Willis Branson Coale (1885-1979) was a birthright Hicksite Friend, Congregational minister, English professor at the University of Hawaii, and genealogist. This collection documents his life and preserves material that he collected for Coale family history. The Coale Papers consist of two main groups of material. The first reflects the life of Willis B. Coale, and includes autobiographical writings, clippings, and published and unpublished materials on his life in Illinois, at Oberlin, and in Hawaii. The second group consists of photographs that he collected to illustrate his genealogical book, The Coale Family: Nine Generations, 1569-1955,  published in 1976. Many of the photographs are duplicates, in some cases as many as ten of the same image.