Archives & Collections Online Database 

The Israelite House of David Archives & Collections has utilized the online collections management system CatalogIt since 2023.  Cataloging our collections will take years, if not decades.  Once live, the public will be able to search by person, date, place, or tag to explore the items we steward. 

Baseball Collection

As one of the Archives & Collections' most requested collection, the organization and digitization of the HoD Baseball Collection is a top priority. 

There are currently 16 boxes of archival material associated with the House of David Baseball Collection, including photographs, incoming correspondence, business accounts, and more. 

Negative Collection 

The Archives & Collections holds a large collection of negatives, including glass plate negatives, lantern slides, and film. This collection is a mixture of rare photos, high-quality images of mass-produced House of David postcard images, and member candids. The collection is significant as it has many images that contain Henry "Harry" Kirkham's (1883-1963) original handwritten notes. Kirkham was a HoD member and a professional photographer, who jotted notes in the margins of many of his negatives, identifying the people and subjects contained in them and the dates the photographs were taken or processed. This collection is quite large; there are 22 glass plate negative boxes alone, holding about 80-90 individual negatives each. 

Photograph Collection

The House of David is unique in how heavily photographed its members, grounds, and businesses were. Owing in part to the efforts of professional photographers Lewis Burgdoffer, William Connon, Gordon Holliday, and, especially, Henry "Harry" Kirkham, the colony has a bounty of images. 

The organization and digitization of photographs is an ongoing priority for the Archives & Collections staff, bolstered by the hard work of volunteers! 

Berrien County

History Collection

The Archives & Collections holds the Berrien County History Collection to tell the whole story of the House of David. The efforts to organize this collection truly kicked off in early 2026, when the Collections Manager and volunteers began the process of organizing the archival material associated with the collection. 

The object collection was additionally chosen to be the focus of the 2026 Summer Internship project.