Italy: Humanism, n.d.

Baker College material, teaching and History Dept. records, academic and scholarly correspondence, notes and drafts of books, articles, and lectures, as well as a quantity of Renaissance-Reformation subject files document the faculty and scholarly activities of Charles Garside Jr. (1927-1987). These papers cover the period 1953 to 1987. This represents roughly the second half of Garside's life or, from another perspective, from about the time he began his history Ph.D. work at Yale onward.

The papers bulk in the Teaching Records and Material series with Renaissance - Reformation subject files. These subject files can be further subdivided into two types: course specific subject files and non-course specific subject files. It is likely that these subject files were created for either of two needs: teaching purposes or as the result of research towards a particular book or article. It is also seems likely that if a subject file was created out of research purposes, once the book or article was published the file would be added to the rest, simply as more lecture source material. These subject files contain primarily handwritten and typed notes with some reprint material.

The papers bulk again in the series Scholarly Papers with notes, drafts, and correspondence concerning the many books, articles, reviews, papers, speeches and lectures published or presented by Garside. The papers also well represent the fact that Garside was a member of numerous history and Renaissance-Reformation oriented professional organizations/scholarly societies. Garside served as President of The American Society for Reformation Research for several years and much of the material here is correspondence.

The Garside papers contain very little of a personal nature. The most important material here being several folders of personal correspondence and some address books. Garside was a man of such high scholarship, so intensely devoted to teaching and university life, that if were not for original order it would be difficult to distinguish his personal correspondence from his scholarly correspondence. A few photographs, a number of recipes in a variety of handwritings and some poetry in Garside's handwriting provide some small insight into his nature and life outside the walls of academia.