Notable Collections

The Banned Books Collection includes 210 titles printed in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s that were banned from sale and condemned by authorities for their sexual content. All are in their original dust jackets. A number of American presses, notably the Jack Woodford Press, are represented. The collection provides a useful window into U.S. underground publishing and book marketing in the mid-twentieth century.

The Benjamin Franklin Papers (over 800 items) include correspondence and documents, 1705-1788, primarily relating to Franklin's stay in France during the American Revolution and his role in the negotiations between France and the Continental Congress. Some earlier documents and printed materials are also part of the collection.

A pioneering, controversial doctor, chemist, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush (1746-1813) spent much of his career as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Berendt-Brinton Linguistic Collection is an important repository of Indigenous language materials and other documents, primarily from colonial-era Central America.

The Penn Libraries hold a collection of more than 600 medieval manuscript fragments from the Cairo Genizah.