Cranbrook Archives is the primary research center for the documentation and study of Cranbrook Educational Community's remarkable history. As Cranbrook's official repository, the Archives is responsible for collecting, preserving, and making available community and divisional records of permanent value. In addition, the Archives collects the papers of members of the Booth, Scripps, and Saarinen families, the records of Christ Church Cranbrook and ancillary organizations affiliated with Cranbrook, as well as the personal papers of faculty, staff, alumni, and other individuals who have been associated with the community since 1904.
Our collections include architectural records, AV materials, ephemera, institutional records, manuscript papers, oral histories, photographs, and more.
Our Finding Aids, available in searchable pdfs, describe more than 150 processed collections available for research.
We have over 500,000 photographic images in our collection, with more than 4,500 currently digitized. You can access these via our digital image database.
Cranbrook Archives welcomes the use of our collections by external researchers and scholars, as well as members of the Cranbrook community.
Highlights from the Archives offer a window into the rich and diverse heritage of Cranbrook.
In 1942, the Archives unofficially began as a form of records management for the papers of George Booth and the Cranbrook Foundation.