Featured Collections A-Z

A Matter of Simple Justice: The Untold Story of Barbara Hackman Franklin and A Few Good Women

In 1969, President Richard Nixon created the Task Force on Women's Rights and Responsibilities that marked the beginning of a successful initiative to recruit and train women for upper-level governmental positions. Unfortunately, few of the women who joined the government as a result of this initiative left collections of papers for historians to review. Many of the women are nearing retirement age or have retired; a few have died. Their recollections, along with those of the men who were involved in the effort, make a significant contribution to the documentation of the history of women in modern American political life.

A E Bye Drawings

Arthur Edwin Bye, Jr., was born in Arnhem, the Netherlands, on August 15, 1919. He came to Pennsylvania at an early age when his father was a professor of art history at Swarthmore. Bye received a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture from the Pennsylvania State University in 1942. Bye published several books, most notably Art into Landscape, Landscape into Art, filled with photographs, many of his own works, framing landscaped views both natural and man-made that he thought successful. Bye died on November 25, 2001.

Anderson and Ellis Art Education Collection

The Albert A. Anderson Jr. and Evelynn M. Ellis art education drawing books offers a selection of examples of digitized 19th century drawing cards. While the broader Anderson Ellis Art Education print collection consists of several hundreds of pedagogical tools that document the field of art education, this digital collection aims to preserve and highlight one of the most ephemeral tools of the 19th century: the drawing card.

sample trrade card

The Alice Marshall Women's History Collection, part of the Penn State Harrisburg Library's Archives and Special Collections, consists of literary, graphic, and manuscript materials dealing with the issues and individuals that comprised women's history from the 15th century to the early 1980s. 

Alma-Mahler

Alma Mahler-Werfel, wife to composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius, and writer Franz Werfel, was given a bound volume containing seventy-seven letters from significant representatives of European and American cultural and intellectual history. The website, in German, consists of a short introduction and presentation of the project including the technical aspects (Das Projekt), a summary of Alma Mahler-Werfel's biography (Biographisches), a bibliography (Bibliographie), and the letters themselves.

Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers of North America records collection image

The Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers of North America (AA) formed in 1876 to support industrial workers working in the United States. The AA lost membership during a series of key strikes in the early to mid-1880s, but regained strength after joining the newly formed American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1887. In 1935, Phillip Murray and the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) largely subsumed the AA’s efforts to unionize the steel workers. At that time, the AA joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and ceased to exist as an independent entity. These records document the organizing efforts of the AA from 1892 through the period following its consolidation as part of the CIO in 1935. The materials here include minute books and ledgers for the Fulton Lodge No. 46, McKee Lodge No. 161, and the Tri-boro Lodge No. 186 as well as ritual books which document the initiation process for new members of the AA.

Art History Department Visual Resource Collection

A growing collection of over 80,000 images documenting the history of painting, sculpture, architecture, and other visual arts from prehistoric times to the present. Includes images from the VRC's image collection as well as professional photography that has been licensed for Penn State use from vendors such as Scholars Resource and Davis Art Images, in addition to a selection of art works from the Palmer Museum of Art.

Behrend College's first student newspaper, the Nittany Cub, filled the bins a mere month after the campus, known then as Behrend Center, opened for classes in the fall of 1948.  The cover story was a rousing thank you to Mary Behrend for the gift of land and buildings that provided for the new school’s existence.  Through the years and the many title changes, including Behrend Collegian, Penn State Behrend Collegian, Collegian, The Behrend College Collegian, and currently The Behrend Beacon, the publishing of a student newspaper has been a proud Behrend tradition.  This digital content contains the issues from 1948 through 2010.

Photo of the Schilling farm house

In 1948, the Behrend family donated their farm to the Pennsylvania State University for use as an Erie campus. This collection includes a wide variety of items including personal papers, family films, books, and antiques.

The Penn State Berks Archives currently houses the Wyomissing Polytechnic Institute Collection, the Dr. Harold W. Perkins Collection and the Dr. Ruth M. Freyberger Collection, as well as the materials documenting the Berks Campus History Project that culminated with the publication of We Are Penn State Berks: Celebrating Fifty Years 1958 – 2008. 

Birket Foster - Victorian Illustrator

Birket Foster was part of one of the great periods of book illustration in England. A former apprentice of Thomas Bewick, he worked for the London News early in his career, and soon thereafter he began to make drawings for the illustrated books of the day. He is also among the most loved of the Victorian watercolorists, and we are fortunate in this exhibition to have been able to include an original watercolor, lent to us by John Kaiser.

Bituminous Coal Mine Map

The Bituminous coal mine maps of Pennsylvania were created by the Works Progress Administration from 1934-1938. Workers transcribed information about the extent of underground bituminous coal mines on to these maps, as well as locations of oil and gas wells.

Black history and visual culture Paul Robeson poster

The Black History and Visual Culture digital collection consists of materials gathered from Penn State Special Collections that highlight Black life and Culture. This ongoing initiative will be integral to research, teaching, and experiential learning for the Penn State community and beyond.

Brent-Wilson-Papers

Brent Wilson joined Penn State's faculty in 1974 as a professor of art education as well as head of the art education program in the School of Visual Arts (1983-1985; 1989-1999). The Brent Wilson papers reflect his participation in implementing national art education policies and document his service as an administrator and scholarly work on children in art education.

