University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

This collection contains records relating to the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia. Materials include historical accounts, administrative records, board minutes, annual reports, correspondence, and photographs.

A gift of historian of pharmacy and medicine Dr. William H. Helfand, this collection of ex-votos and devotional paintings on medical subjects offers insight into Mexican religious folk practices. Ex-votos are votive paintings usually hung in churches and religious venues as a sign of gratitude for received blessings or healings. The collection includes ex-votos dated between 1868 and 2002 and dedicated to Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, Saint Anthony of Padua, Saint James the Moor-slayer, Saint Paschal Baylon, Saint Barbara, Saint Judas Thaddeus, Saint Nicholas, and Saint Cosmas.

Willaim Edmonds Horner was dean of the Medical School of Pennsylvania (1822-1852), Professor of Anatomy (1831-1853), and wrote the first pathology textbook published in the United States (Treatise on Pathological Anatomy, 1829). The Journals detail William Edmonds Horner's travels from the United States to Europe in 1821.

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 records of the Visiting Nurse Society of Philadelphia document a wide range of themes and issues in home nursing and the care of the indigent poor. The collection includes trustees' minutes, board correspondence, committee reports, and branch association files. Also included is a well documented collection of photographs.

The University of Pennsylvania Glee Club was founded in 1862 and is the university's oldest performing arts club. They have performed all across the United States and several international locations. The University of Pennsylvania Glee Club records document several decades’ worth of this all-male singing group’s activities both on and off campus.

John W. Townsend graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with an A.B. in 1875, and went on to a career as an industry executive and capitalist as well as a local historian. The Townsend Collection contains documents ranging in date from 1726 to 1933. The vast majority of these items belonged to John W. Townsend. These papers trace local and national history through John W. Townsend's personal, family and business interests.

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 "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.

Company compiled reference library of dental equipment.

This collection consists primarily of documents concerning government administration in Ireland during the tenures of Sir Robert Southwell (1635-1702) and his son Edward Southwell (1671-1730) as Secretaries of State for Ireland. The documents here are largely miscellaneous in nature but are clustered around a few themes. Highlights include lists of rents and financial transactions from the period after Cromwell’s invasion and before the Williamite war in Ireland, a 1689 eyewitness letter recounting the battle of Derry, a series of documents related to admiralty, smuggling, and collecting maritime revenue in the first decade of the eighteenth century, an inventory of maps of Ireland, and a substantive series of petitions relating to Richard Blake of Ardfry.

This collection includes material collected by Siegfried Weisbeger (1896-1984), proprietor of the Peabody Book Shop in Baltimore Maryland and confidante of H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), a noted writer, editor, and social provocateur, famous for his disdain for common morals and received wisdom. The collection contains correspondence between the two men and other correspondents of the Peabody Book Shop, manuscripts and published writings by and about Mencken (many of them signed), and autobiographical writings and poems written by Weisberger.

The School of Dental Medicine Student Records document the academic careers of students who attended the school from its founding in 1879 to 1969.

The Dental School Library Historical Collection documents the development of dental education in the University of Pennsylvania from the time the University created its dental department to the present.

Sanford Sorkin graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 1963 with an interest in collecting stamps and other items of philatelic value. The collection consists of correspondence, miscellaneous documents, and ephemera such as postcards, tradecards, and stamped envelopes that Sorkin and his father collected more for their stamps and other evidence of early postal service than for their content. The materials are largely unrelated to one another aside from their philatelic interest.

The S. Weir Mitchell Correspondence series (23 folders)includes correspondence with James Lane Allen, Richard Watson Gilder, William Dean Howells, Robert Underwood Johnson, Henry C. Lea, James Russell Lowell, Charles Leonard Moore, and John Greenleaf Whittier. The remaining series comprise S. Weir Mitchell Writings (8 folders), including both medical and other writings; Langdon and Marion Mitchell Correspondence (5 folders); Langdon and Marion Mitchell Clippings (2 folders), primarily consisting of obituaries for Langdon Mitchell; Civil War Scrapbook (1 box); Photographs (2 boxes); S. Weir Mitchell Literary Writings (16 boxes)includes holographs of 5 novels, 2 plays, and a short story or novella.

Ruth Branning Molloy, a poet, writer, photographer, and Philadelphia historian, enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania in 1926. After earning a B.S. in education from Penn, Ruth Branning went to work for The Philadelphia Inquirer. The Ruth Branning Molloy Papers mostly document Mrs. Molloy's life in West Philadelphia and her association with her alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania.

The Roswell G. Lamb Papers document the early life of a University of Pennsylvania graduate and the daily life of a Delaware County and West Philadelphia resident from the 1870s to the 1910s.

Comprises personal, business, literary, and family papers. In addition to Bird's own papers, this collection includes papers of his wife Mary E. Bird, his son Frederic Mayer Bird, and his biographer Clement Edgar Foust. The earliest papers (1822) date from Bird's school days at Germantown Academy, and the very latest papers (1946) relate to C. Seymour Thompson's publication of Mary E. Bird's biography of her husband. Correspondents include men and women from Bird's career in medicine; his literary career; his theatrical career (including correspondence with Edwin Forrest, as well as the documentation regarding their legal battle over copyrights and profits); his political career; and his career in publishing and journalism.

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 Dechert family was involved in Philadelphia's legal, civic, and military history from the mid-nineteenth century through twentieth century. The Robert Dechert Family Papers primarily document the life of Robert Dechert, touching upon almost all of his activities.

The collection is divided into three major series: I. 18th and 19th century records, II. 20th century records, and III. John M. Okie papers. The first comprises correspondence, administrative records, and ephemera; the second, correspondence, committee records, financial records, proceedings, memorabilia, and collected agricultural material; the third consists of the papers of Okie, who served as assistant secretary of the Society from 1922 to 1928: he was responsible for the publication of Memoirs VI, a history of the P.S.P.A.

Percy Childs Madeira, Jr. graduated from Harvard University in 1910, and the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1913. Percy Madeira enlisted as a private in the First City Troop (or First Troop Philadelphia City Calvary) of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard during World War I. The fields of anthropology and archaeology were where Percy Madeira's passions lie. He returned the University of Pennsylvania in the 1930s to attend graduate school and received his master's degree in anthropology in 1933. The Percy C. Madeira, Jr. Papers document his service in the First City Troop during World War I, graduate work in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, and his final years with the banking business.

One third of the collection comprises correspondence, including exchanges with professional colleagues and clients as well as a few family members. With the exception of a substantial group of letters written by Cret to his wife while serving in World War I, there is little personal material. None of the correspondence files contains comprehensive representation of the transactions of Cret and/or his firm on any given project. The remainder of the Papers includes writings by Cret, project and teaching materials (incomplete), notes, biographical material, and photographs.

Charles Custis Harrison was Provost at the University of Pennsylvania 1894-1910, a time of expansive growth for the University, especially in the number of buildings added to the campus. Using his extensive personal contacts from his business and political associates, Harrison raised funds (making large contributions himself) for dormitories as well as Houston Hall, the University Museum, the Medical Laboratory, the Law, Engineering, and Dental School buildings from the wealthy of Philadelphia society. The Charles Custis Harrison Files of the Office of the Provost Records document his activities as Provost of the University of Pennsylvania and as Vice President and President of the Board of Directors of the University Museum. This collection though part of the Office of the Provost Records, includes material from almost all aspects of Harrison's career with the University of Pennsylvania.