The Fletcher Steele Manuscript Collection was donated to the College of Environmental Science and Forestry in 1974 by the Upstate NY Chapter of the ASLA. Now housed in the Franklin Moon Library, the original contribution included:

• 749 Drawings, blue prints and photos
• 12,000 negatives made by Steele from 1913-1970 (including pictures from his works in progress and his travels)
• Client order books, which contain client name, suppliers and vendors (with addresses), plant lists, and itemized services.
• 8 X 10" Photostat prints of sketches, renderings, and site plans for 85 of his clients.
• Photographic 35mm film - 12,000 exposures
• Lantern slides pertaining to Steele's lectures (1919 - 1950)
• Scrapbooks
• Postcards

The entire manuscript collection has been arranged by Steele's own job numbers. For the time, Steele was remarkably organized.

The original donation occupied some 25 linear feet of space in the Moon Library archives. Since that time, as more things have been found and donated by family members and other organizations, the collection has grown to 50+ feet, and it is expected that they will continue to grow.

To help preserve this information, documents in danger of falling apart and disintegrating are undergoing a preservation and archival process. These documents are then being transferred to slides.

This is all being done in an effort to preserve Steele's work for study and research. To date, many individuals have used the manuscript collection for academic and professional work, and Robin Karson used the manuscript collection extensively in the writing of her book Fletcher Steele - Landscape Architect.

The manuscript collection is available by appointment to any student, practitioner or researcher. If you would like to know more about the collection or would like to set up an appointment to use them, contact Flora Nyland, SUNY-ESF, 1 Forestry Drive, 9 Moon Library, Syracuse, NY, 13210, email her at fmnyland@esf.edu, or call her at 315.470.6719.