Central Pennsylvania Architecture and Landscape Architecture Collection

A growing collection containing over 1,000 images focusing on the buildings and landscape of central Pennsylvania. These pictures have been selected and photographed by experts in the unique architecture and landscapes of our region.

cdt obituaries

The Index includes obituaries or death notices included in the obituary section of the Centre Daily Times, 1920-current. It does not include news stories about deaths that appeared in other sections.

collection image - Blockson

This multidisciplinary collection includes books, magazines, photographs, manuscripts, sheet music, postcards, record albums, and artifacts of the African experience in the United States, Latin America, Caribbean, and Africa, dating from 1632 to the present. The collection is located on the 3rd Floor of West Pattee and has limited hours, however, materials from the collection can be accessed in the Special Collections Library during open hours. 

Chestnut Blight Commission

Reports from the Pennsylvania commission for the investigation and control of the disease (1912-1914). 11 documents reporting the research and work of the Pa Blight Commission

journal cover of chinese comparatist

The Chinese Comparatist is a print journal that was published from 1987 through 1989, then discontinued. The journal was created by the Scholars-in-America Chapter of the Chinese Comparative Literature Association. Each issue contains essays, as well as announcements regarding chapter activities.

Civil War Era Diaries - William Collins

The Eberly Family Special Collections Library has a sizable collection of material relating to the Civil War. Collected here are diaries by various people who served during the war, offering insight into the lives of regular soldiers.

Sample Covers - Internet Archives Collection

In the early 2000s, Penn State University Libraries worked extensively with Internet Archive to publish a selection of digitized monographs, serials, and microfilm resources held by the Eberly Family Special Collection Library. Penn State University Libraries currently has over 3,000 items in Internet Archive.

Conrad Richter - The Waters of Kronos

Richter maintained notebooks for all of his novels. The materials in the notebook for The Waters of Kronos are on looseleaf, usually handwritten, but sometimes typed. The notebook does not seem to represent a chronological narrative of the novel's creation. Although the pages are numbered in pencil, this was probably done after the entire notebook was completed and may have been done by the author's daughter who donated the material. Based on the marks on many sheets, Richter seemed to return to much of this notebook during the writing process. The notebook gives the viewer a sense of how Richter wrote.

Cresson coll img

Cresson Literary Society - The Students' Miscellany - Literary Magazine, 1887, 1893. The Cresson Literary Society formed simultaneously with the Washington Agricultural Literary Society (later, the Washington Literary Society) in March 1859, only a few years after the founding of the Farmer’s High School. The Miscellany was a newspaper that featured college news, humorous stories and poems, and cryptic rumors about the romantic activities of students and Cresson Society members. 

In college libraries, curriculum materials and juvenile literature collections typically support students who are majoring in Education. The Penn State Harrisburg Library's Curriculum Materials Collection (CMC) includes curriculum standards, school textbooks, activity guides, and other instructional materials for grades preK-12. The library's Juvenile Literature Collection (Juv) consists of supplementary fiction and nonfiction written for preK-12 audiences.

DailyCollegianHistoric collection image

The Daily Collegian and its predecessors serve as an important source for documenting student life at the Pennsylvania State University . Newspapers, and specifically, student-run newspapers, such as the Daily Collegian, often document university life better than any other source-through their pictures, their editorials, and their reports on student activities and interests.

Maps Drawer Collection image

The Donald W. Hamer Center for Maps and Geospatial Information digital map drawer contains the subset of our physical map collection that has been digitized and is not protected by licensing or copyright.

Nittany Lion
This collection includes The Behrend Beacon, Centre Daily Times Obituaries Index, Penn State Harrisburg's Online Archive of Student Newspapers. Hazleton Collegian Newspaper, Historical Digital Collegian Newspaper, Lancaster Farming Newspaper, Pennsylvania Civil War Era Newspapers, Pennsylvania County Historic Newspapers, and the Pennsylvania Digital Newspaper Project
Edwin Forbes Civil War Etchings

Edwin Forbes (1839-1895) was an American landscape painter and etcher best known for his sketches of military life during the American Civil War (1861-1865). In 1876, Forbes published Life Studies of the Great Army: A Historical Art Work in Copper Plate Etching Containing Forty Plates, whose plates comprise this collection.

A highlight of the Eiche Collection is the story of the Eiche family’s pet boxer named Thor, who served in World War II as part of the “Dogs for Defense” initiative. 

Image from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

For scholars studying children’s literature, the Eiche Collection contains books such as Aesop’s Fables, Fairy Tales by The Brothers Grimm, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Books, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, and Kate Douglas Wiggin’s Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

The Eighth Air Force Archive

Established within The Pennsylvania State University Libraries' Historical Collections and Labor Archives in 1991, the Eighth Air Force Archive acquires and preserves original primary source documentation and reference materials devoted to the history of this important strategic bombing group during World War II, and the role that 8th Air Force veterans played in defeating the Axis powers

Emilie Davis Diaries

The Emilie Davis Diaries provide a unique opportunity to see the fascinating work of a free African American Woman living in Philadelphia during the Civil War era.

Publications of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences including bulletins, circulars, technical papers, coal research, special publications,  and more.

