
Academy
of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
The Library was established at the Academy's founding in 1812. It
is today one of the world's major natural science research facilities.
Its 200,000 volumes include classics of pre-Linnean natural history,
major journals (and many obscure ones); most of the grand illustrated
folios from Catesby, Redouté, Audubon, and Gould to D.G. Elliot,
Bateman, and Sibthorp; and the basic works in systematic and taxonomic
biology. Other strengths include geology, evolution, ecology, marine
biology, and comparative biochemistry.
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.
[Web
Site] [Directory Listing]
[Return to Index]
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.
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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.
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