Papers, ca. 1890–1963, 2 filing cabinet drawers and several shelves. Journalist, world traveler, and chief of Foreign Staff of National Geographic magazine. As a foreign correspondent for the Christian Herald, he journeyed from Sakhalin Island to the Tibetan border, ca. 1916–17. He was a witness to the Russian Revolution in Petrograd, Moscow, and the Caucasus. Williams directed relief work in Van, the capital of Armenia, in 1917–18, and was the only American correspondent to cross Siberia with the Czechoslovak legionnaires. Includes ca. 200 of his articles in manuscript, about 40 of which pertain to Russia/USSR before 1940, many of them published in the Christian Herald. They concern Armenia, Georgia, Erzerum, Van, Merv, Tiflis, Etchmiadzin, Samarkand, the Siberian intervention, Central Asia, Russian peasants, "Russia's New Czar," and "The Spirit of Russia and the Soul of France." There are also 2 photograph albums, with pictures chosen and captioned by Williams of Armenia, Latvia, Russia, and other countries. Also, a signed portrait of Williams by Vasilii Nikolaevich Iacovleff, an artist who accompanied the Citroen-Haardt Expedition across Asia, 1931, which followed the Marco Polo route from Beirut to Peiping, plus letters, field notes, reports, a scrapbook, and printed matter about this expedition. Published finding aid: Maynard Owen Williams: Class of 1910 Kalamazoo College, by Lawrence H. Conrad, Sr. (1968).