Encyclopedia of Pennsylvania Biography

Biographies profile thousands of prominent Pennsylvanians who contributed to the development of the Commonwealth in many fields of endeavor. The online version offered by Penn State contains ONLY the volumes of the Encyclopedia known to be in the public domain (the first 14 volumes published before 1923)

English Emblem Book Project

The English emblem books scanned for this project are cultural artifacts frequently used in the analysis of reading practices, printing history, Elizabethan popular culture, the use of allegory, and the relationship of word to image.

Forestry Education collage

In May 1903, the governor of Pennsylvania established the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy in Mont Alto.  It was one of the first forestry schools in the nation along with the Biltmore Forestry School and the Yale Forestry School. The School of Forest Resources was established in 1907 as the Department of Forestry at The Pennsylvania State College, four years after the start of the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy at Mont Alto. The Penn State program absorbed the State Forest Academy in 1929. 

Fred Waring

Fred Waring, “the man who taught America how to sing,” was born in Tyrone, Pennsylvania in 1900, and was a Distinguished Alumnus and Trustee of Penn State University. Along with his group, the Pennsylvanians, he toured the United States and the world for almost seven decades, building an impressive list of accomplishments in stage, radio, motion pictures, television and music education.

George and Alice Beatty papers

George H. & Alice F. Beatty were a part of the Penn State University community for the latter half of the 20th century. Dr. Alice F. Beatty was a zoology professor at Penn State DuBois whose research focused on the diversity of the order Odonata, which consists of dragonflies and damselflies. The couple were assistant curators at the Frost Entomological Museum at Penn State from the museum’s early days. From the 1940s-1970s, they traveled throughout the northeastern and southern United States as well as on several trips to Mexico, sampling odonates and recording their field observations in notebooks. These notebooks, spanning decades of research, contain records for the approximately 60,000 odonates that they collected.

Fly-Fishing Stamp

Fly fishing has a long and storied history at Penn State. To reflect that strong interest, the Penn State University Libraries have established the George Harvey Fly-Fishing Literature Collection. This collection covers fly fishing, fly tying, aquatic entomology, fish species of importance to fly fishing, and related angling topics described by prominent fly fishing authors.

George Hoenshel Fleming, Sr. family papers

These digital surrogates consist of a commemorative World War II era scrapbook created by George Hoenshel Fleming Sr., General Manager and Chief Engineer of the Pressed Steel Car Company of McKeesport, Pennsylvania. The keepsake scrapbook documents a patriotic civic event held on March 23, 1943 celebrating the company and its employees for receipt of the distinguished Army-Navy “E” Production Award.

George Medrick Papers

The George Medrick papers document his extensive union organizing career. Medrick emigrated to the United States from eastern Europe in 1903 and entered the mines of West Virginia the following year. In 1906, Medrick joined the United Mine Workers of America and in 1936 he became the director of the Steelworkers Organizing Committee (SWOC) in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In 1942, Medrick was appointed Director of United Steelworkers of America District 11, in Harrisburg where he remained until his retirement in 1963.

German Broadsides

 "German-Language Broadsides in North America, 1730-1830," represents a significant piece of a joint scholarly publishing project between the University Libraries and the Penn State University Press. The other two components of the project are a monograph by Hermann Wellenreuther, titled Citizens in a Strange Land: A Study of German-American Broadsides and Their Meaning for Germans in North America, 1730-1830, and a print bibliography, which shares the title of this online bibliography and was compiled by Wellenreuther and his colleagues Reimer Eck and Anne von Kamp. 

Hajjar Heritage

A. William Hajjar, a member of the architecture faculty at the Pennsylvania State University in the 1950s and 1960s, challenged the conservative look of the State College community with his contemporary-style homes. In Fall 2004, the Centre County Historical Society showcased Hajjar's local architectural legacy in an exhibit. Robert E. Malcom assembled the exhibit, spending many months taking pictures, interviewing current and former owners, and writing the text. These web pages attempt to re-create this exhibit online.

Hallock_Houses

Architect Phil Hallock has likely had the largest impact on the State College landscape of any designer.  Being fairly modest, he has not tooted his own horn to become widely known, although he has about sixty completed residential and commercial structures in the area. His main design mode was Mid-Century Modern, now making a big comeback across the nation.

old photo of the Hammermill paper mill

In 1898, three brothers Ernst, Otto and Bernard Behrend along with their father Moritz, formed the Hammermill Paper Company along the shores of Lake Erie, in Erie, Pennsylvania. The archival materials date from the founding through the takeover in the mid-1980’s and describe the growth of the company and changes in the papermaking process.  The papers also touch on topics of cultural interest  and local history such as the 1918 influenza epidemic, the pollution of Lake Erie, and the distrust of German-Americans and their companies during the Nazi era. 

Harold Rasmussen Collection

This collection contains scrapbooks collected by union organizer Harold Rasmussen. The scrapbooks document the strikes and labor disputes, as well as various conventions, of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers of North America, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (U.S.), and the United Steelworkers of America from approximately 1933 to 1970.

Hayfield Estate Records - Donation Letter

The Hayfield Estate records consists of correspondence, financial records, and drawings documenting the activity of the estates owned by John C. and Bertha R. Conyngham, most notably, the construction of their estate on Hayfield Farm.

