A published first edition, 1837, of Jean Baptiste Gaspard Roux de Rochelle's History of the United States of America, in French, with a companion volume of original sketches used for the 96 engraved plates. Sketches are of American scenes and history, some apparently original, others after de Bry and other artists, all used in Roux de rochelle's book.

These are the original sketches used for the engravings in Day's 1843 publication, "Historical Collections of the State of Pennsylvania" (Philadelphia). They are finely detailed renderings of public and private structures and landscape throughout Pennsylvania. Accompanying these sketches are 150 pages of photocopied letters of Day, from originals at Yale University. These were used by Smith in his book.

The youngest son of Charles Willson Peale, Titian Ramsay Peale was an accomplished artist, naturalist, and explorer. This collection of ink, pencil, and watercolor sketches, with some engravings and lithographs, forms the bulk of Peale's artistic output. The drawings can be grouped into several periods of artistic output: pre-1818 (primarily watercolors of butterflies); from the Stephen Harriman Long Expedition to the American west in 1819-1820, on which Peale traveled as zoologist (there are views of animals, Indians, landscapes, etc.); for his 1821-1838 interlude period, spent primarily on the east coast (insects, animals, moose hunting in Marine, his trip to South America in 1830-1831, coin and medal designs); his period as a naturalist on the worldwide U.S. Exploring Expedition under the command of Charles Wilkes, 1838-1842; from the 1849-1873 period when he sketched around Washington, D. C. and in New Jersey; and there are more than 160 undated sketches of: animal skulls and bones, birds, plants, fish, insects, landscapes, and zoology.

A physician, natural historian, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815) was one of the central figures in Philadelphia's early national scientific establishment. Having received his medical training in European universities, Barton was appointed Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in 1789, lecturing on botany, materia medica, natural history. A prolific author, he established his reputation as one of the nation's preeminent botanists through his botanical text book The Elements of Botany (1803), but his contribtions to zoology, ethnology, and medicine were equally noteworthy. Barton's monograph on the "fascinating faculty" of the rattlesnake and his efforts in historical linguistics (New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America, 1798) were widely read, and his Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal (1804-1809) was one of the nation's first medical journals and an important outlet for natural historical research. The Barton Papers offer a comprehensive view of the professional work of Benjamin Smith Barton from the time of his return to the United States in 1789 until his death. The collection is divided into five series: Correspondence, Subject Files, Bound Volumes, Graphic Materials, and Printing Plates. The collection includes a particularly valuable series of botanical, medical, and natural historical drawings collected by Barton for research, reference, and publication. Among the many artists represented are William Bartram, Frederick Pursh, Pierre Turpin, and Benjamin Henry Latrobe.