The Library collects contemporary works by African-American authors in all formats and genres, including genre fiction (science fiction, fantasy, detective novels, thrillers, etc.), novels, play scripts, comic books and graphic novels. Musical recordings, television shows, feature films, and documentaries by and featuring African Americans are also well represented.
One of the most popular and actively researched sub-genres today is Afrofuturism, and our collection is strong and growing.
The American Musicological Society's purpose is to advance scholarship in the various fields of music through research, learning, and teaching. They were founded in 1943, reflecting trends in musicological scholarship and academic training through the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Penn holds the administrative records, oral history documentation, journal production records, and more.
Beginning in 1945 with the acquisition of the Theodore Dreiser Papers, the Penn Libraries has maintained collecting strengths in modern American manuscripts. Recent acquisitions including the Gotham Book Mart Collection, have added depth and breadth. This page provides an overview of major collections of interest to students and scholars in American studies.
At the University of Pennsylvania, holdings relating to art and architecture may be found in the Anne and Jerome Fisher Fine Arts Library; the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania; the University Archives and Records Center; and in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts.
Renowned artist, writer, storyteller, children's book creator, and humanitarian Ashley Bryan created thousands of drawings, paintings, collages, and linoleum block prints over the course of his long and productive life. His archive, containing hundreds of original works documenting his career, was donated to the University of Pennsylvania Libraries in 2019.
The Caroline F. Schimmel Fiction Collection of Women in the American Wilderness comprises over 6,000 works of fiction by women writers, including novels, short stories, poetry, works by Native American authors, travel writings, narratives of polar expeditions, captivity narratives, and works for children. The Collection was donated in 2014 to the Penn Libraries by Penn alumna Caroline Schimmel (CW’67) and has been augmented by subsequent gifts.
The Chef Fritz Blank Culinary Archive and Library is a major resource for the study of the culinary arts and sciences. It includes several thousand cookbooks and cookery-related books, spanning the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries, with emphasis on the modern era. Also in the collection are manuscripts and personal papers; popular ephemera and magazines; menus; community cookbooks; and memorabilia.