University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

The Edwin Forrest Collection provides some documentation of the business career of Edwin Forrest (nineteenth-century American actor, noted for his Shakespearean roles), focusing in the main on the latter part of his career (the 1860s and 1870s). Though some private personal correspondence is housed in the collection, predominant is correspondence concerning various aspects of Forrest's finances; these are arranged by major investments or interests.

This collection primarily contains material relating to contract negotiations between General Electric (GE) and the International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE) and the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), and the resulting case before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Northrup used this material to examine GE's employee relations policies and the implications of Boulwarism for two articles and a subsequent book. Also included in the collection is a box of personal and financial correspondence belonging to Lemuel R. Boulware and Northrup's business correspondence when he worked in the private sector as a consultant, as well as his time at GE.

Some personal papers of Leopold Stokowski, including correspondence to and from Stokowski, notebooks, calendars, bank statements, royalty statements, insturance records, and contracts; this includes some correspondence and contracts related to Stokowski’s tenure as conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra (bulk 1937-1946). Also includes writings by and about Stokowski, obituaries, programs, photographs, scrapbooks, clippings, awards, memorabilia, and issues of three newsletters devoted to Stokowski. Also includes administrative correspondence of the former curator of the Leopold Stokowski Collection at the Curtis Institute of Music, Dr. Edwin E. Heilakka, 1980-1994.

The Marian Anderson Papers are comprised of correspondence; business records and contracts; manuscript and typescript biographical materials; notes, journals, calendars, and financial documents; programs and publicity materials; awards and honorary degrees; clippings; scrapbooks; memorabilia; and some materials belonging to her sisters Alyse Anderson and Ethel De Preist, her mother Anna D. Anderson, and her husband, Orpheus H. Fisher. As a result of a Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) project, " Discovering Marian Anderson," selections of material from this and other Marian Anderson collections may be viewed online.

The Bates Center's Small Collections are various, unrelated accessions that have been individually assigned collection numbers. Many of the Small Collections consist of a single folder.

In the 1960s, the Philadelphia Orchestra was led by music director Eugene Ormandy (1899-1985), who, with his predecessor, Leopold Stokowski, brought the Philadelphia Orchestra to international attention. The concert promoter, Oscar Humberto Alcazar Vega, determinedly spent five years planning for the Philadelphia Orchestra to tour Central and South America. This collection documents the Philadelphia Orchestra's 1966 Latin American Tour and includes material created and collected during the planning, from 1961 to 1966, as well as the tour which took place from May to June 1966.

Samuel Day (born 1806 or 1807 in Middlesex, England) owned and operated his own business, S. Day Pastrycook and Confectioner, Fancy Bread & Biscuit Maker, located in Strood and Rochester, Kent County, England. This collection includes Day’s contract of indenture, apprenticeship rules, recipes, and detailed records of clients' orders dating from 1850 to 1873.

Contains 22 series, including correspondence (118 boxes); legal matters (7 boxes); writings (260 boxes), comprising books, essays, short stories, poems, plays, screenplays, radio scripts, addresses, lectures, interviews, introductions, and prefaces; journals edited by Dreiser (6 boxes); notes (9 boxes); diaries (5 boxes); biographical material (1 box); memorabilia (41 boxes), comprising scrapbooks, photographs (many of which are available online), art work, promotional material, postcards, and miscellanea; financial records (5 boxes); clippings (23 boxes); works by others (12 boxes); and oversize materials (2 boxes). Also includes materials regarding various family members: brother Paul Dresser (8 boxes of correspondence, sheet music and lyric sheets, clippings and memorabilia, and two plays written by Dresser); second wife Helen Dreiser (4 boxes of diaries and other writings); and niece Vera Dreiser (2 boxes of correspondence).

Vera Dreiser (circa 1908-1998) was a psychologist who practiced first in New York from 1947 to 1961, and later in California until her retirement in 1972. She is the niece of novelist Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) and of composer Paul Dresser (1858-1906). This collection is comprised of materials from Vera Dreiser’s personal and professional life as well as materials related to the musical and literary estates of Paul Dresser and Theodore Dreiser.

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.

An oversize volume comprising the contracts and receipts of payment for the construction of the Wrightsville to York Railroad line spanning one year from 1836 to 1837.