Dr. John Appel, Professor Emeritus of American Thought and Language at Michigan State University and Adjunct Curator at the Michigan State University Museum, began his collection of immigrant and ethnic images in popular media in 1965. From his original motivation to illustrate lectures on immigration history, he began collecting a wide range of materials in a variety of media popular between the Civil War and World War I, the heaviest period of immigration to the United States. Selma Appel, his wife, has been an important collaborator in assembling this collection. John Appel passed away in 1998.
The Appels contributed materials from their collection to numerous exhibitions on ethnic images and immigration throughout the United States and published several of their writings on the subject.