MSS 0100 <. Archival Collections

Abstract The Rodney Family Papers is a small collection (62 items) of genealogical notes and miscellaneous personal papers from a Delaware family prominent, beginning with William Rodney (1660-1708), in the American Revolution and early Federal period of American history. The collection spans the dates 1773-1941 and consists of correspondence, journals, certificates, genealogy, wills, a passport, poetry, newspaper clippings, and essays. Much of the collection consists of photocopies and typescript...

Abstract Despite the prominence of the nineteenth-century Philadelphia architectural firm of Collins & Autenrieth, not much is known about the background of its two founding members. Edward Collins (1821-1902) was born in Köningsberg, Prussia, and studied at universities in Karlsruhe and Berlin, two important architectural centers in Germany. While there, he became friends with Charles M. Autenrieth (1828-1906), who was born in Wurtenburg, and who was also a student of architecture. According to...

Abstract Charles Edward Rahn (fl. 1885-1933) was a Philadelphia architect whose work was primarily in the design of residential buildings. Not much is known about his life, though the first record of his activity is in 1885, when he studied at the Franklin Institute Drawing School in Philadelphia. The collection contains 134 items and includes floor plans, elevations, perspectives, details, diagrams and calculations, blueprints, vandyke prints, and journals. The drawings are mostly in ink on paper,...

Abstract The American-Moninger Greenhouse Manufacturing Corp. was based in Brooklyn, New York, designing and manufacturing greenhouses, solariums, show houses, workrooms, and conservatories for clients around the United States. The collection contains 51 drawings which span the period 1936-1958, and includes perspectives, floor plans, elevations, cross sections, and details, all sketched in graphite. The collection provides some useful information regarding American-Moninger's clients, for their...

Abstract American author and political activist James T. Farrell (1904-1979) published more than 65 volumes in his lifetime, including 26 novels and novellas, 15 collections of short stories, and more than ten books of criticism and collected essays. He achieved critical success and international recognition by the age of thirty-one with the completion of the Studs Lonigan trilogy. Known for his realistic, often gritty, portrayal of life in Chicago's South side, Farrell has long been considered one...

Abstract One of the most prolific and beloved novelists of the Victorian Era, William Makepeace Thackeray was born in Alipur, India, on July 18, 1811. Many of his early experiences in India and later in boarding school found their way into several of his popular works, including Vanity Fair and The Newcomes. Though best known as the daughter of one of the greatest novelists of the Victorian Era, Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie was a successful writer in her own right. e is the author of eight novel...

Abstract A prominent journalist with the Philadelphia Record, George Morgan, LL.D., (1854-1936), was an enthusiastic supporter of the University of Delaware. A native of Sussex County and a graduate of the class of 1875, Morgan founded the Philadelphia chapter of the Alumni Association and even served as editor of the Alumni News. He was well versed in the history of both the University and the local Delaware and Philadelphia area and wrote several volumes on American history. The George Morgan...

Abstract Irish Theatre Journals is a collection of six bound volumes of clippings, programs, articles, and autograph notes regarding theater in Dublin, Ireland. Loose pages of notes, and clippings, also related to Irish theater, complete the collection. he scrapbook/journals comprise a collection of research material, possibly for a book or articles on the history of theater in Dublin. Several of the journals contain autograph transcriptions of theater flyers or programs from the Theatre Royal Dublin...

Abstract A novelist, social historian, and political activist, Waldo Frank was born on August 25, 1889 to an upper-middle class, Jewish family in Long Branch, New Jersey. A prolific writer, Frank penned fourteen novels, eighteen volumes of social history, and well over one hundred articles on literary and political subjects. During a brief abandonment of novel writing, Frank wrote a number of articles for publication, in addition plays, before returning again to novels. The papers of American author...

Abstract Clinton Osborne Houghton was born on April 7, 1873 in Helena, New York. After graduating from Cornell, C.O. Houghton found positions as an associate professor of biology at the University of Delaware and as an entomologist at the Delaware Agriculture Experimental Station, both of which he held until 1906. Afterwards, he became a professor of zoology from 1906-1909, and then a professor of biology from 1909 until his retirement. The C.O. Houghton diaries consist of nineteen diaries as well as...

Abstract The Reverend John Alonzo Clark was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in May 1801. His professional career spanned the years of the Second Great Awakening, an evangelical movement which spread across much of the country, but was most strongly felt in portions of the Northeast. Aside from his numerous sermons, Clark authored several longer works In 1835, Clark became a member of the American Tract Society, an organization committed to the evangelical ideal of saving souls for Christ. This...

Abstract Under direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, the United States Light-House Board* was created in 1852. The purpose of the board was to oversee the United States Light-House Establishment, a body created in 1789 to manage the twelve colonial lighthouses that were then in existence along the eastern seaboard, as well as to oversee construction of new structures. The U.S. Light-House Establishment Collection concerns the construction and maintenance of lighthouses located in the Fourth...

Abstract Ezekiel Hunn Jr. was born on June 20, 1841 to Ezekiel (1810-1902) and Lydia J. [Sharpless] Hunn. The Hunns were among the first English families to settle in Delaware in the seventeenth century. Virtually nothing is known about Ezekiel's childhood, though he too was brought up and educated as a Quaker. He studied law, eventually becoming a practicing attorney in Philadelphia. The Ezekiel Hunn Letters to Lydia Hunn comprise nineteen letters which date from the period May 3, 1887 to June 25,...

