Blue and white ironstone plate with central 3/4 portrait of Benjamin Franklin in a fur hat. "THE PENNSYLVANIA SOCIETY / BENJAMIN FRANKLIN / 1706-1906" around inner perimeter. Decorative border with seal of the Pennsylvania Society, arms of the State of Pennsylvania and New York, and the Franklin arms, surrounded by fruit and leaves around outer perimeter.

Suede pouch for Benjamin Franklin Medallion - 01.C.45. Suede pouch stamped with an image of an eagle, "United States of America," and wreath with bow on obverse and "TIFFANY & CO. NEW YORK PARIS LONDON MAKERS" on reverse.

A Brigadier General in the Continental Army, George Weedon served under the immediate command of his fellow Virginian George Washington from, 1776 until 1778. This orderly book was kept under Weedon's command during the fall and winter, 1777-1778, documenting the hardships suffered by the American soldiers during their bitter encampment at Valley Forge.

Founded by the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1890, the Biological Laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., was little more than a languishing outpost until the arrival of Charles B. Davenport in 1898. Over the course of two decades, the ambitious young biologist used his extraordinary administrative skills to transform the institution into the premier center of eugenical study and, as its director, to position himself as the leading spokesman for eugenical research in North America. The Davenport Papers (ca. 63 lin. feet) is a large and nearly comprehensive body of correspondence, lectures, diaries (1878-1942, mostly brief entries of an uneven character), student notebooks and family correspondence pertaining to Charles Davenport and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The collection is divided into two series, the Charles Davenport Papers, which provides valuable documentation of the development of American biology, animal and plant genetics, and eugenics during the period 1898-1942, with some perspective on the international eugenics movement. Series II, the Cold Spring Harbor Records (ca.20 lin. feet), consists largely of administrative correspondence relating to the laboratory, including Davenport's correspondence with Carnegie administrators (esp. Robert Woodward and John Merriam), accounts and reports concerning financial matters, publications, salaries, material relative to the early history of Cold Spring Harbor labs, and records relative to the numerous professional assistants who worked under Davenport. Among the major correspondents are the American Breeders Association, Committee on Eugenics; American Eugenics Society; American Society of Naturalists; Committee on a Study of the American Negro; Galton Society (see also the extensive correspondence with William K. Gregory); Eugenics Education Society (see Mrs. S. Gotto correspondence); International Congresses of Eugenics; International Federation of Eugenic Organizations, Committee on Race Crossing; National Committee on Mental Hygiene; National Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor; and the Pan-American Conference on Eugenics and Homiculture. There are correspondence and papers relating to the Station for Experimental Evolution, the Eugenics Record Office, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and a substantial series relating to a long-range study of children carried out at Letchworth Village, Thiles, New York. This note is currently under review for revision.

This correspondence, by and relating to Young, was collected by John G. Gazley for his biography "The Life of Arthur Young, 1741-1820" (APS Memoirs 97; Philadelphia, 1973).

The letters to Persifor Frazer cover primarily matters related to geology and mineralogy. A portion of the correspondence, principally from British scientists, concerns the 1884 meeting in Philadelphia of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (B F867).

John Archibald Wheeler (1911-2008) was a leading theoretical physicist of the twentieth century, contributing particularly to the fields of general relativity, gravitation, and quantum mechanics. Wheeler was a pioneer in the study of black holes, celestial phenomena which he named. (He had a penchant for creating new terms in physics, and is credited with naming other phenomena such as geons, wormholes, and quantum foam.) Wheeler is also known for his work in atomic and nuclear physics. In 1939, he and Niels Bohr co-authored a paper that gave the basis for recognizing that Uranium 235 and Plutonium 239 are highly fissile, a milestone in the understanding of atomic energy. Wheeler believed in the importance of public service, assisting in the U.S. war effort to develop the atomic and hydrogen bombs, and served as a scientific advisor to numerous government agencies. During a prolific academic career that spanned seventy years, Wheeler taught physics to thousands of undergraduate students at Princeton University and the University of Texas, and mentored more than fifty Ph.D. students. The Wheeler Papers provide an extensive look into the expansive career of John Archibald Wheeler, the pioneering and award-winning theoretical physicist. Comprised of 150 linear feet, this large collection contains a wide array of materials including correspondence, subject files, manuscripts by Wheeler, papers by colleagues and students, research notes and notebooks, photographs, awards, and audiovisual materials. The collection provides much insight in to Wheeler's lengthy career as a scientist, scholar, and teacher. The bulk of the material is from the 1950s to the 1990s and covers the wide scope of his professional endeavors, from his teaching at Princeton University and the University of Texas, to his many publications, to his consultation work with government agencies, industry, and atomic energy projects, to his numerous public talks and lectures.

