Collections : [David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

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David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library

The holdings of the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library range from ancient papyri to records of modern advertising. There are over 10,000 manuscript collections containing more than 20 million individual manuscript items. Only a portion of these collections and items are discoverable on this site. Others may be found in the library catalog.

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Collection
Jonathan and Hannah Chapman Backhouse were members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) in England in the mid-1800s. Their son, Edmund Backhouse, married Juliet Fox in 1848. This collection contains personal correspondence between members of the different connected Quaker families based in England, as well as some diaries, genealogical notes, and other printed ephemera from the family. Forms part of the Lisa Unger Baskin Collection in the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture.

The collection consists of correspondence, writings, and other ephemeral materials relating to the Fox and Backhouse families, along with materials relating to nineteenth century Quaker communities and families in England. The bulk of the collection is correspondence between different members of the Backhouse family, including Jonathan and Hannah Chapman Backhouse, their son Edmund Backhouse and his wife Juliet Fox, and their grandson Jonathan Edmund (Jed) Backhouse. Caroline Fox is also a routine correspondant. The letters discuss family news, personal activities and travel, religious sentiments.

There are two excerpts of diaries which appear to be by different authors and may relate to Hannah Chapman Backhouse's travels to the United States in the 1830s, or to another family member's travels in Europe or the Middle East. The handwriting of these pages is challenging and the excerpts are unattributed and appear to be undated, so more research would be helpful.

Also present in the collection are some writings, including essays and poetry, typically spiritual or relating to prayer, as well as some honorifics for Edmund Backhouse and a copy of his obituary. There are some manuscript riddles, some watercolors, and some sketches of scenes and still lifes. The collection also includes some ceremonial documents, including a letter from the Society of Friends declaring support for Hannah and Jonathan Backhouse's travels to the United States.

Collection
Collection assembled by Lisa Unger Baskin containing printed ephemera, receipts, manuscripts, handbills, catalogs, decorative trade cards, prospectuses, circulars, political campaign materials, and other advertisements from the United Kingdom, Western Europe, and the United States. The bulk of the collection's materials advertise businesses or services offered by women, including millinery, fancy goods, hair work, tea, painting, teaching, music, bricklaying, gardening, dressmaking, apothecaries, and a clairvoyant. Also includes calling cards and bookplates with women's names, and assorted ephemera relating to women's pay, income, or work, including a pensioner's card for a firefighter's widow and a pamphlet about life insurance for women.

Collection assembled by Lisa Unger Baskin containing printed ephemera, receipts, manuscripts, handbills, catalogs, decorative trade cards, prospectuses, circulars, political campaign materials, and other advertisements from the United Kingdom, Western Europe, and the United States. The bulk of the collection's materials advertise businesses or services offered by women or for women, including millinery, fancy goods, hair work, tea, painting, teaching, music, bricklaying, gardening, dressmaking, apothecaries, and a clairvoyant. Also includes calling cards and bookplates with women's names, and assorted ephemera relating to women's pay, income, or work, including a penioner's card for a firefighter's widow and pamphlets about life insurance for women. Some receipts, contracts, and statistics record rates of pay or income for women employees, or rates charged by women proprietors. Contains some advertisements for health-related retreats or vacations; circulars seeking to hire saleswomen or other women into different occupations; and some lending library slips. Includes examples of some Lippincott seed catalogs from the early 1900s, art samples and calligraphy by women, and some materials related to domestic arts and homemaking, including advertisements for patterns, sewing, cooking, and landscaping or interior decoration. Some materials relate to women's courtesy and conduct in public spaces, or to their appearance and clothing.

