Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries
P. O. Box 22642, Philadelphia PA 19110-2642
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The Manuscript Collections contain correspondence, field notes, journals, illustrations, and photographs accumulated by persons and organizations variously related to the Academy. Expedition literature is one of many topics that cross the boundary between print and manuscripts. It ranges from printed accounts of the earliest voyages through manuscript diaries, illustrations, and maps of the Academy's expeditions from 1817 to the present, and from Florida to Ecuador, Greenland to Tibet.

The depth of the Library's collections makes it possible to conduct research on a topic from the earliest printed information to the latest computerized database, and to supplement that information with original manuscript and graphic material. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

American Philosophical Society
The oldest learned society in the United States, the American Philosophical Society held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge was founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743.The APS has played an important role in the cultural life of the nation for nearly two-and-one-half centuries and has been particularly prominent in support of the sciences.

The Society first began acquiring books and manuscripts in the 1770s, and today its Library is one of the principal institutions in the United States for study of the history of science. It has extensive collections in several areas in the history of science, most notably in genetics and eugenics, evolutionary biology, biochemistry and molecular biology, quantum theory and other areas in twentieth century physics, as well as important holdings in the history of American anthropology (particularly Native American languages and cultures), for American history generally prior to 1860, and for Benjamin Franklin and his circle. The American Philosophical Society cares for approximately eight million manuscripts, 300,000 volumes, and numerous historically important scientific artifacts. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

The Athenaeum of Philadelphia
The Athenaeum was founded in 1814 and for more than 185 years has been collecting materials "connected with the history and antiquities of America, and the useful arts." As an independent research library with museum collections, the Athenaeum focuses on American cultural history for the period 1814-1914. Its architecture and interior design collections for this period are nationally significant.

The Athenaeum's collections divide into the 100,000-volume research library; the architectural archive consisting of more than 180,000 drawings, 300,000 photographs, and 1,000,000 manuscript items representing the work of more than 2,000 American architects and firms; and the fine and decorative arts collection. The collection is fully catalogued; a published catalogue to the drawing collection is available in most research libraries. The Athenaeum's cataloging records are available from RLIN and will shortly be available from its new online catalog, Athena.

The Athenaeum is housed in a National Historical Landmark building near Independence Hall, which is open for tours and research by appointment. The building is furnished with fine and decorative arts of the period 1800-1850. The Athenaeum sponsors historical and educational activities including lectures, concerts, and exhibitions. It publishes books on aspects of 19th-century culture and provides awards and research grants for outstanding literary achievement and scholarship in architectural history. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

Bryn Mawr College
The Rare Book Collection, containing approximately 40,000 volumes, supports the College's teaching programs. The Goodhart Library of more than 1,000 incunabula provides texts for studying the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. The Dillingham Collection of Latin American history and literature has recently been augmented by the Rodriguez Monegal Library. The Castle Collection includes works in botany and ornithology. Together with the Adelman Collection it affords opportunities for the study of graphic arts. The Adelman Collection is rich in materials of Keats and his circle, A.E. Housman and Ralph Hodgson, Claud Lovat Fraser, Thomas and Susan Macdowell Eakins, and Americana.

The Manuscript Collection is strong in Women's Studies and British and American literary history. It includes papers of Bryn Mawr president M. Carey Thomas, Carrie Chapman Catt, 1,200 letters of Marianne Moore, and correspondence of The New Yorker editor Katharine S. White. Manuscript holdings include a group of Medieval and Renaissance codices, including Books of Hours. These collections are supported by a graphics collection ranging from the 15th century to the present, including 7,300 prints, 3,500 drawings, and 13,000 vintage photographs. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

Chemical Heritage Foundation
The Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer Library of Chemical History was created in 1988 to encompass the history of the chemical sciences and industries. The library is a product of the vision and generosity of Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer, and it has a unique emphasis: the history of chemical achievement.

The core of the collection was a donation of 30,000 volumes from The Chemists' Club library. The Othmer Library's holdings now include more than 80,000 volumes of monographs, reference works, rare books, and professional journals published from 1512 to the present. The majority of items were published between 1830-1970. The collection includes such rarities as Agricola's De Re Metallica (1621 edition), and Paracelsus' Opera Omnia (1658). Through recent donations and purchases the library has acquired works such as De Fourcy's Table du Produit des Affinites Chymiques (1773), and Brunschwig's Liber de Arte Distillandi de Compositis (1512). Some of the journal titles in the periodicals collection span almost two hundred years, such as the American Journal of Science (1819), and Chemisches Zentralblatt (1835).

