder in order to take a reference photograph of each one for the database, record their dimensions, and describe them in the master inventory spreadsheet. This was the longest stage of the process, lasting several weeks. After the data was entered into the spreadsheet, we renamed the individual images to match the posters’ unique identifiers in order to match the photograph.

Exhibition poster, 1973. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

While every step has been a learning process, my favorite part was working in Thornlea Studio and physically handling the poster collection for measurements and photographs. Laura and I were able to take a previously unorganized collection and make it discoverable online, which was rewarding and gave me a sense of accomplishment. I loved the huge diversity of the posters, too. Not only were they historically valuable, they were also aesthetically stunning. I can’t wait for the collection to be released for everyone to enjoy!

– Danae Dracht, Archives Assistant

Editor’s Note: Thank you Danae and Laura for your hard work on this project! Congratulations also to Danae who recently graduated from Wayne State University’s School of Library Science! We wish you all the best as you embark on the next journey of your archival career.