The most stellar member of a stellar family, Elisha Kent Kane was among the most popular American explorers of the mid-nineteenth century, a hero in the tragic mode. Born in Philadelphia in 1820, the son of John Kintzing Kane and Jane Duval Leiper, Kane studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania before earning a commission as a naval surgeon. While in the Navy, Kane embarked on the succession of voyages to exotic locales that became the basis for his extraordinary fame. In 1843, he attended Caleb Cushing's first diplomatic mission to China as ship's physician, and subsequently traveled to the Philippines and Western Africa. Distinguishing himself in the Mexican War, Kane's greatest fame came from two expeditions to the arctic, aiming to locate the lost explorer, Sir John Franklin and to explore for evidence of the open polar sea. Kane died in 1857 while attempting to organize a third arctic voyage. Part of the Kane Family Collection, the Papers of Elisha Kent Kane contain a mix of personal and family correspondence with correspondence relating to all of Kane's explorations. Intelligent, articulate and very much a romantic, Kane's letters are expressive and passionate. The collection provides fine documentation of youth, his relationship with the Spiritualist Margaret Fox, and of course his travels to China and off the coast of Africa in 1846. Kane's two expeditions to the arctic are particularly well documented, with correspondence, notes, logbooks, diaries, and sketches, as well as Kane's post-expedition notes, writings, and lectures recounting his experiences.

Recordings of powwows, benefit dances, wedding dances, dance competitions, and other permonances at various grounds in Oklahoma and Missouri from 1973-1974 by Sue Roark-Calnek. Includes round dances, stomp dances, war dances, gourd dances, snake dances, buffalo dances, hand games, and others. Dancers, singers, and staff are Arapaho, Caddo, Cayuga, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Delaware, Fox, Hopi, Kiowa, Osage, Ottawa, Oto, Pawnee, Ponca, Quapaw, Seneca, Shawnee, and Yuchi. Includes Delaware and Quapaw Pow-Wow, Osage Inloska Society, Arapaho Starhawk Society, Nevada (Mo.) Bushwhacker Days Pow-Wow, and White Oak Shawnee Night Stomp Dance, Kihekah Steh Pow-Wow, and Seneca-Cayuga Green Corn Ceremonial and Stomp Dance.

Principally letters from John Eatton LeConte, John Lawrence LeConte, Joseph LeConte, and Mrs. Jane LeConte Harden to Mrs. Matilda Jane Harden Stevens, Sumner Morrison Ramsey, Mrs. Ann LeConte Stevens, and Louis LeConte pertaining to family matters and natural history.

A set of field notebooks by Ethel Aginsky and mostly Puyallup consultants, in and around Puyallup, WA, 1935-1936, documenting language and culture. Two additional notebooks of Aginsky's class notes.

The Franz Boas Personal and Professional Papers contain a diverse assemblage of professional correspondence, family letters, and diaries, with a valuable series of essays and lectures by Boas on both professional and political topics (democracy, race, etc.). (NOTE: This collection is not to be confused with the much larger Franz Boas Papers collection (Mss.B.B61), which contains the vast majority of Boas's professional correspondence and was referred to as the "Professional Papers" in earlier decades.) During the half century leading up to the Second World War, Franz Boas helped to define academic anthropology in the United States. Trained as a geographer at the University of Heidelberg, Boas worked initially on the Inuit of Baffin Island and subsequently on the cultures of the Indians of the Northwest Pacific Coast, becoming a leading figure in American anthropology by the first decade of the twentieth century. As Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, Boas made significant theoretical contributions to ethnology, linguistics, and physical anthropology, helping to ingrain the four fields approach in his discipline and introducing the concept of cultural relativism into wide currency. He was, as well, a committed Socialist and an ardent opponent of both racism and fascism.

