University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

The Beasley family papers are comprised largely of documents relating to three generations of Beasleys who lived in the vicinity of Philadelphia in the nineteenth century: Frederick Beasley (1777-1845), Frederick Williamson Beasley (1808-1878), and Frederick Williamson Beasley, Jr. (1845-1873). The collection includes letters, certificates, published works of the Beasleys, memorabilia from the University of Pennsylvania, guidebooks to the city of Philadelphia, and auction catalogues relating to the interests of the Beasley and Bancker families. The collection includes items with dates ranging from 1802 to 1929, with the bulk of the material falling between 1822 and 1899.

Charles Godfrey Leland (1824-1903) was a humorist and folklorist from Philadelphia. The collection consists of fourteen illustrated letters written to George Henry Boker which document one year of Leland's trip to Europe from 1869 to 1870; transcriptions of the letters; and an article by donor and scholar Sculley Bradley about the collection.

Collection of various documents, mostly from 1830-1870, relating to a distillery located in Annecy, France.

Captain George A. Q. Miller was a Civil War veteran and a special agent in the United States Post Office Department during the 1870s. This collection, consisting of correspondence, a photograph, and a scrapbook of clippings and notes documents Miller's life, his career in the postal service and as an early proponent of the Civil Service Commission, and his uncertain position within the post-Civil War federal government.

Gordon Alexander Block (1885-1964) was a Philadelphia lawyer and collector of Lincoln documents and memorabilia. The collection includes twenty-three documents either signed by Lincoln or in his hand including a number of pleadings and court documents from his years as a lawyer in Illinois. The collection also contains a variety of ephemera from the Civil War era, including campaign ribbons and songbooks from 1860 and 1864 as well as broadsides, ribbons, and mourning cards issued after Lincoln’s assassination. In addition, researchers will find a rich selection of visual representations of Lincoln in the collection, including lithographs, prints, photographs, and engravings of the sixteenth president.

The H.H. Furness Memorial Library focuses on the study of Shakespeare and other Tudor and Stuart dramatists. Horace Howard Furness (1833-1912) and his son Horace Howard Furness Jr. (1865-1930) founded and edited the Variorum Shakespeare and their library was donated to the University of Pennsylvania in 1932. This collection contains personal correspondence to and from Rev. William Henry Furness (1802-1896), Horace Howard Furness, and Horace Howard Furness, Jr., largely relating to Shakespearean study and the H.H. Furness Memorial library; notebooks; copies of speeches and articles; and other assorted items relating to Shakespearean scholarship or to the Furness family.

John Scott (1824-1896) was an American lawyer who served as U.S. senator from Pennsylvania from 1868 to 1875. The collection consists of letters written to him by colleagues and private citizens, and several of them feature Scott's shorthand reply.

Comprises material relating to the production of German-language plays in Philadelphia, predominantly in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Material includes printed and manuscript plays with annotations, which served as prompt books; manuscript scenarios; lists of props, as well as a few actual props; role books; librettos; musical scores; playbills; and selected issues of German-language theater newspapers published in Philadelphia. Also includes a catalog of the Theater-Leihbibliothek, handwritten by Theodor Bloch, owner of the lending library.

The Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection is a fluid one, consisting of manuscripts that are unidentified or too small for their own collection. Each sub-collection within the group is given a Miscellaneous Manuscript Number which corresponds to the collection.

This is a collection of miscellaneous music material, including manuscript scores, printed scores, and printed sheet music. In addition to the music material, there is a letter and a photograph which were sent to Benedict Nenninger.

The son of Thomas McCredy and Emma Dolores Wilson, Richard Wilson McCredy (1854-1924) was an iron merchant and alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania (Class of 1874). A gift by McCredy, this scrapbook consists of a collection of about 750 playbills and programs from Philadelphia and New York City, arranged in chronological order and pasted onto a volume of more than 200 pages.

Robert H. Gere (1859-1928) was a senior partner at Gere & Church law firm and an active member of the First Presbyterian Church of Syracuse, NY. He graduated from Syracuse University in 1883 with a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy and from Syracuse University Law School in 1898. Before beginning his law career, Gere spent thirteen years working as a news reporter. He married Harriet Sexsmith Gere in 1893 and together they had a daughter, Katharine. This collection contains materials dating between 1752 and 1883 and includes two diaries belonging to Robert H. Gere; a book entitled "Genealogy of the Geer Family," in which the lines of George and Thomas Geer are traced from 1621 to 1856; a single leaf from a math copybook that includes a note in pencil dating it to 1752; an oversize copy of The Luzerne Federalist; and the Susquehanna Intelligencer (a local periodical); and an unused travel accounts book.

This collection contains correspondence between Robert Montgomery Bird, his wife Mary E. Bird, their son Frederic Mayer Bird, and other family members. It provides accounts of daily life in New Castle, Delaware and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the 19th century.

The "Theatricals in Philadelphia" scrapbooks consists of a set of 15 scrapbooks on theatrical subjects and contains programs, playbills, newspaper clippings, images, and portraits of artists of the stage, dating from the second half of the 19th century. These materials mostly relate to theaters and other performing venues located in Philadelphia, although there are also some items from New York, Boston, and other U.S. cities. Because of its extent (about 3,500 pages), its chronological and geographical focus, the richness of its materials, and the breadth of theatrical genres covered in the scrapbooks, this collection represents a unique and invaluable resource for anyone interested in the theatrical and cultural history of Philadelphia in the second half of the 19th century.

Materials include correspondence to, from, and concerning Walt Whitman; financial records; writings by and about Whitman; and memorabilia, such as sketches, photographs, and portraits of Whitman, his family, his friends, and his homes.

The collection documents Pepper’s role in expanding the University of Pennsylvania in the 19th century, his contributions to the medical profession, and his activism in Philadelphia. Primarily comprising correspondence, the collection covers Pepper’s life from a student at the University of Pennsylvania to his death 54 years later.