Member Institutions

Adler Planetarium

History of astronomy and space exploration

• One of the world’s largest collections of sundials and astrolabes
• Historical celestial atlases, works on instruments, and astronomical texts and tables
• A large collection of historical telescopes, including early examples
• Treatises on mathematics, optics, physics, astrology, geography, and navigation
   

American Institute of Physics

History of physics, astronomy, geophysics and allied fields

• Niels Bohr Library & Archives
• International Catalog of Sources for the History of Physics and Allied Sciences (ICOS)
• Oral histories
• Photos
• Digital collections
• Documentation research

American Philosophical Society

18th and 19th century natural history, evolutionary biology, genetics, quantum mechanics and cultural anthropology

• 13 million manuscript items, including papers of Benjamin Franklin and Charles Darwin and of Nobel Laureates Francis Peyton Rous, Salvador E. Luria and Barbara McClintock
• 275,000 volumes and bound journals, including first editions of Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia and Darwin's Origin of Species
• 250,000 images and thousands of hours of recorded sound

California Institute of Technology

History of science and technology at Caltech, with strengths in physics, genetics, aerospace engineering, and seismology

• Musuem 
• Oral histories of California Institute of Technology faculty and other affiliates
• George Ellery Hale Papers

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

History of molecular biology, genetics, and biotechnology

• Genentech Center for the History of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology
• Archival collections of James D. Watson, Sydney Brenner, Barbara McClintock, Hermann Muller, Wally Gilbert, Charles Weissmann, and others
• Reprint collection assembled by Charles Davenport and Milislav Demerec totaling over 90,000 items
• Rare book collection assembled by Charles Davenport, Milislav Demerec, and amplified by gifts from Sydney Brenner, Elof Carlson and James Watson
• Photograph archive containing over 100,000 photographs of preeminent CSHL geneticists from 1890 to present when they attended meetings at Cold Spring Harbor
• CSHL international meetings and courses bring together more than 12,500 scientists each year from around the world to present and evaluate new data and ideas in biological research
• Abstracts from all CSHL scientific meetings covering the period from 1950 - present.

College of Physicians of Philadelphia

Health sciences

• 340,000 books and bound journals, the oldest book dating from A.D. 1244
• 1 million manuscript items, including the papers of W. W. Keen and S. Weir Mitchell
• Mütter Museum of medical artifacts and specimens

Columbia University

Research university; library system with holdings in many areas.

• The David Eugene Smith collection of books and manuscripts on the history of mathematics, that include Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic/Persian materials and Smith's scientific instruments collection.
• Edwin H. Armstrong Papers
• Elizabeth Blackwell Papers (first female physician in the U.S.)
• Charles Chandler Papers
• Marie Curie Papers (came with papers of journalist Marie Mattingly Meloney, her U.S. sponsor)
• Robert Fulton (a small collection, but with some good information about his steamboats)
• George Pegram
• Michael Pupin Papers
• Otto Rank Papers
• Mary Lasker Papers (philanthropist whose foundation has sponsored much medical research)
• Large group of social work collections deal with nursing and public health, including:
• Lillian Wald Papers
• Community Service Society Papers (includes a large collection of photographs commissioned by CSS)
• Further Links of Interest:
• The Center for Science & Society
• Library Research Awards Program

Drexel University

Natural history, History of Women in Medicine, Women's Health, Medical Education, Homeopathy, Engineering and Tech Ed

• 250,000 titles, from works published in the 1500s to the present, in both print and electronic format at the Academy of Natural Sciences.
• Over one million archival items related to individuals related to the Academy of Natural Sciences, as well as expeditions from the last 200 years. These include letters, official documents, film, and photographs.
• Approximately 5,000 linear feet of correspondence, diaries, oral histories, rare books, photographs, objects and other materials related to the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania/Medical College of Pennsylvania and Hahnemann University.
• Over 500,000 books, journals, textbooks, and on-line resources in the library collections of Drexel University proper.
• 50 linear feet of archives of technical and industrial education, and of engineering and early technical institute records, part of approximately 2500 linear feet of Drexel University collections.

The collections of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, which include:

• 17 million plant and animal specimens, including the Lewis & Clark herbarium, Thomas Jefferson’s fossil collection (from the APS) and J. J. Audubon’s bird skins
• 250,000 manuscript items relating to the history of natural history
• 200,000 volumes on all aspects of natural history, with particular strengths in systematics, evolution, ecology, marine and freshwater biology, stratigraphy, comparative biochemistry, history of science, exploration and travel.

Approximately 5,000 linear feet of archival material documents the history of:

• Drexel University College of Medicine and its predecessor institutions, the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania/Medical College of Pennsylvania [WMC/MCP] and Hahnemann University.
• Women in medicine, internationally, evolving from WMCP's unique position as an all-female medical school
• Homeopathy, internationally, rooted in Hahnemann's founding as the first school for homeopathic medicine in the United States.
• over 500,000 books, journals, textbooks, and on-line resources in engineering, health sciences, business, information science, and design and media arts, as well as general science, humanities and social sciences
• 50 linear feet of archives of technical and industrial education, and of engineering and early technical institute records, part of approximately 2500 linear feet of Drexel University collections.

