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.

Through his craniometic studies of human races, the Philadelphia physician Samuel George Morton (1799-1851) exerted a profound influence on the development of physical anthropology in antebellum America, and made substantial contributions to mineralogy, paleontology, and natural history. Relating primarily to Morton's scientific interests, the Morton Papers include insights into Morton's perspectives on education, medical practice, geology and mineralogy, craniology, paleontology, the Wilkes Exploring Expedition (also known as the United States Exploring Expedition 1838-1842), and his two major monographs, the Crania Americana and Crania Aegyptiaca. Several of the letters were written by Morton in his capacity as corresponding secretary of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Also included in this collection are Morton's "Some Remarks on the Infrequency of Mixed Offspring Between the European and Australian Races" (1850), Joseph Barclay Pentland's notes on the aborigines of Peru (ca. 1840?), and newspaper clippings on Morton's death; a diary of Morton's trip to the West Indies, 1834, a set of craniological sketches for use in Crania Americana, and a microfilm of letters in private hands, written to Morton, 1838-1844