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Collection contains watercolor renderings, sketches, technical drawings (ground plans, elevations and details), photographs, glass plate and acetate negatives, scrapbooks, set models and some related papers covering Urban's career in Vienna and New York as an architect, set designer, decorator and illustrator. There is a thorough representation of his New York career including his set designs for Florenz Ziegfeld (1915-1932) and the Metropolitan Opera (1917-1933). The collection also contains information on Urban's work for William Randolph Hearst as art director for Cosmopolitan Studios, his exhibitions including his 1921 Wiener Werkstätte store, and his many architectural projects. Biographical information and research gathered by Richard Cole and Randolph Carter including contributions from his daughter,Gretl Urban, and biographical notes and some letters from his widow, Mary Urban, are also present.

The collection comprises 753 cassette tapes; 2 videotapes, and 13 boxes of papers.

Master's thesis produced by May Randall entitled "The New Negro Poet" for her degree in English from the University of Chicago in the late 1920s. The thesis examines black poets of the Harlem Riennaisance and the collection includes a photocopy of her thesis, and the original letters from 39 Dlack poets of the time, all personal correspondence with Ms Randall regarding her thesis, which she Dlanned to submit for publication. The poets include many of the leading lights: Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Claude McKay, plus 35 lesser known authors. Most of the letters are giving her permission to publish their work, but they also referred her to other poets, and gave her contact information so she could include them. The letters are friendly, helpful, and enthusiastic about the idea that her thesis might become a published book.

Project materials, including reports, monographs, books, articles, Masters essays, Doctoral dissertations, foreign publications, administrative records, correspondence, minutes and audio-visual materials.