University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

The Bancroft family lived in the Frankford neighborhood of Philadelphia. This collection includes personal papers from sisters Bessie and Marie, as well as Bessie’s diary for the year 1904. Business papers from their uncles Addison and Henry, who were in the real estate and insurance businesses respectively, are also included. Addison Bancroft’s lease papers reflect a professional relationship with George W. Childs.

A collection comprising seven American autograph albums spanning the years from 1873 to 1940.

Edward William Bok was a publisher who came to the United States from the Netherlands with his parents at the age of six. This collection contains correspondence to Bok from various writers and actors spanning the years 1881 to 1913.

This collection contains letters from Lewis and Sophia Mumford to Evelyn Manuel Huber, Lewis Mumford's cousin once removed. The letters date from 1959 to 1993 and document the private and professional activities of Lewis and Sophia Mumford. A family photo album of the Baron, Huber and Mumford families is also included.

James DePreist (1936-2013) was an African-American conductor of international renown. This collection primarily documents James DePreist's conducting career, with a focus on the 1980s and 1990s with the Oregon Symphony, including organizational records, concert programs, press coverage, scores, and recordings.

James Terrence McCabe (1890-1975) served in the United States Army during World War I. This collection contains letters to and from McCabe, his family, fiancée, and neighbors, primarily written between July 1918 and August 1919, during his service as a private with the American Expeditionary Forces.

A small collection of papers by Louis A. Mátos comprising a compilation of chemical formulas and preparations for apothecary use spanning the years from 1887 to 1907. The collection consists six folders. Folder 1 is a volume of pharmaceutical formulas. Folders 2-5 contain printed ephemera, handwritten formulas and clippings.

The Mitchell and Day family papers contain two bound manuscripts, dated between 1889 and 1965, which directly pertain to these prominent Philadelphia families. The first volume is a play written by Langdon Elywn Mitchell, and the second is a family history written by George Valentine Massey II, referencing Kenneth Mackenzie Day and Helena Mary Langdon Mitchell Day as the primary figures of his historical research.

The Sophia Wittenberg Mumford papers contain, correspondence, writings, diaries, photographs, memorabilia, audio-visual material, financial and legal material documenting the private and public life of Sophia and her husband Lewis Mumford. A large majority of this collection is remnants of Lewis Mumford's papers that remained in their house upon his death in 1990 and were finally transferred to the University of Pennsylvania after her death in 1997.

Collection contains 54 boxes of professional and family correspondence; 68 boxes of writings by Brooks, including typescripts, galleys, and notes for books, articles, prefaces, and addresses, as well as juvenalia, diaries, and notebooks; and 20 boxes of memorabilia, photographs, and newspaper clippings.

The papers document the literary career and the personal and professional life of twentieth-century American novelist and writer Waldo David Frank. Comprising correspondence, writings, publicity, writings by others, memorabilia, photographs, scrapbooks, and clippings spanning from 1879 to 1977, the collection contains 132 boxes and 3565 folders. The correspondence documents Frank's personal and professional relationships with writers, editors, artists, friends, and family. Letters from friendships with other writers and artists such as Jean Toomer, Sherwood Anderson, Alfred Stieglitz, Lewis Mumford, Van Wyck Brooks, and Hart Crane document congenial collaborations, sharing of ideas, and disagreements. The writings contain his notebooks, major works, articles, essays, and early writings tracing Frank's works and ideas of society and culture with psychological and social themes of man and his environment. Frank's passion for the culture and study of Spain, Latin America, and Mexico is apparent in correspondence and his research, preserved through notes and photographs of South America and Mexico. Letters and photographs display Frank's relationships with family members, his wives (Margaret Naumburg, Alma Magoon Frank, and Jean Klempner Frank) and his children. The materials in this collection divulge not only the writings of Waldo Frank, but the struggles of the writer and his encounters with himself and society as he seeks his vision of truth in the world. He was courageous in the face of his critics and his political enemies even when experiencing both written and physical attacks. Even though Frank claimed he was an outsider he was embraced by the people and cultures he championed and studied. Although largely forgotten by the end of his lifetime, his correspondence, writings, and ideas remain, providing insight into literary circles, political ideas, and historical events in the United States and Latin America during the early- to mid-twentieth century.

A scrapbook comprising printing samples created by William Aiken Kneeland. He began his printing business named the Amateur Publishing Company at the age of 12 in 1897 and produced his last printed item in 1904.