Hazleton Student Newspaper

Hazleton Collegian flourished from December 1937 to December 1954. The publication was published monthly through 1941, then became a weekly edition. The title changed to Highacres Collegian in January 1955 and is the current name of the student newspaper. This digital collection is through April 1994.

Heidrich: The Quiet "H"

Of the three best known post World War II modernists of the Architecture Faculty of Penn State, Ken Heidrich is undoubtedly the least well known, at least by name, as he firmly believed no self-promotion should be done. Indirectly his work is known by thousands of locals as one of the members of the design group for the beautiful, contemporary high school buildings on Westerly Parkway.

Handwritten lemon tart recipe from historical recipe book

These unique handwritten recipe books (1697-1846) from the Eberly Family Special Collections Library include British and Scottish food recipes as well as medicinal and textile dying recipes.

The Holocaust and Genocide Collection at the Penn State Harrisburg Library consists of classic and scholarly works by leading historians in the field, as well as personal accounts. Works include general histories, reference sources, documents, juvenile books, curriculum materials, and conference proceedings, in all formats: monographs, encyclopedias, video recordings, DVDs, compact discs, and microforms. Subject areas covered in the collection include works on ghettos, concentration camps, resistance, liberation, survivors, children of survivors, diaries, memoirs, biographies, non-Jewish victims, Righteous Gentiles, theology, post-war trials, and reparations. 

Horowitz Collection image

In August 2006 the Historical Collections and Labor Archives (HCLA) division of the Special Collections Library of the Pennsylvania State University acquired the corporate archives of Transaction Publishers, a gift of Dr. Irving Louis Horowitz, chairman of the board of Transaction Publishers and the Hannah Arendt Distinguished University Professor (Emeritus), Department of Sociology, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

The Penn State University Libraries, in partnership with Irving L. Horowitz / Transaction Publishers, arranged, described, preserved, and cataloged the Archives. The Archives are arranged in three series: Transaction Publishers Archives, Irving L. Horowitz Academic Papers, and C. Wright Mills - the series links above lead to more contextual information about them.

Howard Truman Curtis Papers image

The Howard Truman Curtiss papers document the personal and professional activities of Howard Truman Curtiss, a clergyman, organizer, and labor consultant involved in the Steel Workers Organizing Committee and later the United Steelworkers of America. Curtiss served as a staff representative and organizer for the Steel Worker Organizing Committee and eventually became the District Director for the United Steelworkers of America. The materials in Curtiss’s papers include correspondence, ledgers, and financial records from 1888-1947.

Rabin Collection

The Jack Rabin Collection on Alabama Civil Rights and Southern Activists is a compact but highly complex, multi-layered compilation of documents, sound recordings, and visual images. Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy are among many leading lights of the civil rights movement represented in the collection. 

Letter from James T. Stuart

The Stuart Family Papers document multiple generations of a Pennsylvania family based in Boalsburg and Pittsburgh.

Jerry Doyle collection

Jerry Aloysius Doyle collection consists of original pen and ink editorial cartoons drawn by artist Jerry Aloysius Doyle. The collection also includes: correspondence to Doyle from various entrepreneurs and politicians requesting copy of the original editorial cartoons in which they were featured; black and white family photographs, staged photographs of Doyle drawing, and documentary photographs; news clippings, scrapbooks and books; mail art, Christmas cards and souvenirs spanning his professional career.

John Chorey Ppers

The John Chorey papers consist of scrapbooks, photographs, correspondence, booklets and newsletters pertaining to the career of Pennsylvania labor organizer John Chorey. Chorey served as the first president of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Tim Workers, Tri-Boro Lodge 186 in Braddock, Pennsylvania in 1933.

Jonathan White - Honey Board Papers

The Jonathan W. White, Jr. Papers contains papers from Dr. White's sixty-year career in honey research. Dr. White also collected relevant research publications dating to the late 1890s.

Joseph Priestley Collection

Priestley's considerable talents as an experimental chemist led him to make discoveries about the properties of gases that revolutionized the science. He was a theologian, a historian, a linguist, and a writer of learned tracts on education, politics, literary criticism, oratory, grammar, psychology, perspective, metaphysics, electricity, and optics. He was above all a Christian minister of the Enlightenment, and his religious dissent made him a seminal figure in the history of modern Unitarianism.

Judy Chicago

Judy Chicago is a feminist artist, author, and educator best known for The Dinner Party, a multi-media art installation honoring women in history created with the participation of hundreds of volunteers between 1974 and 1979. This collection consists of textual, photographic, graphic, and audiovisual materials related to Judy Chicago's art and pedagogy dating from 1970 to 2014.

Your Library shelving

Judy Swartz (1941-1991) was a Continuing Education program planner at Penn State York who had a strong commitment to children's education and children's reading. She inaugurated an annual summer program for area educators that featured a nationally known expert in children's literature and reading. The reading collection is a tribute to Judy's work in this field, and was established in part by donations from attendees in the summer program.

Kirschner Papers

The Kirschner Family papers document the resettlement of members of the Kirschner family during their immigration from Eastern Europe to Philadelphia in the late 1930s. The papers contain Michael S. Kirschner's personal correspondence, which details his immigration from the occupied town of Bialystok in present-day Poland to the United States on the eve of World War II (1939-1945). A significant portion of the materials consist of personal correspondence from Jewish refugees requesting resettlement to the United States and immigration affidavits of support from eligible sponsors. These letters were written to Isadore L. Kirschner from various Jewish organizations throughout Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

LaVie Online

La Vie, the Penn State University annual student yearbook, has been in production documenting student life continuously since 1890.The Online La Vie project, digitizing yearbooks beginning in 1890 through 2000, is a joint collaboration between the Penn State University Archives and the University Libraries Digitization and Preservation Department.