Hagley Museum and Library

Business, technology, and industrial design

• 42,000 linear feet of manuscripts documenting the experiences of thousands of businesses
• Personal and business papers of the DuPont Company and family
• Records of commodity producers like Bethlehem Steel and the American Iron and Steel Institute
• Transportation collections such as the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Z. Taylor Vinson Collection of Transportation Ephemera
• The records of Ernest Dichter, psychologist-turned-mid-century marketing consultant
• 3 million audiovisual and digital artifacts, and 2 terabytes of electronic records and web archives
• One of the largest and most influential collections of trade literature

Harvard University

Research university; library system with holdings in many areas
 

Descriptions of Harvard's holding highlights for this website are currently under development. For further information, please visit Harvard University Library's website at the link below.

History of Science Society

Professional society; history of science, technology and medicine

• world’s largest society dedicated to understanding science, technology, medicine, and their interactions with society in historical context
• produces Isis, the widest circulation journal in the history of science, and Osiris, an annual thematic volume devoted to single topics of wide interest to the history of science community
• maintains the Current Bibliography of the History of Science and its Cultural Influences (an HSS member benefit), an online bibliography of History of Science, Technology, and Medicine articles published world-wide
• the HSS Newsletter, published quarterly, provides job listings, conference announcements, and news of the Society, its members, their disciplines and the profession

Huntington Library

History of science, technology and medicine; maps and atlases; medieval manuscripts; British history; American history; and history of the American West and Pacific Rim

• Bern Dibner's Burndy Library, containing 47,000 rare monographic and serial volumes and 50 archival collections.
• Grace K. Babson collection, with the largest assemblage of Isaac Newton materials outside England.
• Lawrence D. Long and Betty jeanne Long Collection in Reproductive Biology contains 2,700 rare books on obstetrics and gynecology from the 16th-century to the present.
• Mohr Darwin Collection holds nearly 1,700 publications by and about Charles Darwin.
• Edwin Hubble papers and Carnegie Observatories' Mount Wilson Observatory Collection, containing more than 1,000 books on the history of astronomy and physics.

Johns Hopkins University

Research university; library system with holdings in many areas.

A notable number of landmark works of medical history are held in the comparatively small rare book collection of some twenty-five thousand volumes, which is also especially strong in the history of infectious disease and public health. The Alan Mason Chesney Archives holds the institutional records and the personal papers of the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. The Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University include the Garrett Library at Evergreen House, which has an outstanding collection of books relating to exploration and travel, as well as the Peabody Library, an incredibly rich research collection with strengths in many areas of history of science.

Library Company of Philadelphia

American history and culture and its European background from the 17th through the 19th centuries

• Papers and medical library of Benjamin Rush
• 500,000 bound volumes, including many early American imprints
• Helfand Collection of Proprietary Medical Pamphlets

Linda Hall Library

Primary and secondary sources that document the sciences, technology, and engineering disciplines from the 15th century to the present

• History of science, technology, engineering, especially strong in natural history, astronomy, environmental and earth sciences, life sciences, physics, chemistry, aeronautics, infrastructure studies, Cold War sciences, and mathematics
• Over 500,000 monograph volumes and more than 48,000 journal titles
• Conference proceedings, reference works, government publications and technical reports, over 200,000 industrial standards, unpublished engineering society conference papers, and U.S. patents
• Acquired entire American Academy of Arts and Sciences Library in 1947
• Acquired entire Engineering Societies Library in 1995
• Over 10,000 rare books, including Rheticus’s Narratio Prima, Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, Hooke’s Micrographia, Newton’s Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica, and Catesby’s Natural History of Carolina, Florida & the Bahama Islands
• Digital collections provide access to nearly 250,000 digitized images of significant rare and fragile materials

New York Academy of Medicine

history of medicine

Strengths of the collection include:

• 16th-, 17th- and 18th- century Western medical texts
• medical Americana and collections related especially to the history of medicine in New York
• culinary collections
• pamphlets
• anatomical atlases and works by and about Andreas Vesalius
• surgery
• women’s medicine
• epidemic diseases
• herbals and medical botany
• public health documents
• works by William Harvey

Newberry Library

Cartography, printing history and book arts, renaissance studies, Native American studies, history of religion and music, genealogy and local history, Chicago and the Midwest.