The Othmer Library's Archives include unique artifacts, paper-based archives, artwork, and chemical instruments. The image archives collection comprises some 200 framed pieces of artwork ranging from oil portraits to lithographs, plus over 10,000 images in all photographic formats, including the William Haynes' collection of 1,500 photographs from his six-volume work The American Chemical Industry. Archival items include personal archives of notable individuals including Carl "Speed" Marvel and Nobel Laureate Paul J. Flory. The Library also houses archives for several organizations and societies affiliated with CHF. The collection of archival artifacts ranges from nylon stockings and batteries to more than 200 historic chemical instruments. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

College of Physicians of Philadelphia
The College of Physicians was founded in 1787 and its library in 1788. Following a period of relative dormancy, the College was revitalized in the mid-nineteenth century, and the Library began an important period of growth around the time of the Civil War. From then until well into the post-World War II period the College Library was one of the four great medical libraries in the U.S. and the central medical library of the Delaware Valley. Through gifts, bequests, and dedicated purchase funds the Library also became a great medical rare book library, and in 1953 a Historical Collections department was established. During the second halfof the twentieth century, the world of medical librarianship was transformed throughout the country, as society libraries like the College's declined in importance relative to the rapidly growing academic medical center libraries. Recognizing that the libraries of the regional medical schools had grown significantly and largely replaced the College Library as providers of the current clinical and biomedical literature, in 1996 College governance formally designated the Library as a "Historical Library." The entire library therefore took on the character of what had been the Historical Collections department.

The College Library holds more than 375,000 medical books and journals published through the late twentieth century. More than 400 are incunabula and 12,000 are pre-1801 imprints. There are strong holdings in anatomy, dermatology, neurology, pathology, and ophthalmology, and particularly rich collections on homeopathy, tuberculosis, and yellow fever. Manuscripts include medieval illuminated manuscripts, hundreds of 18th and 19th-century student lecture notes, and papers of leaders of American medicine, such as Robley Dunglison, George Bacon Wood, S. Weir Mitchell, Joseph Leidy, and William W. Keen. The records and archives of medical societies, organizations, and institutions, both extinct and extant, local and national, constitute a major resource for the scholar. The archives of the College of Physicians itself are especially important, for the College has addressed a variety of professional and community concerns since its founding. The College Library also maintains a research level collection of current scholarship in history of medicine. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department
The Rare Book Department is one of the largest among public libraries in the United States. Its holdings span a period of over 4,000 years and number about 100,000 books and manuscripts. The Library's first gift of rare book was received in 1899, when the institution was only five years old. Others followed through the years and in 1949 the bequest of the entire private library of William McIntire Elkins, together with the paneled room which housed it, led to the opening of the Rare Book Department.

The collections include Sumerian cuneiform tablets; illuminated manuscripts of Europe and the Near East; incunabula; editions of the works of Horace; books and manuscripts illustrative of the development of the Common Law; Americana; manuscripts, letters and printed works of Oliver Goldsmith, Charles Dickens, and Edgar Allan Poe; early American children's books including the publications of the American Sunday School Union; Pennsylvania-German Fraktur and printed books; and original drawings and books illustrated by Beatrix Potter, Kate Greenaway, Arthur Rackham, A.B. Frost, Robert Lawson, Munro Leaf, and Howard Pyle and his students. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

Hagley Museum & Library
Founded in 1953 by Pierre S. du Pont as the Longwood Library and merged with the Hagley Museum in 1961, the library houses an important collection of manuscripts, photographs, books, and pamphlets documenting the history of American business and technology. It's main strength is in the Middle Atlantic region but includes business organizations and companies with national and international impact.

The library's 196,000 volumes and 12,000 microforms include books and serials, pamphlets, maps and atlases, city directories, theses, government documents, company annual reports, stockholder and employee magazines, advertising literature, public relations pieces, a collection of more than 20,000 trade catalogs, guidebooks and catalogs for the great international expositions, and the Guttman Collection of pyrotechnics. Its 25,000 linear feet of manuscript contain the records of more than 1,000 firms and the entrepreneurs who build them, as well as the records of national business organizations. Noteworthy collections include the business and personal papers of the Du Pont Company and family, the Philadelphia and Reading and Pennsylvania Railroads, the Sun Company, Bethlehem Steel, the Philadelphia National Bank, Sperry-Univac, and the Sperry Gyroscope Company. Pictorial collections ranging in size from one image to more than 100,000 include formats from daguerreotypes to Polaroid prints, lithographs and engravings, and videotapes. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

Haverford College
The Quaker Collection is a major repository for material about the Society of Friends. Included are 35,000 printed titles, 3,800 linear feet of manuscripts, 800 linear feet of archives, and 13,000 photographs, maps, and works of art on paper.