Collection
Over 200 pieces of correspondence dating from 1759–1880, written by women of the Saltar and Gordon families of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland between themselves and other family relations. Over a third of the letters date before 1825. The principal correspondents are Elizabeth 'Betsy" Gordon Saltar, her daughters Lucy Saltar and Frances "Fanny" Saltar, and Elizabeth's cousins Mary Gordon and Polly Gordon. Dozens of other letters come from family friends and relatives, male and female, from prominent families in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, New York, and some from the Midwest and New England states. Topics include courtship; marriage; religion; pastimes; visits and travel; and the welfare of family members and friends. There are many references to illnesses, with many details on treatments and outcomes. There are also long passages and references to grief and mourning on the death of loved ones, and some discussions of finances. There are a few references to slavery and to enslaved people and servants. Letters sent during the Civil War discuss events centered around Pennsylvania, particularly in 1863; one discusses African American troops and their role in the war, and the circumstances surrounding the recruitment of the 3rd United States Colored Troops' commander, Benjamin C. Tilghman. A few earlier letters speak of the War of 1812, especially in and around Baltimore and Philadelphia. Acquired by the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture.

The papers consist almost entirely of 266 pieces of correspondence dating from 1759–1880, written by women of the Saltar and Gordon families of Pennsylvania and Maryland between themselves and other family relations. Over one-third of the letters date before 1825. The principal correspondents are Elizabeth 'Betsy" Gordon Saltar, the family matriarch, Lucy Saltar, Frances "Fanny" Saltar, Mary Gordon, and Polly Gordon. There are also single letters from other female members of the Saltar family and a handful of letters from men, some of whom were Saltar family members. The letters are organized by correspondent name, ending with a group of letters addressed to unidentified individuals.

The manuscript pages total approximately 765, primarily bifolios, almost all written in ink. There are also four additional manuscripts: an invitation; a sheet of paper with receipts; and a memorandum and bond concerning a land sale. A number of later letters are accompanied by addressed envelopes, some with stamps.

The correspondence is almost entirely comprised of women writing to other women: mothers to daughters; daughters to mothers; and cousins to cousins; and friends to each other. Over half of the collection comprises letters to and from a family matriarch, Elizabeth Gordon Saltar, living at her residence at Magnolia Grove (near Frankford, Pa.), and a large group of letters sent by various correspondents to her daughter Fanny Saltar, who was one of the family's historians. Also present is a large group of correspondence between cousins Elizabeth Gordon Saltar and Mary Gordon, as well as letters addressed to Elizabeth Gordon Saltar's other daughter Lucy Saltar, and letters addressed to Elizabeth Gordon Saltar's cousins, Mary Gordon and Polly Gordon.

Other families who correspond and/or are mentioned often in the letters: Bowne, Brooks, Bunyan, Coleman, Drexel, Hartshorne, Howell, Lardner, McMurtrie, Morgan, Morris, Stillman, Tilghman, Ulstick, Van Dykes, and Wharton. Many of these are prominent families from Pennsylvania or Maryland. One letter from a Bowne in series 7 contains a partial family tree of the Bownes and Saltar families. Most of these letters are found in the Fanny Saltar series.

Among the places from which letters were sent are areas in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York State, New Jersey, Illinois, Ohio, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Paris (France), and Rome (Italy). Cities represented are Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and others. Many letters were sent to or from Magnolia Grove, the Saltar plantation home near Philadelphia.

Topics tend to focus on societal mores and customs of the times as experienced by married and single women of land-owning classes: courtship; marriage; religion; pastimes; visits and travel; and the welfare of family members and friends. There are many references to illnesses such as measles, bowel complaints, eye conditions, diphtheria, tumors, and mental illness, with many details on treatments and outcomes. There are also long passages and references to grief and mourning on the death of loved ones, and fairly frequent mentions of finances.

The letters written during the Civil War discuss events centered around Pennsylvania, particularly in 1863, as well as a comment on friends going off to war, and one letter discusses African American troops and the circumstances surrounding the recruitment of the 3rd United States Colored Troops' commander, Benjamin C. Tilghman, whom the Saltars knew from Philadelphia. Earlier letters speak of the War of 1812, especially of events around Baltimore.

Acquired by the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture.