• John M. Wing collection on printing and books arts: 100,000 volumes of technical literature, periodicals, and histories of book arts; 600 linear feet of printing and publishing-related archives; 68,000 volumes of classified printing samples of every period
• history of cartography: 600,000 maps and thousands of travel books
• Edward Ayer collection on Native American history, including 17,000 primary source documents and 130,000 books
• long runs of European and American periodicals
• historical materials on polar regions
• Chicago-area and Midwestern history
• religion and science

Princeton University

Research university; library system with holdings in many areas

• 6 million printed volumes
• Subject libraries in astrophysics, biology, chemistry, engineering and geosciences
• 5 million manuscript items, including the papers of Edwin Grant Conklin, Harry Hammond Hess and David Todd Wilkinson

Rockefeller Archive Center

Philanthropic support of science, technology and medicine in the twentieth- and twenty-first century

• records of the Rockefeller family and their wide-ranging philanthropic endeavors (including Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Rockefeller University)
• repository of materials from the Ford Foundation, the Population Council, the John A. Hartford Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Commonwealth Fund
• personal papers of leaders of the philanthropic community, Nobel Prize laureates, and world-renowned investigators in science and medicine
• over 115 million pages of documents, over 900,000 photographs, 18,000 reels of microfilm, 6,000 films, and 6,000 maps and architectural drawings

Science History Institute

History of chemistry, chemical engineering, modern life sciences, and related sciences, technologies, and industries

• 150,000 books and journals dating back to the 15th century
• 6,000 rare books, including the noted Roy G. Neville Historical Chemical Library
• Over 6,000 linear feet of manuscripts, including institutional and corporate collections (including the Dow Company and Rohm & Haas historical archives) and the personal papers of Paul Flory, Carl Marvel, Alan MacDiarmid, Richard Smalley, Paul Lauterbur and many others
• Over 50,000 historical photographs depicting scientific instruments and apparatus, laboratory facilities, industrial production, advertising and marketing, and even the visual history of chemistry
• Historical artifacts, including over 700 chemical instruments and 90 chemistry sets
• Over 90 works of art and 200 prints of chemical subjects dating back to the 17th century
• More than 1,100 oral history interviews with leaders in chemistry, chemical engineering, biomedical sciences, and related fields, with an increasing focus on diversity in STEM
• 3,870 journal titles, dating from 1819
• Over 6,000 digitized items, including artifacts, photographs, advertisements, letters, rare books, and more, freely available for download in a variety of formats and sizes at digital.sciencehistory.org
• Library Catalog

Smithsonian Institution

History of science, technology, natural history, culture, art, design, and international expositions

• 2 million printed books, journals, and manuscripts
• Digital Library creates electronic versions of rare books and other distinctive collections, as well as exhibitions and specialized finding aids
• Special Collections Department libraries contain 50,000 rare and valuable volumes and 2,000 manuscript groups dating from the thirteenth to the early twentieth centuries
• world's fairs and international expositions collection, including publications documenting the fairs from 1851 to the twentieth century
• Alexander Graham Bell’s and Joseph Henry’s personal book collections
• the surviving volumes of James Smithson's personal library
• other rare book and special collections represent such diverse research interests as early aeronautics, European decorative arts and design, and Asian art

United States Naval Observatory

19th and 20th century astronomy and physics

• 800 volume rare book collection
• 19th century scientific monograph collection
• Tens of thousands of scientific periodicals originating from across the globe dating from the early 17th century to today

University of Oklahoma

Research university; history of science collections with strengths in astronomy, physics, natural history, geology, technology, and science and religion

• Over 100,000 volumes comprising the printed record of science from the 15th century to the present time
• early printed books from 15th through 17th centuries, including over 50 incunabla, many first or notable editions of ancient and medieval authors, and key texts reflecting developments in astronomy, cosmology, natural philosophy, medicine and natural history throughout the Renaissance and the period of the Scientific Revolution
• scientific journals from the 17th century through the 19th century, including the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and the publications of many other smaller scientific societies

University of Pennsylvania

Research university; library system with holdings in many areas

• 5.6 million printed volumes
• Subject libraries in chemistry, veterinary medicine, engineering, math/physics/astronomy and biomedicine
• 10,000 linear feet of manuscripts, including the Edgar Fahs Smith Collection in the History of Chemistry

Wagner Free Institute of Science

Natural history and science education

• Natural history museum
• 45,000 printed volumes, special features of which are university and public school syllabi and publications from smaller, often defunct, scientific institutions
• 500 linear feet of manuscripts, including papers of Joseph Leidy, Edward Drinker Cope and William Berryman Scott

Wellcome Collection

History of medicine and health
 

• Over 800 archive collections and 21,000 individual manuscripts
• 250,000 prints, drawings, paintings, photographs and art works in other media
• 70,000 monographs
• 35,000 ephemera items
• Our film, video and audio collection is one of the largest of its kind. It covers all aspects of medicine, health and welfare throughout the 20th century and beyond.
• Around 15,000 journal titles

Yale University

Research university; library system with holdings in many areas.

The Yale University Library is one of the world’s leading research libraries and a highly valued partner in the teaching and research mission of Yale University and scholarly communities worldwide. It is committed to fostering intellectual growth by collecting, organizing, preserving, and providing access to a rich and unique record of human thought and creativity. One of the Library’s distinctive strengths is its rich spectrum of resources, which include more than 15 million volumes and information in all media, ranging from ancient papyri to early printed books to electronic databases. Housed in 15 libraries, including Sterling Memorial Library, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library and the new Center for Science and Social Science Information.