Abstract On May 19, 1804, just one day after being proclaimed emperor of France, Napoleon created the office of Maréchal, or "Marshal of the Empire," an elite civil (rather than military) rank that was bestowed upon a number of prominent and loyal generals in his army. Many of those appointed to the Marshalate continued to serve in the army, but others were inactive and served in high-ranking positions within the government. Most received ducal titles in connection with their appointment to the...

Abstract The personal and business papers of Alexander Wilson, a manufacturer of agricultural machinery just below Newark in Pencader Hundred, New Castle County, Delaware, include letters, envelopes, brochures, receipts, checks, and ephemera. As a successful businessman in New Castle County, Delaware, Wilson was involved in county government. From evidence in the collection, Wilson was a Trustee of the Poor (1877), Secretary of School District 54, New Castle County (1875), and a commissioner of the...

Abstract The William Clapp papers are the diaries, farm registers, and account books of William Clapp and other members of the Clapp family, who had a thriving fruit orchard in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in the mid-nineteenth century. The entire collection appears to have been the personal property of William Clapp, although a few account books record information about the finances of other family members. William Clapp lived either with or near his parents and brothers, who are mentioned almost...

Abstract British painter illustrator Gordon Frederick Browne was born at Banstead, Surrey in 1858. Beginning in the 1880s Gordon Browne was one of Great Britain's most prolific illustrators, contributing regularly to many newspapers and magazines, as well as illustrating editions of books written by Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Washington Irving, and Robert Louis Stevenson, eight volumes of works by William Shakespeares, an edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, and his own Gordon Browne's Series of Old...

Abstract Dr. Charles Humberd of Barnard, Missouri, was a collector of dime novels active in the 1930s and 1940s. He was a mail-order customer of dime novel dealers including Brooklyn-based Charles Bragin. Bragin wrote and published >Dime Novels Bibliography, 1860-1928. This small collection includes promotional material and correspondence relating to Dr. Humberd's purchase and collection of dime novels. The majority of the material concerns Dr. Humberd's business with Charles Bragin. In addition to...

Abstract The American poet Theodore Enslin was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1925. Enslin has published over 80 books of poetry, beginning with The Work Proposed at Cid Corman's Origin Press in 1958. Howard McCord was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1932. McCord directed the Creative Writing program at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. McCord has published over 30 books of poetry, fiction, and criticism including 1997's The Man Who Walked to the Moon. The eighty-five items in this collection are...

Abstract Located at the prominent port on the west coast of England, the Plymouth Office of Ordnance managed military arms. The Citadel of Plymouth, with a magazine for gunpowder and an arsenal, was repaired along with other outer line defenses at the outset of the Seven Years War. When ships came to port at Plymouth, the Office of Ordnance issued orders for the artillery and small arms to be removed to the arsenal for inventory. This record book of the Plymouth Office of Ordnance documents military...

Abstract Pearl Herlihy Daniels (1910-1994) was born Pearl Glenn in Wilmington, Delaware. In 1949, she was appointed to a committee to modernize Wilmington’s city charter and in the 1950s, she chaired Delaware’s State Labor Commission, which later became the State Labor Department. In the latter post, she fought to improve the working conditions of migrant laborers. Daniels was also an activist at the state level for stronger narcotics laws. On the national front, she was mainly involved in issues...

Abstract The Carey Bros. Wall Paper Manufacturing Company Records, spanning the dates 1799 - 1933 (1867-1918), consists of one linear foot of ledgers, financial and legal documents, minutes, deeds, ephemera, letters, and a photograph. This small collection documents the existence and demise of a Philadelphia-based business of booksellers, stationers, and manufacturers of blank books and wallpaper. The collection provides valuable insight into a family business that flourished at the end of the...

Abstract Gardiner Fulton (b. ca. 1785) was an Irish immigrant who settled into a farming life in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. The Gardiner Fulton papers consists of .3 linear feet of financial documents, correspondence, and ephemera. The forty-nine items in this collection contain clues about the life of a mid-nineteenth-century farmer in Philadelphia County. The documents record numerous transactions between Gardiner Fulton and the E.I. du Pont de Nemours Company during the early years of its...

Abstract Poet and biographer John Malcolm Brinnin was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on September 13, 1916. Brinnin, who was also a critic, anthologist, and teacher, taught at Vassar, Boston University, the University of Connecticut, and Harvard. Brinnin was the first person to bring Welsh poet Dylan Thomas to the United States and was responsible for all of Dylan Thomas's reading tours in this country. John Malcolm Brinnin Letters to John Matthew O’Shea consists of fifty-four letters written by...

Abstract American poet Cid (Sidney) Corman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 29, 1924. In 1951, Corman founded and edited the literary quarterly Origin, which published the work of new or little-known authors. Corman has published over seventy volumes of poetry and has also translated several French and Japanese poems, including work by Bashõ, Kusano Shimpei, and Francis Ponge. The eight linear feet of material in the collection consists of Corman’s daily journals, seventy-nine volumes...