- American studies, history, and literature: Modern period
- American studies, history, and literature: North America, colonial era to ca. 1800
- Area Studies Collections
- Arthur Huff Fauset collection
- Banned Books Collection
- Benjamin Rush collections
- Black Panther Party research materials
- Caroline F. Schimmel Fiction Collection of Women in the American Wilderness
- Dechert Collection
- Eadweard Muybridge collections
- Fez Lithographs Collection
- Francis Hopkinson collections
- Freedoms Foundation political pamphlet and periodical collection
- Gondi-Medici Business Records (Medici-Gondi Archive)
- Henry Charles Lea Library
- Holy Land Collections
- Indo-Caribbean Collection
- Judaica Collections
- Kislak Center Finding Aids
- Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection
- Maclure Collection of French Revolutionary Materials
- Marian Anderson Collection
- Mary Binney Wheeler Image Collection
- Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts (Kislak Center)
- Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia collections
- National Biography
- Philadelphia Imprints: Philadelphiana
- Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture (PSPA)
- Printing and publishing history
- Ross Bible Collection
- Seybert Collections on Modern Spiritualism
- Short Title Catalogue (STC) Collection of early English printed books to 1640
- Spanish Literature, Culture and Politics: 20th century
- Thomas G. Waldman collection of books on medieval history
- University Archives
- World War I collections
History Collection
The overall quality of the Library's history collection is high, capable of supporting graduate-level research across a wide range of historical topics.
Overview
The history and U.S. history funds purchase material covering these areas:
- post-European contact United States
- post-European contact Canada
- non-Hispanic Caribbean
- post-medieval Europe (other than the Iberian Peninsula and Slavic Eastern Europe)
- Oceania
- trans-regional history
Historical material purchased by other funds include: Classics, Medieval Studies, Area Studies, Anthropology and Archaeology, the History of Art, Africana Studies, History and Sociology of Science and Religion.
Collection Description
The overall quality of the Library's history collection is high, capable of supporting graduate-level research across a wide range of historical topics. The bulk of the monographic collection consists of English language material pertaining to the United States and Western Europe and published by university or scholarly press publishers. The history collection also consists of large numbers of books in German, French, Spanish, and Italian. Strong collections of African, Asian, and Slavic language material are included in Area Studies collections. The default format for new acquisitions in history is ebook, although many books are purchased in print, and the great majority of the historical collection is in print. Beyond this core, the Library purchases material widely but not comprehensively. The Borrow Direct and EZ-Borrow services are especially important for supplementing the Libraries' collections of foreign language material, local interest publications, specialty publishers, popular periodicals, regions not collected heavily by the libraries (Canada and Oceania, for example), and primary sources.
A strong collection of online scholarly journals in English and Romance Languages is supplemented by print journals at Penn and by journals that are available through interlibrary loan. There is a significant collection of documentaries and fictional videos on DVD and streaming formats, and strong image collections, as well as extensive coverage of available electronic primary source databases, which provide access to historical collections of books, magazines, archives, manuscripts, personal narratives, and related material.
Accordion List
- Charles D. Dickey, Jr. Fund
- Charles J. Stille Fund
- Dorothy Mann Yeakel & Paul Herbert Yeakel Memorial Fund
- Dr. Ada H. Lewis Book Fund
- Ella E. and Herman V. Ames Fund
- Henry Putney Beers Memorial Fund
- Hiram G. Haney Fund for Biography and History
- Maryann B. Sudo CW'63 & John B. Baxter, Jr., Fund for American History
- McWilliams-Tattersall Fund
- Sylvia W. Kauders Fund for Presidential History
- William E. Lingelbach Fund