The Charles Roberts Autograph Letter Collection contains more than 20,000 items of literary, historical, political, and religious interest.

The Philips Collection of rare books and manuscripts includes numerous first editions from the Renaissance period. The Rufus M. Jones Collection of 1,400 books on mysticism, and a collection of Jones' papers and published writings are here also.

Other distinctive materials include the Christopher Morley Collection of books, letters, and memorabilia; a photographic collection representing 120 photographers and including 2,700 images; the Maxfield Parrish Collection of books, drawings, and papers; the C. Christopher Morris Cricket Collection containing several thousand books and memorabilia about the history of cricket; Haverford College archives including records of administration, students, faculty, and staff, published works, and graphics; and the J. Rendel Harris Collection of 75 oriental scrolls and codices. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania
The Historical Society maintains approximately 560,000 volumes: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware are special strengths, but included are primary and secondary source materials for the original thirteen states. The Library holds extensive Philadelphia and Pennsylvania newspapers, 1718-present (hard copy and film); collections of Pennsylvania authors; and Pennsylvania imprints (English, German, and Welsh). Other rare, pre-1820 Americana is housed at the Library Company of Philadelphia, as are English, Irish, and Scots pamphlets, 1640-1989, and county records and rolls series. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania also holds nineteen million manuscript items, including Penn and Logan family archives; regional family and business papers; extensive autograph collections of American and European notables; 35,000 prints and maps, 1650-1986, especially Delaware Valley region; 20,000 watercolors and drawings, 1700-1900, including Benjamin West, William and Thomas Birch, Augustus Kollner, and David J. Kennedy; 250,000 photographs, 1838-1987, mostly southeastern Pennsylvania; and thousands of broadsides, sheet music, and ephemera.

The collections of The Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, which merged with the Historical Society in 2002, complement the Society's holdings on ethnic and immigration material. The Balch built major research collections for a surprisingly large number of individual groups: long runs of African American, Chinese, Czech, German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Jewish, Lithuanian, Polish, and Slovak newspapers; and significant holdings of Yiddish and Ukrainian literature, along with smaller but noteworthy Swedish and Norwegian collections. Its manuscripts and print sources on Japanese American relocation during World War II are unique for an east coast repository, and its resources for a number of groups, including Germans, Greeks, Irish, Italians, Jews, Poles, Slovaks, and Welsh are among the best in the country. In addition, it has smaller but important and growing archival collections for many other groups. A few examples include African Americans, Chinese, Koreans, Lithuanians, Puerto Ricans, Swedes and Ukrainians. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

LaSalle University

The Connolly Library at LaSalle University includes six significant collections of books, art work on paper, and other print media. The most prominent of the collections is The Imaginative Representations of the Viet Nam War Collection. This Collection, at 12,000 items and growing, is the largest collection of its kind in the world. In addition to the 1200 novels in the Collection and thousands of other fictive texts, there are also 600 films and 2000 examples of graphic art. A primarily print-based collection of 1000 items entitled Imaginative Representations of the Holocaust is related in intention to the Vietnam War collection. The Owen Wister Collection is based upon the life, works, and family correspondence of this well-known author of The Virginian and dozens of other books, and a prominent Philadelphian. In fact, this collection of Wisteriana is the third largest in the world behind only the Library of Congress the University of Wyoming.

The 1810 Peale family residence known as Belfield serves today as the official residence of the Presidents of La Salle University. Connected to this building and grounds are the Peale Family Papers consisting of thousands of family documents now kept in microform. The Art of the Japanese Tea Ceremony is a collection of 250 books, articles, and journals that support the study of the tea ceremony in the University's Tea House on the grounds of the Charles Willson Peale estate - Belfield. The Life and Work of Bob Dylan is the newest Special Collection in the Department. It is believed to be the largest such in the country at an academic institution. The Collection consists of about 600 items including every form of biography, printed music, lyrics, journals, 10 Ph.D. dissertations on Dylan, and every known example of his recorded music in every format, including film. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

The Library Company of Philadelphia
The Library Company of Philadelphia is an independent research library with collections documenting every aspect of the history and background of American culture from the colonial period to the Civil War. A rare book collection of national importance, its holdings number 500,000 books, 75,000 graphics, and 150,000 manuscripts.