Lancaster Farming

Lancaster Farming is the leading Northeast and Mid-Atlantic farm newspaper.  It is one of Pennsylvania's most popular farming newspapers and celebrated its 50th anniversary in November 2005. This digital collection contains all issues from November 4, 1955 to December 27, 2003.  For tips on how to search please see the FAQ in the upper right hand corner of this page.

PSU University Libraries are pleased to announce an agreement with the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) to provide access to selected LAPOP datasets to enrolled PSU students, staff, faculty, and instructors.

Explore our developing experimental site for information about early movable books. You will find a searchable research database of items held in multiple institutions, and a “play” site where you can manipulate several examples in a virtual gaming environment. The “About” page tells you more about the project to date, and the scholarly essay, “What Are Movable Books?” provides background on the genre.

Many of the books in Eiche’s library were published by the Limited Editions Club, which was founded in 1929. The club printed approximately twelve editions of classic literature each year in small runs limited to 1500 subscribers.

Lynn Ward Collectoin

Lynd Ward (1905–1985) was one of the foremost wood engravers and graphic book artists of 20th-century America. The Lynd Ward Collection of Wood Engravings and Other Graphic Art includes some 5,000 wood engravings, proof sheets, wood-engraving blocks, and original illustrations for many of his books. Highlights include wood engravings for Ward’s novels without words (notably Gods’ Man, Vertigo, and Madman’s Drum) and many of the wood blocks and proof sheets for his illustrations to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. Also in the collection are original illustrations for a number of his children’s books, including The Silver Pony and The Biggest Bear.

Metalmark book cover

Metalmark Books is a joint imprint of The Pennsylvania State University Press and the Office of Digital Scholarly Publishing at Penn State University Libraries. The facsimile editions published under this imprint are reproductions of out-of-print, public domain works that hold a significant place in Pennsylvania’s rich literary and cultural past. Open Access edition of each book from The Pennsylvania State University Libraries is available through PSU Press Unlocked.

collage Forestry collection

This collection includes 468 glass lantern slides dating from 1897 to about 1902, apparently used by Mira Lloyd Dock in her lectures at the Mont Alto Forestry School. Many of these photos were taken at Wetzel's Swamp near Harrisburg (now Wildwood Park) but other states and European sites are also represented.

This narrative provides a brief history of the first four decades of the College history.

Civil War Deserters - Pennsylvania

This document contains physical, military and demographic information for nearly 30,000 Union soldiers who enlisted in the Union army and later failed to report for duty and were subsequently cited as deserters. The roster was compiled from monthly lists that were submitted to the Provost Marshal and Adjutant General between 1861 and 1865.

Ogontz Mosaic Cover

The Ogontz Mosaic was the publication of the prominent elite and prestigious school known as The Ogontz School for Young Ladies. Usually published six times per year from 1884-1950, with occasional special issues, the Mosaic included articles about the school, its students, alumnae, and faculty. Issues included articles by the principals, including Abby Sutherland, the principal and owner of the school for many years.

Ogontz School Dining

For 100 years, the elite and prestigious school known as The Ogontz School for Young Ladies was a prominent force in female private education. In 1950 the school, campus, and facilities were given to The Pennsylvania State College, now The Pennsylvania State University.

Ogontz School Senior Class of 1940

This collection includes digitized versions of most of the school yearbooks from the Ogontz School for Young Ladies which from 1916 to 1950 was located in Abington, PA and was given to the Penn State University in 1950.

Palmer Museum of Art Collections

The permanent collection of the Palmer Museum of Art includes American and European paintings, drawings, photographs, prints, and sculpture; contemporary European, American, and Japanese studio ceramics; Asian ceramics, jades, paintings, and prints; and objects from ancient European, African, Near Eastern, and American cultures. This database contains descriptions of more than 7,000 works as well as images for many of them. Please contact the museum for additional collection information.

Bob and Thor sitting in front of a bookcase, with Bob showing Thor papers frmo the collection

The Penn State Altoona Archives contains photographs of early campus such as: faculty, buildings, and administration; along with the founding documents of the Penn State Altoona Alumni Association, business documentation of campus expansion in the 1960's and 1970's. This collection also contains personal papers that include Robert E. Eiche's correspondence with Penn State Altoona servicemen and women during World War II. Various other programs and event materials are housed in the collection as well as the Pi Lambda Phi's Records. An oral history collection has been started chronicling some of the college’s integral moments.

Photo of a Penn State Altoona Scrapbook.

In 1939, Mr. Eiche initiated a project to preserve newspaper clippings related to Penn State Altoona in scrapbooks. The scrapbook project continued from 1939 until 2011, and the books include clippings from local newspapers such as the Altoona Mirror, Tribune Democrat, Tyrone Herald, Bedford Gazette, Ivy Leaf, Somerset American, and others. 

Penn State Behrend Collection image

The Penn State Behrend Collection contains materials documenting the rise of the institution over the last 60 years including various official college and student publications, news clippings, and memorabilia.

