“By Dawn’s Early Light” at the Center for Jewish History

Materials from the Library Company’s collections will be featured in an exhibition at the Center for Jewish History in New York that looks at the contributions of Jewish people in the early Republic and the creation of American Jewish culture. “By Dawn’s Early Light,” on view from March 16 through May 30, brings together objects from the Princeton University Library’s Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Jewish-American Writers Collection with additional materials from the Library Company and the American Jewish Historical Society.

The Library Company’s collections offer many insights into the lives and letters of American Jews from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. With the gift of the personal library of Edwin Wolf 2nd in 1980, our collection of American Jewish history became one of the most significant of its kind. Strengths of the collection include Hebrew grammars and lexicons; bibles and books of psalms and lamentations in Hebrew; early American editions of Josephus’ History of the Jews; business and legal documents relating to entrepreneurial activity by Jews; Jewish family papers; a complete collection of the early publications of the Jewish Hospital of Philadelphia; early American works on Jewish history, political theory, and philosophy; linguistic works attempting to relate Hebrew to Native American languages; an extensive library of images of historic Philadelphia Jewish individuals, families, and businesses; and books owned or inscribed by prominent Philadelphia Jews.

The exhibition includes more than 140 items, including books, photographs, paintings, prints, sheet music, scripts, and correspondence.