The Library Company was founded by Benjamin Franklin and a group of friends in 1731 as a subscription library. It is the only major colonial American library that survives virtually intact.

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the Library Company collected books, newspapers, pamphlets, and prints reflecting all the varied interests of its learned and cosmopolitan clientele. These materials have now been reorganized to form an unparalleled collection of primary research materials. The collection is continually augmented by significant gifts and purchases. The following areas receive particular attention: Afro-Americana; American science, technology, architecture, agriculture, natural history, education, philanthropy, and medicine; German Americana; American Judaica; Philadelphia area history; the history of printing, book collecting, and reading; the women's rights movement; household and family life; and printmaking, mapmaking, and photography in Philadelphia.

[Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia

While the Krauth Memorial Library has over 187,000 volumes, the Rare Book Collection includes 18,000 volumes, fifteen incunabula, three Books of Hours, and twenty-five cuneiform tablets. Collection strengths are the 16th-century Lutheran Reformation, Continental Pietism, 18th-century works in theology ad philosophy, liturgical studies, and 19th-century American Lutheran periodicals.

[Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society is a private, non-profit organization, headquartered in downtown Philadelphia. Formed shortly after PHS's founding in 1827, the McLean Library reflects American horticultural trends both historically and currently. It serves the needs of amateur and professional horticulturists, landscape architects, garden historians, and researchers. It is used by the public and by the Society's members and volunteers. The collection supports the horticultural and urban greening activities of the staff.

The Delaware Valley is known as "America's Gateway to Gardens" and has a long tradition of intense interest in gardens and arboreta of every size and kind. The library's Pennsylvania Collection reflects the Mid-Atlantic region's horticultural history. The McLean Library houses a rich collection of Delaware Valley seed and nursery catalogs, 1860-1950. The Mary Helen Wingate Lloyd Collection consists of significant European and American gardening imprints from the 16th-20th centuries. The library houses the archives of the Philadelphia Flower Show and the Society, as well as the archives of local gardening concerns such as the Rittenhouse Flower Market, and local garden club activities. The library also houses nearly 30,000 images of the Philadelphia Flower Show, pre-World War II estate gardens of the Philadelphia area, and garden and landscape images from around the world, 1930's-1960's.

Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Library of the Philadelphia Museum of Art numbers in excess of 140,000 volumes, and is the seventh largest art museum library in North America. Its holdings reflect the collection strengths of the Museum. One of the most distinctive features of the Library is its auction catalogue collection, with international coverage of art auctions dating from 1756 through the present. The Museum also owns extensive archival and research collections relating to the work of Marcel Duchamp, and comprehensive exhibition records and bibliographies which document works produced by Thomas Eakins and his Circle. Other special collections include the the libraries of noted collectors, John G. Johnson and Otto von Kienbusch.

The Museum's Archives house Records of the Corporation; the Directors of the Museum; the Curatorial Departments; the Service Divisions; the Administrative Services; the Schools; and records of related institutions and organizations. Includealso are personal papers of Edwin Atlee Barber, Fiske Kimball and George Grey Barnard; and the Archives of American Art/Carl Zigrosser Collection of artists' letters, papers, signatures and photographs. Special Format records include scrapbooks, bound volumes and photographs.

The Library is also responsible for the book and periodical collection housed in the Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs. In addition to this fine documentary research library, the Department's accessioned objects include numerous livres d'artists, illustrated books, and a significant rare book collection, as well as the Museum's well-known collection of more than 140,000 works of art on paper. Access to all of the aforementioned collections may be arranged through the Library.

[Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

Presbyterian Historical Society
Organized in 1852, the Presbyterian Historical Society is the oldest such denominational organization in the United States and serves as the national archives for the Presbyterian Church (U. S. A.). Its holdings include more than 180,000 titles reflecting the history of the Presbyterian tradition in America. Special holdings include 16th-century works by and about John Calvin and other Reformers, as well as extensive materials on British Presbyterianism.

The archival holdings consist of approximately 16,000 cu. ft. of official records and personal papers. These include records of congregations, presbyteries, synods, and General Assembly agencies of the current and some predecessor Presbyterian and Reformed denominations in America. These are supplemented by the personal papers of significant Presbyterians, with a particular emphasis on mission history in this country and abroad. The Society also serves as the archives for ecumenical organizations including the Federal and National Council of Churches and the American Sunday School Union. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

Rosenbach Museum & Library
The Rosenbach Museum & Library was founded upon collections acquired in the first half of this century by Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach and his brother Philip, preeminent dealers in rare books, manuscripts, and art. No longer a private library, the Rosenbach is today a public institution serving a broad audience. Since opening to the public in 1954, collections have grown to include 30,000 rare books, 300,000 manuscripts, 20,000 works of art on paper, 500 paintings, and 350 decorative art objects.

