Pennsylvania Photos and Documents

The digitized copybook of William Darlington consists of 170 scanned pages and dates from 1845 to 1851. Found within the bound volume are handwritten ink-on-paper transcriptions of Darlington’s outbound correspondence to family, friends, acquaintances, institutions, and businesses. William Darlington (1782-1863) was born to a Quaker family near Dilworthtown, Chester County and spent his childhood on his family’s farm. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a medical degree, Darlington served as a surgeon on a merchant ship for several years before returning to Chester County to practice medicine. A prominent member of the community, Darlington served as a major in the War of 1812, was the president of the Bank of West Chester for thirty-three years, and served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for two terms (1815-1817 and 1819-1823). After studying medical botany under Professor Benjamin Smith Barton at the University of Pennsylvania, Darlington continued to nurture a lifelong interest in botanical studies. In 1826, he published _Florula Cestrica_, a catalog of the plants native to West Chester, and that same year, was one of ten original members to establish the Chester County Cabinet of Natural Sciences. In 1837, he published an expanded volume of his catalog, _Flora Cestrica_, which contained a complete classification for every known plant in Chester County. Other works of note include _Agricultural Botany_ (1847) and _Memorials to John Bartram and Humphry Marshall_ (1849). The copybook covers Darlington’s outbound correspondence from 1845 to 1851. Correspondents include his sister, Jane Hough, and friends in the community, including the Batchelder and Jeffrey families. With these correspondents, Darlington shares thoughts on his family, women’s interest in science, and appreciation for condolence letters received upon the death of his son. A significant portion of correspondence relates to Darlington’s interest in botany, including detailed descriptions of plant specimens and their classification, and the exchange of printed publications with other botanists, plant collectors, and naturalists. Frequent correspondents include Dr. F. Boott, Anna Maria Collinson, Asa Gray, and H.W. Richardson. Additional correspondence to institutions and businesses relate to personal accounts, invitations to speak, society memberships, and other academic topics. The William Darlington Letterpress Copybook is housed and available for research use at the Chester County History Center.

The Women’s Suffrage and Civil Rights Collection measures 0.3 linear feet and dates from 1852 to 1933, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1893 to 1917. Found within the collection are published materials, letters, manuscripts, and ephemera related to women’s suffrage. Materials document the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association (PWSA) at the state and chapter levels, as well as the larger National Woman Suffrage Association. The Chester County Equal Suffrage Association is also represented. Some organizational materials for men, sympathetic temperance materials, and anti-suffrage materials are also included. When Elizabeth Cady Stanton introduced a suffrage resolution at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention in New York, equal suffrage became a central part of the national woman suffrage platform. Just a few years later, West Chester’s Horticultural Hall became the host location for the Pennsylvania Woman’s Rights Convention in June 1852. In the first afternoon session, voting rights was the first resolution debated and adopted in West Chester. In 1869, the National Woman Suffrage Association was founded in response to the 15th amendment. By the early 20th century, auxiliary chapters of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, as well as similarly focused organizations for men, existed in Chester County. The collection includes correspondence regarding the planning of the 1894 PWSA Convention in West Chester, including letters between Lucy Anthony and her aunt Susan B. Anthony. A notebook by Mary Heald Way details women’s suffrage events, club activities, and quotes from publications related to women’s rights. Printed materials include flyers, tracts, and publications promoting suffrage activity dating from 1893 to 1917. In some cases, only the cover, title page, and individual relevant pages have been scanned from published materials. The entirety of the Women’s Suffrage and Civil Rights Collection is housed and available for research use at the Chester County History Center.

This collection contains images of limited edition, hand-printed linocut holiday cards that were made by folk artist Mary Hamilton who lived and worked throughout her career in Clarion County, was well-known in the area, and made many contributions to the culture in Western Pennsylvania. She made these holiday cards annually for over 20 years and sent them to close personal friends. Dr. Charles Marlin, a friend of the artist and recipient of the cards, donated the original cards that show the evolution of Mary Hamilton's work.

This collection provides access to two rare dispensatories and receptures that illuminate the therapeutic practices and medical orientation of two dispensing physicians in the multilingual colonial medical market of rural Pennsylvania. The overall objective is the preserve in their entirety and to make accessible to scholarly and lay audiences a body of writings that offer insight into some of the medical resources available to the North American colonial population: A bilingual (German and English) formulary, the Medicina Pennsylvania of George de Benneville, a French Huguenot physician and the record of the practice and of the receptures - entitled Remediorum Specimina aliquot ex praxi A. W[agner] - of a Schwenckfelder practitioner from Silesia. These manuscripts can be dated roughly to the period 1740 to 1780. Both drew on numerous 18th century continental European and English sources, explicitly in the case of the Wagner manuscript and unacknowledged but obvious in the Medicina Pennsylvania. Both offer copious highly technical receptures for the armentarium of chemiatric and botanical substances that were in general use at the end of the early modern period. Similar to other physician manuals of the period, they lay out medicinals and related procedures for treatment of major diseases and conditions, including female complaints and pre- and perinatal advise. A strong but eclectic orientation to chemiatric preparations is evident, matched by reliance on the traditional botanical and animal reservoir.

The Conshohocken Recorder, April 1, 1882 - September 9, 1954.

The Meadville Local History Collection is a condensed sketch of the early history of Meadville, Pennsylvania which covers the city's natural resources and a portrayal of leading industries educational, financial, and commercial interests.

The Church of the Brethren Photograph Collection consists of more than 500 mostly black and white photographs of meeting houses and churches in eastern Pennsylvania, historic sites, gravestones, portraits and nursing homes associated with the Church. The photographs date from the 1890's to the present. A subset of the collection includes images from 200 glass-plate negatives dating from 1890 to 1915. These photographs were taken by J.G. Francis, a leader in the founding of Elizabethtown College and a minister of the Church of the Brethren in eastern Pennsylvania.

Elizabethtown College was founded by members of the Church of the Brethren, one of the original "peace churches" to spread from Europe to the United States. This peace pamphlet collection contains pamphlets that focus on peace issues and conscientious objectors' movement. Pamphlet dates range from 1775 to the 1970's.

This collection of audio-only interviews show the impact that COVID-19 had on businesses, local government, the healthcare sector, educational intuitions, non-profits, and houses of worship. Community leaders were invited to the library and asked to give their perspectives on the early days of the pandemic, their emergency response, the strengths and weaknesses of the Erie Community, and the lessons learned.