Edgar Williams Stanton was born in Waymart, Wayne County, Pennsylvania, October 3, 1850, and died at Canandaigua, New York, on September 12, 1920. He was educated at Waymart Normal Institute and Delaware Literary Institute before coming to Iowa Agricultural College in 1869 (he was a member of the first graduating class of 1872) and was the first individual to receive the diploma from Iowa State.

Stanton was elected a member of the faculty in the month of his graduation, November 1872, and served Iowa State with distinction until the day of his death. During the fifty years of his residence upon the campus he filled the positions of student, Economics Department Chair, Head and Professor of the Department of Mathematics, Secretary of the Board of Trustees, Dean of the Junior College, Vice President, and four times Acting President.

His first wife was Margaret MacDonald Stanton, Iowa State's first dean of women. When she died on July 25, 1895, she had been closely identified with the University for almost twenty-five years. Stanton wanted to establish a monument so all students and friends of Iowa State would remember her. He finally decided to purchase and have installed a chime of 10 bells in a detached tower (the ISU Campanile) on central campus.

Stanton died September 12, 1920, and his will provided that after certain bequests were taken out, the residue of his estate should be turned over to the University for furnishing a memorial to him. His second wife, Julia Wentch Stanton, and the children, decided to request that the University install 26 additional bells, thus forming a musical instrument which became known as the Edgar W. and Margaret MacDonald Stanton Memorial Carillon.

The collection includes news clippings relating to Edgar W. and Margaret Stanton, biographical material, correspondence relating to Stanton's duties at Iowa State, diplomas, grade books from courses Stanton taught, notebooks, photomechanical photographs (4) of Stanton from publications, and memoranda concerning campus activities. Also of interest are some letters between the Stantons and President and Mrs. Welch from 1884 when the Welches were in Europe visiting agricultural schools.