The collections are especially strong in Americana, British and American literature, and book illustration, and include treasures noted for extraordinary significance, rarity, and physical condition. Largest among its collections are the papers of Modernist poet Marianne Moore, illustrator Maurice Sendak, and the Rosenbach Company itself.

The Museum and Library are housed in the brothers' elegantly-appointed 19th-century town home, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Visitors are welcomed into a personal world where great collectors lived among their collections. The Rosenbach expanded into the townhouse adjoining it at 2008 Delancey Place to create new storage facilities, a second gallery, and a new reading room. The same project saw the restoration of the original Rosenbach home. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

St. Charles Borromeo Seminary
The Rare Book Collection consists of 25,000 volumes, including 27 incunabula. Collection strengths are in 16th through 18th-century works in theology and philosophy, ecclesiastical history and law, science, literature, geography and history, early Americana, and 19th-century works in literature and Irish history. There are 20th-century works of special significance to the seminary and the Philadelphia area.

The Fine Arts Collection of approximately 200 paintings includes works by Annibale Carracci, Francis Martin Drexel, Thomas Eakins, Henry Fuseli, and John Nagle. Contemporary artists are represented in the Graphic Art Collection, which numbers over 300 prints and specializes in works by Philadelphia area printmakers. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

Swarthmore College Library
The Special Collections are concentrated in the Friends Historical Library, established in 1871, with research collections on Quaker history and doctrine; Indian rights, women's rights, and abolition of slavery; Quaker activity in literature, science, business education, and government. Holdings include more than 39,000 books, 1,800 serial volumes, 2,500 microfilm reels, 4,000 volumes of Quaker meeting records, 275 manuscript collections, and numerous pictures and artifacts. In addition there is the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, established in 1930, encompassing the history of the peace movement, conscientious objection, pacifism, arms control and disarmament, nonviolence, internationalism, and civil disobedience. The collection contains nearly 155 major document groups, approximately 2,000 smaller collective document groups, over 12,000 catalogued books and pamphlets, 400 periodicals currently received, and 1,500 microfilm reels.

Other significant holdings are: the Bathe Collection on the history of technology (1,000 volumes); and materials on James Thomson (400 volumes); William Wordsworth (200 volumes); W. H. Auden (500 volumes); British Americana, including accounts of British travelers in the United States (1,500 volumes); Private Presses, reflecting the output of the private press in Great Britain and the United States (5,000 volumes); Swarthmoreana (7,000 volumes); and other smaller groups of miscellaneous rare, illustrated, and decorated books (5,000 volumes). [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

Temple University Library
With 1,800,000 volumes the Temple University Library is the second largest academic library in the Delaware Valley. Its Special Collections reflect 20th-century urban studies and include 80,000 printed books, twenty million photographic images, and 20,000 cubic feet of archives.

The Urban Archives Center contains post-Civil War local social, educational, political, and labor history; maps, atlases, pamphlets, and photographs, including the collections of The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Evening Bulletin. The University Archives include papers of founder Russell H. Conwell and of faculty, staff, alumni, and the University Press.

The Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection is an extensive research collection of books, pamphlets, manuscripts, music, broadsides, and artifacts of African, Caribbean, and Afro-American life.

The Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection consists of English, American, and French literature, horticulture and landscape gardening, history of business and accounting, and English religious and parliamentary history. The Graphic Arts Collection includes fine printing and printing history. Other strengths are the Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection and the Contemporary Culture Collection of social protest, small press, and alternative publications 1960s-1980s. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

University of Delaware Library
Holdings of the Special Collections Department of the University of Delaware Library include approximately 200, 000 books, serials, and other printed items, nearly 4,500 linear feet of manuscripts, as well as significant collections of historic maps, prints, photographs, broadsides, periodicals, pamphlets, ephemera, and realia from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. The collections complement the Library's general collections with particular strengths in the subject areas of the arts; French, English, Irish, and American literature; history and Delawareana; the history of printing and publishing; horticulture and landscape design; and the history of science and technology. The University of Delaware Archives is separately administered and comprises university records and history of the institution. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

University of Pennsylvania Library
With approximately 250,000 printed books and nearly ten million pieces of manuscript material, the Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library is a small part of the University's 5 million-volume library system. The Rare Book and Manuscript Library serves faculty and students across the Penn campus and around the world. Special strengths include American literature, drama, and history; English, Spanish, Italian, and German literature; the Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Collection in the history of chemistry; the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library devoted to Shakespeare and his contemporaries; and the Henry Charles Lea Library with strengths in Church history, the Inquisition, magic, and witchcraft.