Collection
Collection contains assorted examples of ephemeral manuscripts and printed materials collected by Lisa Unger Baskin relating to women's education, largely dating from the 19th and early 20th century. Formats include: school catalogs and prospectuses (for both New England and Parisian institutes for young women); school certificates and merit awards; tuition receipts and other financial ephemera; some images of school buildings; student workbooks, penmanship books, and other classroom exercises; examples of correspondence between female students and their family or friends; and other assorted items including a journal kept by student Sophia Jane Griffith and a student list maintained by penmanship instructor J. P. Webster.
Collection
Rosa Bonheur was a nineteenth century French painter and sculptor. The collection consists of examples of Bonheur's correspondence, including one letter referencing her painting and her partner, Nathalie. Acquired as part of the Lisa Unger Baskin Collection in the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture.

Collection consists of some examples of correspondence sent by Rosa Bonheur, to friends and admirers. The letters tend to be brief and routine, typically conveying her thanks for the correspondent's initial letter.

Collection
Mary Cary Packard (1858-1936) and Sarah F. (Florence) Martin (1864- ) were professional nurses trained Boston and based in Baltimore from 1887, where they managed the Robert Garrett Hospital for Children as well as the Robert Garret Sanitarium for Children in rural Mount Airy, Maryland. Collection comprises a 109-page manuscript memoir of Mary Packard's life, assembled by Sarah F. Martin around 1936, and a 20-page handwritten autobiography by Martin, 1940, wih a few photographs and booklets pasted in. The Packard memoir contains a detailed biography, 34 photographs, clippings, memorabilia, cards, and letters, all captioned in detail by Martin. The collection documents the lifelong friendship and professional lives of the two women, their family, friends and colleagues, and their Baltimore home, "Clovelly." Other topics include the history of Maryland's public health system and children's hospitals, and the genealogies of the Alden, Cary, Packard, and Parker families of eastern Massachusetts. Acquired as part of the History of Medicine Collection and the Bingham Center for Women and Women's History and Culture at Duke University.

Collection comprises two items: a 109-page scrapbook memoir of Baltimore-based professional nurse Mary Cary Packard, assembled by her close companion and colleague Sarah F. Martin starting in 1934 and completed shortly after her friend's death in 1936, and a shorter handwritten autobiography by Martin narrating her own life, created around 1940.

The Packard memoir starts with the 1934 dedication, and a 10-page biography of Packard's life and career in public health and nursing, handwritten in ink by Martin. Subsequent album pages abound with news or literary clippings; humorous verses and lyrics (some composed by Packard); memorabilia; postcards, Christmas and Valentine cards, and letters; and professional literature from nursing associations referring to the activities and accomplishments of Mary Cary Packard.

Also found in the scrapbook are 34 pasted-in photographs in the form of well-captioned albumen cartes-de-visite, cyanotypes, and gelatin silver prints. These are numerous portraits and snapshots of Packard, and a few of Martin, and photos of family, friends, nurses and physicians, and patrons of medical institutions such as the Jacobs and Garrett families. Other photographs offer views of hospital buildings, schools, and ancestral homes and towns. In addition, there are a number of photographs taken by Packard and Smith of the medical staff at the Garrett Sanitarium for Children in Mount Airy, Md., and photos of the exterior and interior of their home, "Clovelly," built for Packard in 1912 in the Baltimore suburb of Ten Hills. There are no depictions of the interiors of medical institutions or nursing schools. A handful of photographic postcards depicting hospitals and other locations are also present in the memoir.

The shorter 20-page "Miss Sallie" manuscript is an autobiography written by Sarah F. (Florence) Martin, and consists of a handwritten personal narrative which details her origins in Massachusetts, her nursing training, her career in Baltimore, and her friendship with Mary Cary Packard. Four photographs, one of Martin at six months old and another of her in nursing uniform, and two booklets from a Woman's Club accompany the narrative.

Together, the two manuscripts richly document the lifelong friendship and careers of the two women and their association with friends, neighbors, and colleagues. Topics well-represented in these two memoirs include the early decades of the nursing profession in the United States, the development of Maryland's public health system and children's medical institutions; the genealogies of the Alden, Cary, Packard, and Parker families of eastern Massachusetts; and the history of the Cary family of Clovelly (Devon), England.