DuBois Collection image

The collection of yearbooks for Penn State DuBois, “La Vita” (1963-1965) and the “Lion’s Paw” (1972-73; 1975-76; 1978-79) provide digital access to campus history and life during the 1960s and 1970s.

Penn-State-Froth-

The nation's second oldest college humor magazine, Penn State Froth was founded in 1909 and published from 1910 to 1985. The magazine was founded and established to replace Penn State University's first humor magazine, "The Lemon," which published its final issue on June 10, 1908. Froth became wildly popular among students and it also became influential to the culture of the university. Froth’s mascot, a jester named Frothy who graced the covers of many of the earlier issues, eventually began making personal appearances along with the Nittany Lion at Penn State football games. This collection features a total of 19,876 digitized images.

Greater-Allegheny-Centaur-Yearbook-Covers

The Greater Allegheny Campus Collection is comprised of student yearbooks: “The Technician’s Log” (1955), “The Centaur” (1956-59), “Profile” (1960-63) and “Parvenu” (1971-72).

Harrisburg Campus Collection image

The Capitolite (later known as The Capitalite), Penn State Harrisburg's annual student yearbook, serves as a record of students' academic and social lives on the Middletown campus. This digital collection includes every yearbook that was produced by students from 1968 through 1995, when it ceased publication. Original copies of each yearbook are housed in Archives & Special Collections at the Penn State Harrisburg Library.

Capitol Times

Originally published as The Roundtable , the Penn State Harrisburg college newspaper has provided an invaluable perspective on the events and people who have shaped the college over the past four decades. The student-run newspaper serves as a time capsule and can be used as a primary source for research about the issues and events that were important to Penn State Harrisburg students.

Penn State University historic information including a timeline, illustrated history, the Alma Mater, a list of class gifts, landmarks, the Nittany Lion, oral histories, and presidents.

Romance Studies

As a collaborative project at Penn State, the series brings together the complementary strengths of the Press, the Libraries, The Department of French and Francophone Studies, and The Department of Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. The Press will contribute its expertise in peer review, content development, design and production, and marketing. The Libraries bring expertise in technology, collection development, and archiving. The two academic departments provide scholarly support in the form of an editorial board that solicits and reviews potential series books.

Penn State Sports Archive - Nittany Lion

In 1988, the University Archives, a unit of the University Libraries Special Collections, began a concentrated effort to locate historical materials that would document the growth of athletic policies and the achievement of our teams. Our goal has been to establish a Penn State Sports Archive that will be unrivaled in its scope and serve both scholars and administrators.

Penn-State-Photo-coll-image

This photograph collection is one of the most heavily utilized collections in the Penn State University Archives. The collection contains approximately 500,000 images: black and white prints, color prints, oversized photos (larger than 8”x10”), color slides, photographic negatives, digital scans, and postcards.

layout sketch Pattee Library

The digital archives is divided into five major categories of materials: history of the campus, maps, development plans, buildings, and campus landmarks. This extensive collection includes a historical timeline, bios of presidents, class gifts, and more.

Thunderbird Yearbook

Founded in 1916, Penn State Wilkes-Barre, located in Lehman, PA, has had a rich and varied history. The Penn State Wilkes-Barre Campus Collection features a selection of yearbooks, scrapbooks, and blueprints dating mostly from the 1950s to the 1980s that document campus life and activities.

York Campus Yearbook Cover 1957

The online collection consists of yearbooks “Nittany Cub” (1956-60; 1984), “The Dyne” (1961-74), “Paw Prints” (1975-80 no 1978), and “Dimensions” (1988), literary journals (1974-78; 1981-83, 1985-86; 1992-93; 1994-95), and commencement guides (1983; 1985-94; 1996-2003; 2005-10).

Collection temporarily unavailable. The bulk of this collection contains the county extension agents' narrative and statistical annual reports of their activities, 1912-1988. Also included in the collection, but available only in the repository, are financial records, 1917-1950; plans of work for the extension service; USDA publications; correspondence; photographs; Neighborhood Youth Corps records, 1965-1970; Extension bulletins; and compiled historical information about the program.

Pennsylvania bridges collection, 1891-1915

The collection contains photographs of railroad bridges in Pennsylvania, mostly in the Pittsburgh area, 1891-1915; photographs of technical drawings produced by the Pennsylvania State College, Civil Engineering Dept. depicting structural details and complete designs of modern railroad bridges, 1903-1904; and lantern slides of railroad bridges, 1884-ca. 1904.

The Pennsylvania Center for Folklore Collection, part of the Penn State Harrisburg Library's Archives and Special Collections, provides resources for the study of Pennsylvania's cultural heritage. These include Archives of Pennsylvania Folklife and Ethnography, Mac Barrick Collection of Folklife and Regional History, John Yetter Collection of Steelton Historical Material, and American Studies Resource Collection.

Gettysburg Civil War Era newspaper

Pennsylvania Civil War Era Newspaper Collection contain all the words, photographs, and advertisements from selected newspapers published during the pivotal years before, during, and after the U.S. Civil War. Newspapers played a prominent role in the conflict. They helped mobilize public opinion for, or against, the war, relayed battlefield developments to their readers, and documented political life on the homefront. Beyond military or political concerns there is much on cultural topics including travel, arts and leisure, sports and contests, and local social events.

