University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

Otto Edwin Albrecht (1899-1984) was an internationally known music bibliographer and professor of romance languages and musicology at the University of Pennsylvania. This collection documents his professional career and contains extensive information on his research relating to the history of music in Boston, New York and Philadelphia, the location of European music manuscripts in the United States, and his work identifying sources for Répertoire International des Sources Musicales; his work with music organizations including the American Musicological Society and the Music Library Association; and his work at and for the University of Pennsylvania's Music Library.

John Bach McMaster (1852-1932) was an American writer and professor best known for his landmark history of the United States, A History of the People of the United States, which appeared in eight volumes from 1883 to 1913. McMaster’s historical technique was notable in its use of newspaper material and his insistence on providing social context from all classes, not simply the political leaders of the time. This collection contains correspondence, writings by McMaster, material used by McMaster in his research, and personal material, such as newspaper clippings of his life and work, testimonials by colleagues, and memorabilia.

Arthur Hobson Quinn (1875-1960) was a professor and dean of English and History at the University of Pennsylvania and an internationally recognized authority on the history of American drama. This collection contains material representative of Quinn’s entire professional life: correspondence, manuscripts of books and articles, lecture notes, reviews of contemporary plays, his collection of playbills and libretti, and material related to his research on Edgar Allan Poe and the American realist playwright James A. Herne.

Felix E. Schelling (1858-1945) was a professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, an expert on Shakespeare, and an author of scholarly works on Shakespeare and Elizabethan literature. This collection documents Schelling's life as a student, a professor, a scholar, and an author. It also documents the University of Pennsylvania through the eyes of an individual who was a student and a faculty member over a period of more than fifty years.

This collection contains material related to the professional, academic, and personal life of John Louis Haney (1877-1960), a high school principal, scholar, and book collector. It contains correspondence; research notes on various topics; and manuscript drafts of essays, talks, and radio transcripts, as well as an inventory of his library and journals concerning his undergraduate and graduate education.

Thomas Sovereign Gates, Sr. (1873-1948), a Philadelphia native and University of Pennsylvania alumnus, served as the first president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1930 to 1944. The collections consists of 36 volumes of scrapbooks containing newspaper clippings, programs, and ephemera, largely dating from the years immediately preceding Gates' presidency at the University of Pennsylvania through his death in 1948.

The General Administration Collection Post-1820 documents the institutional and education activities of the University of Pennsylvania from its founding in 1820 to roughly 1900 with some later material included. The Collection was created primarily from records of the Provost, Secretary, and Deans of the Universitiy of Pennsylvania.

The Frazer Family Papers span over 200 years of an American family. The collection provides insight into five generations of University of Pennsylvania alum as well as three generations of educators, all in the field of chemistry, at the University of Pennsylvania and contains the papers of Persifor Frazer, Robert Frazer, John Fries Frazer, Persifor Frazer, Robert Frazer, John Frazer, John Frazer, Jr., and Tench Frazer, as well as a range of other family members and relatives. The collection is particularly strong in representing the professional and personal activities of Persifor Frazer (1844-1909) and his son John Frazer (1882-1964) from the 1860s to the 1950s.

Horace Clark Richards graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with an A.B. degree in 1888, and a Ph.D. in Physics in 1891. With the exception of a one-year appointment at Byrn Mawr in 1892-93, Richards spent his career (1890 – 1945) at Penn. The Horace Clark Richards Papers pertains to Richards' involvement in the University of Pennsylvania as a student and as a professor and alumnus.

The Clark and Madeira Family Papers offers a perspective on the personal, social, and professional lives of a rich and vibrant upper class Philadelphia family in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. It is reflective their affection for learning, travel as well as their undying affection for each other.