Manuscript collections include materials from the 12th through 20th centuries, with notable archives of the works of such moderns as Theodore Dreiser, James T. Farrell, Lewis Mumford, and Marian Anderson. Highly specialized collections include the works of Jonathan Swift, Aristotle editions and commentaries, both printed and manuscript, up to 1700; the Curtis Collection of Benjamin Franklin's printing; and the output of the Dutch firm of Elzevir from the 16th through the 18th centuries.

In addition to Annenberg, there are important special collections in other Penn libraries. The Center for Judaic Studies holds thousands of volumes of rare manuscript and printed judaica; the Fine Arts Library contains a large and important collection of books on architecture; and the University Museum Library has notable strengths in rare materials relating to the history of anthropology. The School of Nursing maintains an extensive nursing archive, and the University Archives document the history of the University going back to the mid-eighteenth century. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

Villanova University, Falvey Memorial Library
The Special Collections of Villanova University's Falvey Memorial Library are comprised of some15,000 printed volumes along with papers and historical records. Notable sub-collections include holdings in Augustiana, European imprints to 1800, the Hubbard Collection (works by Elbert G. Hubbard and works printed at the Roycrafter Press), the McGarrity Collection on Irish History and Irish-American relations, incunabula, find bindings, Cuala Press and Dolmen Press chapbooks and broadsides, North American imprints to 1820, and Villanovana. . The Library also hosts the university archives as well as the office and collections of the Augustinian Historical Institute, which is dedicated to the heritage of the Augustinian Order. The Library is actively acquiring rare items in Irish history and Irish-American relations and also in the area of Augustinian studies. Current projects include the digitization of the weekly Irish Press newspapers (published in Philadelphia in 1818-1822) and the investigation of a cooperative digitization program to build a "virtual collection" of illuminated manuscripts with Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

Wagner Free Institute of Science
The Institute, a natural history museum and educational institution, incorporated in 1855. Its free public education courses on science, begun in the 1840s, are the oldest program devoted to free adult education in the United States. The holdings of the Library of the Wagner Free Institute of Science mirror the Institute's mission. The Library holds a rich and unique collection of nineteenth century English and American works devoted to the teaching of science and technology as well as extensive collections of published university and public school syllabi and course lectures, and foreign science periodicals. Subjects include the natural and physical sciences, education, medicine, archaeology and anthropology, the pseudo-sciences, instrument building, photography, and engineering.

The printed materials collection contains 45,000 volumes of monographs and serials as well as glass lantern slides, maps, prints and photographs dating from the seventeenth century to the present day. The archival and manuscripts collection, 500 ln. ft in volume, contains the early nineteenth century personal and business records of the founder, William Wagner, including extensive documentation of shipping businesses. Research papers and correspondence of many of the Institute's distinguished faculty and staff, including Joseph Leidy, Edward Drinker Cope, and William Berryman Scott are also part of this collection as well as drawings and teaching charts. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]

Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library
The Winterthur Library is a research center for the study of American art and material culture whose resources for advanced study include more than 70,000 volumes and approximately 500,000 manuscripts and visual images. The holdings in the rare book collection are particularly strong for architecture and design pattern books, American and British manufacturers' and retailers' trade catalogues, descriptions of craft techniques, advice literature, periodicals that promote or describe lifestyles, and city directories and design. Notable collections include the Waldron Phoenix Belknap, Jr., Research Library of American Painting, whose manuscripts holdings sketchbooks, drawings, journals and letters of Thomas Sully, Albert Bierstadt, and Joseph Pennell, among others; the Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts & Printed Ephemera relating to American craftsmen and artists, architecture and decorative arts made or used in America; and the Edward Deming Andrews Memorial Shaker Collection. The Winterthur Archives include the papers of Henry Francis du Pont and his father, Colonel Henry Algernon du Pont, Winterthur Farm records, and the early administrative records of the museum. The Decorative Arts Photographic Collection contains more than 150,000 photographs of decorative art objects made or used in America prior to 1914 and located in both public and private collections throughout the United States and Europe. [Web Site] [Directory Listing] [Return to Index]