PA-Geology-collection-image

This collection contains materials relating to the geology and water resources of Pennsylvania as published by the PA Geological Survey, U.S. Geological Survey, and others.

Fraktur Collection

This collection includes over 250 images from the holdings of Rare Books and Manuscripts in the Special Collections Library. The term "Fraktur" (the word is both singular and plural) originally described a type of German printing similar to old English Gothic. 

Pennsylvania Newspaper Project

Beginning with the United States Newspaper Program in 1983, which was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Pennsylvania State Legislature, the Penn State University Libraries has partnered with other institutions in the Commonwealth to participate in nationally coordinated programs to find, catalog, preserve, and enhance access to all the newspapers published in Pennsylvania.

PA's History Collection image

Penn State University Libraries collaborated with three other PA institutions – PA State Library in Harrisburg, Free Library in Philadelphia, and the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh – to digitize PA holdings and make them available online. Penn State’s contribution is 641 titles digitized from 35 mm microfilm, which encompasses monographs on PA History.

Camp William Penn

The People's Contest: A Civil War Era Digital Archive is a collaborative project of the Penn State University Libraries and the Richards Civil War Center. Its mission is to promote research into the lived experience of Pennsylvanians between 1851 and 1874. The project website features a unique statewide bibliographic database of hidden collections, digitized manuscripts, and contextual essays.

Philip Murray papers

The Philip Murray papers document the organizing career of Philip Murray, including his work as the International Vice-President to the United Mine Workers of America (1920-1942), the Chairman of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (1936-1942), the International President of the United Steelworkers of America (1942-1952) and the President of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (1942-1952). These materials contain scrapbooks, correspondence, clippings, records, photographs, and artifacts relating to both Murray’s career and personal life with the bulk of materials covering the years between 1936 and 1952.

Pinkerton Report - Scranton Strikes

This collection consists primarily of a special report by the Pinkerton National Detective Agency from its investigation of the Scranton, Pennsylvania general strike of 1877.

Bellefonte Central Railroad

The Bellefonte Central Railroad played a decisive role in both the economic development of the Centre County region and the rise of The Pennsylvania State University. The short line began rail transport in 1886 as the Buffalo Run, Bellefonte, and Bald Eagle Railroad (BRB&BE) hauling iron ore from deposits near Struble, west of State College, to Bellefonte. 

Sanborn Maps collection image

The Sanborn Map Company, the best known of the US fire-insurance map producers, has made maps since 1867. The fire insurance maps produced by Sanborn show building footprints, building material, height or number of stories, building use, lot lines, road widths and water facilities. The maps also show street names and property boundaries of the time. This collection of maps is historically significant as it is sometimes the best detailed map of a town or city dating from the mid 1800s.

Early football team

The Saylor football statistics database consists of approximately 6,700 files. There are different types of files which include records from all colleges, universities, and junior colleges across the country, conference information, including defunct conferences and alliances.  Also included are high school conferences in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and any other high schools that played smaller colleges.

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This collection consists of three volumes of minutes and correspondence from the Soldiers’ Aid Society of Hartsville from 1861 through 1865 and a single volume “Minute Book” from the Wrightstown Soldiers’ Aid Society. During the Civil War, numerous communities throughout the Union established soldiers’ aid societies to raise money to help provision Union soldiers from their communities while those soldiers were in the field.

The Engineering Library has an extensive collection of print standards. Standards are guidelines of rules for products, processes, test methods, or materials and are created to produce a level of uniformity, interchangeability, reliability, or means of comparison.

Obelisk

Constructed in 1896, the obelisk, also called the polylith, stands 32.7 feet high and weighs 53.4 tons. This "pile of rocks" was created the same year the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (formerly the School of Mines) came into existence. The obelisk, built by State College stonemason Michael Womer, began as a kind of answer to all the requests the college had been receiving for information on stones.

T.R. Johns Collection

The Thomas Richards (T.R.) Johns Papers digital project offers a unique historical resource to examine life, work, and community within the central Pennsylvania bituminous coal mining region.

The Engineering Library has an extensive collection of approximately 500,000 print technical reports and papers. Technical reports describe the process, progress, or results of scientific and/or engineering research and often include in-depth experimental details, data, and results. 

Ssample poster - Benson Collection

The Thomas W. Benson Political Protest Digital Collection is a unique educational and scholarly resource documenting and exploring themes associated with the student anti-war movement and campus unrest in America during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

TMI Reactors

The Pennsylvania State University Libraries have acquired several thousand videotapes, reports, and photographs that were generated during the successful cleanup and recovery of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) nuclear reactor.

Times-of-Sorrow-and-Hope

Between 1935 and 1944, a group of photographers working for the federal government fanned out across the country to record American life in pictures, primarily under the auspices of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and the Office of War Information (OWI). The Times of Sorrow and Hope website features a complete catalog of Pennsylvania photographs from the FSA-OWI collection. The catalog represents photographs taken by close to forty photographers in nearly two hundred Pennsylvania towns, villages, cities, and landmarks.

Wildlife Society Transactions image

Complete collection of all the Proceedings, Transactions, and Northeast Wildlife available in one location. The intent of this collaboration between Northeast Transactions of the Wildlife Society and The Pennsylvania State University Libraries is to provide a repository of the proceedings and publications available to the general public to benefit the conservation of fish and wildlife resources.

