Notable Collections

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 Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Collection is devoted to the history of chemistry and collects broadly in that field, emphasizing periods prior to 1900.

From 1583 to 1712, the Dutch firm of Elzevier (sometimes written Elsevier or Elzevir), with additional offices in France and Scandinavia, published a wide variety of books, and notably small-format books, for circulation throughout Europe.

This webpage provides an overview of special collections in the Penn Libraries relevant to the study of the environment and ecology, presented thematically across a broad range of historical time and geographic space.

The Fairman Rogers Collection at the University of Pennsylvania consists of over 1,000 titles, primarily focused on Rogers' interest in horses. It serves as a foundation for scholarly study of the role of the horse in the technical, scientific, and social evolution of nineteenth-century Europe and North America.

This broad collection includes twentieth-century pamphlets and periodicals from across the political spectrum.

The Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection includes nearly three hundred manuscripts and documents ranging in date from ca. 1900BC to the 20th century, with particular focus on the eras of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Lewis Mumford was one of the foremost American intellectuals of the twentieth century.