Collection

Parker Pillsbury diaries, 1864-1896 2 Linear Feet — 33 pocket diaries

Parker Pillsbury (1809–1898) was an American minister, lecturer, newspaper editor, and advocate for abolition and women's rights. The collection is composed of 33 pocket diaries Parker Pillsbury kept for the years 1864 to 1896. The diaries offer a consistent, uninterrupted record of Pillsbury's life during these years, particularly his work fighting for the rights of women and African Americans and promoting Free Religion. Pillsbury records his interactions with leading social reformers of the nineteenth century, including William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Abby Kelley and Stephen S. Foster, Gerrit Smith, Wendell Phillips, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Robert Ingersoll, Charles Sumner, Henry Ward Beecher and Theodore Tilton among many others. His entries occasionally are accompanied by tipped in newspaper clippings about national events.

The collection is composed of 33 pocket diaries Parker Pillsbury kept for the years 1864 to 1896. The diaries contain a consistent, uninterrupted record of Pillsbury's life during these years.

Pillsbury wrote daily or nearly daily about the details of his life recording both the mundane and the profound. A typical entry begins with the weather and his location before providing the names of those with whom he met or correspondeded that day, events he attended, lectures he gave, or work he did. Pillsbury writes about his interactions with William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Abby Kelley and Stephen S. Foster, Gerrit Smith, Wendell Phillips, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, the Allcott family, Robert Ingersoll, Charles Sumner, Henry Ward Beecher, Theodore Tilton and many other leading social reformers of the nineteenth century. His entries are occasionally accompanied by tipped in newspaper clippings about national events.

Due to their consistency and span, the diaries provide a decades' long chronology of Pillsbury's involvement with and importance in the major social reform movements of the late nineteenth century, and in particular, the women's rights movement with which he closely associated during these years. The diaries show him to be a ceaseless traveler, moving up and down the east coast, throughout New England, and through western New York and the Midwest, as he lectured, preached, attended women's suffrage conventions, and otherwise attempted to advance the causes of equal rights for women and African Americans and Free Religion.

The diaries illustrate his close and sustained relationship with major figures in the women's rights movements. He writes of his work as joint editor with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony of the Revolution from 1867 to 1870, and his continued friendship and partnership with Anthony in the following decades. He often visited her in Rochester, they lectured together, and he served as her advisor when she was put on trial in Albany by the State Supreme Court for voting without the right to do so.

Collection
Family papers documenting the Lefroy, Caperton, and Montague familes, representing the families in Sallie Bingham's matrilineal line. These materials belonged to Sallie Bingham's mother, Mary Caperton Bingham, until her death, when they went to Sallie; her sister, Eleanor Bingham Miller; and their niece, Emily Bingham. Two figures documented in these papers, Helena Lefroy Caperton and Sallie Montague Lefroy, are the focus, along with her mother, of Sallie Bingham’s 2014 book, The Blue Box. Includes genealogies, letters, wills, a bill of sale, short stories and other writing, speeches, a prayer book, list, a few clippings, and Irish and English postcards.

Family papers documenting the Lefroy, Caperton, and Montague familes, representing the families in Sallie Bingham's matrilineal line. These materials belonged to Sallie Bingham's mother, Mary Caperton Bingham, until her death, when they went to Sallie; her sister, Eleanor Bingham Miller; and their niece, Emily Bingham. Two figures documented in these papers, Helena Lefroy Caperton and Sallie Montague Lefroy, are the focus, along with her mother, of Sallie Bingham’s 2014 book, The Blue Box. Includes genealogies, letters, wills, a bill of sale, short stories and other writing, speeches, a prayer book, list, a few clippings, and Irish and English postcards. Acquired as part of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture.

Collection
Online
Consists of 75 trade samples and sachets of cosmetics, powders, makeup, soaps and scented paraphernalia. Companies are primarily based in the United States, but Canadian and French perfumers are also represented, including Andrew Jergens, California Perfume (later Avon), Colgate, Frederick Ingram, Furst-McNess, Johnson & Johnson, Larkin, Lehn & Fink and Richard Hudnut. Poems and testimonials on packaging from Ethel Barrymore, Kate Greenaway, Mrs. Leslie Carter and Modjeska. Acquired as part of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture.