The Library Company’s collection of manuscripts and archival materials includes more than 1,000 linear feet of personal, family, business, and institutional records that date largely from the colonial period to the start of the 20th century. The collection includes materials such as correspondence, diaries, ledgers, account books, minute books, unpublished essays and research notes, deeds, scrapbooks, and many other items. The collection also includes the Library Company’s own institutional records dating back to its founding in 1731.

Together, the manuscripts and archival collection helps to tell the story of economic, political, and social life in the Philadelphia region and beyond from the end of the colonial era through the Civil War and beyond. Detailed information about our collections can be found in our online catalog and in our finding aids.

Notable collections include:

* Rush Family Papers (MSS00134), which includes material from colonial and early American leaders like Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), his brother Jacob Rush (1747-1820), and Benjamin’s son Dr. James Rush (1786-1869).

* Stevens-Cogdell-Sanders-Venning collection (MSS00253), which documents the development of a white family and a prominent middle-class African American family in Philadelphia, beginning with the 1760s emigration of John Stevens from England to South Carolina.

* Pierre Eugène du Simitière collection (MSS00002), which includes his compiled information on places like the West Indies, Pennsylvania, New England, New York, and the Carolinas in the form of historical chronologies, documents, bibliographies, sketches and narratives. He also documented historical events from roughly 1720 to 1780, and compiled research on many Native American groups and Creoles.

* Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson papers (MSS00251), which includes poems, songs, travel accounts, and other writings by Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson (1737-1801), considered to be the outstanding female poet of her place and time.