A listing of miscellaneous manuscript maps that are not associated with any particular collections.

This collection contains correspondence, research notes, papers and addresses, memoranda, drafts of letters and papers. These items center on Lingelbach's career at the University of Pennsylvania and at the American Philosophical Society. There is much correspondence with noted historians relating to various topics. His interest in political history and foreign policy, and his participation in national organizations can be seen in such files as the Foreign Policy Association, National Resources Planning Board, and the U.S. War Dept. Committee on Education and Special Training (World War I).

Born May 26, 1750, to the niece of Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Williams was a prominent merchant, scientist and soldier. Elected to the APS in 1787 as a result of his observations on temperature and barometrical readings, as well as work on sugar production, Williams had a distinguished military career highlighted by his appointment as first superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point. The Jonathan Williams Papers consists of 46 letters and documents, written by or to Jonathan Williams Sr. and Jr., dealing primarily with financial and legal matters. The collection includes five letters written by Benjamin Franklin and many of the others are signed by Williams' father-in-law and brother-in-law, William and Robert Alexander.

Dalton Dorr (1846-1901) was the curator, secretary and director of the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art in Philadelphia, the forerunner of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, from 1880-1899. A journal, written in 1897, copied from his notes and from memory, of travels in Greenland (1869), the Indian Territory, Colorado and the Pacific coast (1872-73); Paris, England, Scotland, and Ireland (1882-85), with some sketches. He took the Greenland cruise with Isaac I. Hayes in 1869, which was described by Hayes in his "Land of Desolation" (New York: Harper, 1872). See also, a companion volume of albumen prints taken by William Bradford and other members of "Under the midnight sun: a pleasure cruise in Greenland" in the summer of 1869.

Since publication of I. Minis Hays's Calendar of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin in 1908, the APS Library has acquired a large number of miscellaneous letters and other documents relating to the life, mind, and work of Franklin and his immediate family. The collections listed in this finding aid consist of letters and documents to and from Franklin organized into groupings based upon provenance or focal point. The largest grouping consists of miscellaneous materials acquired individually or in small groups over the years, including a number of important individual items. The other collections consist largely of correspondence between Franklin and individual friends and colleagues, including his friends Mme Brillon, Mary "Polly" Stevenson Hewson, and Catherine Ray Greene, the Whig agriculturist Richard Jackson, and the printer Francis Childs. The collections include photostats of selected materials held by other institutions or that were in private hands. These are available for reference only.

Dell Hymes' doctoral research on Kathlamet Chinook (Indiana University, 1955) grew into a lifelong interest in the relationship between ethnography and linguistics. Following academic appointments at Harvard University (1955-1960) and the University of California, Berkley (1960-1965), Hymes joined the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965. During twenty-two years tenure at Penn he was a professor of folklore, linguistics, sociology and education. In 1975, he was promoted to Dean of the Graduate School of Education (1975-1987). A principal proponent of the emergent field of sociolinguistics, his most influential works include Reinventing Anthropology and Language in Culture and Society. The Hymes papers cover all aspects of Dell Hymes' professional life. Subcollection I is concentrated on his years at the University of Pennsylvania, his presidencies of the American Association of Anthropology and the Linguistic Society of America, and his editorship of the journal Language in Society. Subcollection II is broader, focusing much more on published and unpublished linguistic work on dozens of languages, mostly of North America. Of particular interest is his rich correspondence with colleagues and students on linguistic issues. The papers reflect Hymes' interests in the history of linguistics and anthropology, Native American languages (especially oral literatures), and his comparative ethnographies of communication.

Copied by Mrs. Deborah Norris Logan from original letters and papers in her family, with additions by J. Francis Fisher and Redmond Conyngham. Includes Logan's correspondence with William Penn, Hannah Callowhill Penn, Isaac Norris, Governor George Clarke of New York, Governor William Gooch of Virginia, and Governor George Thomas of Pennsylvania. Contains materials regarding early Philadelphia and Indian and colonial affairs.

This is a collection of autograph letters, principally to Hosack, but also between other correspondents.