James P. McCormick was born in 1911 and attended Northwestern University (PhD 1937). He was an English professor at Wayne State University, and, later, an administrator for Detroit Edison Company. He retired to Tucson, AZ in 1974 and accepted a position as adjunct professor of engineering at the University of Arizona.

The bulk of this collection consists of correspondence, interviews, and reminiscences, with faculty, alumni, and students of the College of Engineering. The papers relate the personalities, projects, and growth of the College during its first century of existence. The majority of these materials were collected by McCormick between 1984 and 1986, as research material for his book Rah For The Engineers!