Member Institutions
The Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science was founded in 2006 as a consortium of cultural and educational institutions. The Center helps to make the collections and scholarly resources of the member institutions more broadly available for research in the history of science, technology and medicine.
Research Resources
As arguably the birthplace of American science, Philadelphia contains resources in this field that are unparalleled in their historical depth as well as breadth. Here are some of the highlights. Follow the links to find more.
The Academy of Natural Sciences
Specialty: Natural history
- 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.
American Philosophical Society
Specialty: 18th and 19th century natural history, evolutionary biology, genetics, quantum mechanics and cultural anthropology
- 10 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
- 100,000 images and thousands of hours of recorded sound
Chemical Heritage Foundation
Specialty: History of chemistry 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 5,200 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
- 28,000 historical photographs of chemists, laboratories and instruments
- 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 260 oral history interviews with leading figures in chemistry and related sciences, technologies, and industries
- 2,500 journal titles, dating from 1819
- 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
- Hands-on museum of science and technology
- Fels Planetarium
- Benjamin Franklin Collection, Wright Brothers Aeronautical Engineering Collection, and Fairmount Waterworks Collection
- Archives of Committee on Science and the Arts, with 3,800 Case Files from the early 1800s and documents from the Institute’s Committee on Inventions
- 37,000 linear feet of records
- Personal and business papers of the DuPont Company and family
- Records of the Pennsylvania Railroad and Bethlehem Steel
- 300,000 digitized items and 2 terabytes of electronic records and web archives
- 290,000 bound volumes
- 2 million images
- 20 million manuscript items, including the papers of the Penn and Logan families and Joel Poinsett
- 35,000 prints and maps
- 600,000 printed volumes
- Papers and medical library of Benjamin Rush
- 500,000 bound volumes, including many early American imprints
- Helfand Collection of Proprietary Medical Pamphlets
- 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
- 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
- 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
Library Catalog
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia
Specialty: Health sciences
The Franklin Institute
Specialty: Science museum
Hagley Museum and Library
Specialty: Business and technology
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Specialty: Mid-Atlantic states’ economic, social and political history
The Johns Hopkins University
Specialty: 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.
The Library Company of Philadelphia
Specialty: American history and culture and its European background from the 17th through the 19th centuries
Princeton University
Specialty: Research university; library system with holdings in many areas
University of Pennsylvania
Specialty: Research university; library system with holdings in many areas
The Wagner Free Institute of Science
Specialty: Natural history and science education
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