This site is a collaborative effort between the library and the Penn State History Department. The essays are written by history students at Penn State, under the supervision of Dr. William Pencak, History Department, and Eric Novotny, Humanities Librarian. Each essay provides an introduction to a unique and interesting episode in Pennsylvania History. Select the primary source documents for each essay to read accounts from actual participants and to see historical events through their eyes.

Union League of Philadelphia Archives

Publications and meeting minutes (1863-1876) of the Union League of Philadelphia, a patriotic society founded in 1862 to support the Union and the policies of President Abraham Lincoln.

Miner's home

The United Mine Workers of America photographic, graphic, and artifacts collection consists of photographic surveys of American miners’ homes, panoramic photographs of UMWA conventions and conferences, oversize posters and cartoons, and reproduced images of original documentation exhibited by the UMWA, as well as several union related artifacts from 1891-1997.

MineWorkderOficeOfPresident collection image

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) President’s Office correspondence includes communications between the UMWA Office of the President and district organizers. This correspondence documents issues that filtered through district representatives to executives at UMWA district and international offices, as well as the presidential decisions on action to be taken. Materials describe mine disasters, organizing activities, wildcat strikes, rivalries with competing regional unions, and diverse grievances and range from the earliest materials in the 1890s to the most in the 1980s.

Miscellaneous government publications from the Department of Commerce, Senate committees, and various other agencies.

United Steelworkers of America, District 33 records

These records consist of materials from United Steelworkers of America District 33, which coordinated local unions in the iron region of Minnesota and upper Michigan from 1942 to 1955. This collection includes local union contracts and correspondence as well as conference records, administrative files, scrapbooks, minute books, and photographs dating approximately from 1937 to 1985.

Valentine Collection image

This collection consists of 164 comic valentine sheets (ca. 1870-1920), 10 sentimental valentines from World War II (ca. 1939-1945), and 7 suffrage valentines (ca. 1915-1920) from the Alice Marshall Women’s History Collection, located in Archives and Special Collections at the Penn State Harrisburg Library.

Herkness Real Estate Records

Wayne Herkness (1882-1957) entered the real estate business within a few years of his father’s untimely death in 1899.  The family lived at Cloverly Farm, a country estate on the north side of Vinegar Hill (Susquehanna Road).  In 1904 the property was divided for sub-division and the first homes on present day Sewell Lane were built. In 1905, Herkness joined with G. Henry Stetson, second son of John B. Stetson of hat fame, to form the firm of Herkness, Stetson & Company.

Sample War Poster

The poster was a major tool for broad dissemination of information during war, as countries on both sides of a conflict distributed them widely to garner support, urge action, spread messages, warn of the evils of an enemy, and boost morale. 

Washington Literary Society records collection image

The Washington Agricultural Literary Society (later, the Washington Literary Society) formed simultaneously with the Cresson Literary Society in March 1859, only a few years after the founding of the Farmer’s High School. The collection features The Photosphere, Literary Magazine, 1874 and The Anonymous – Critical Editorials and Humorous Gossip, 1859.

William C. Darrah collection of cartes-de-visite, 1860-1900

Includes 62,608 cartes-de-visite and approximately 200 cabinet cards. U.S. photographers dominate the collection, although the work of photographers from several other countries--including Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Sweden Switzerland--is also represented. Images consist largely of individual and family portraits, but also include some scenic views, Civil War images, and political personalities.

img William Warren Scranton Collection

William Warren Scranton was born on July 19, 1917, in Madison, Connecticut. His ancestors were New England colonial settlers, founders of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and prominent Pennsylvania businessmen with interests in iron and coal--the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company--as well as utilities, and banking. The family were early Republican Party supporters and elected representatives.

Cover of women's suffrage publication. A pencil drawing of a woman holding an infant is on the cover and reads, Wanted Just one good reason why I am not entitled to a voice in the government.

The Women’s Suffrage collection documents both the national women’s rights movement and the women’s suffrage movement in Pennsylvania purchased by the Eberly Family Special Collections Library.

These materials include booklets, editorial cartoons, fliers and pamphlets documenting the work of : the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters; the National League of Women Voters (U.S.); the National Women's Trade Union League of America; the Pennsylvania Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage; and the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association.

Stereograph Collection

Please Note: Some of the images in this collection contain graphic representations of injuries and death from combat. This collection contains 368 stereographs that document trench warfare during World War I. Some of the images contain graphic representations of injuries and death from combat. The majority of the stereoscopic views were photographed in France and Belgium, and there are a smaller number of images documenting Germany, Italy, the Macedonian front and Thessaloniki, Greece.

image - WWII letter

During World War II, many Penn State Altoona students and faculty joined the war effort. While these members of the college community were stationed overseas, Mr. Eiche corresponded with them via letters. Many of these veterans returned to finish their education after the war ended.

Worldwide-Building-and-Landscape-Pictures

This growing collection of thousands of color images of historic architecture and landscape design focuses on the major monuments found in the textbooks most commonly used in survey courses. These pictures have been gathered for Penn State users from a variety of sources: professional color photography that has been licensed for Penn State use, original color photography provided by university faculty, and some copies from books and similar sources. This version of the database has been provided exclusively for Penn State users.