Charles Coleman Sellers (1903-1980) was a noted historian of early America, best known for his numerous works on the life and artistic production of the family of his own great-grandfather, Charles Willson Peale. Born in Overbrook, Pa., in 1903, Sellers attended Haverford College (1925) and Harvard (MA 1926), before taking a position as librarian at Wesleyan College (1937-1949) and, later, Dickinson College (1956-1968). For several years in the late 1940s, Sellers worked at the American Philosophical Society as Research Associate.
2 linear feet.
The Charles Coleman Sellers Collection (Ms Coll) consists of the working file of the historian, pertaining to his research on the artistic oevre of Charles Willson Peale and his family. The Collection is organized in seven series, corresponding roughly to Sellers's publications on the subject, including Benjamin Franklin in Portraiture, Series III.
The Papers of Benjamin Franklin are a rich source as varied and expansive as Dr. Franklin's storied life. The Collection has been calendared, catalogued, and much of it is available online at franklinpapers.org and in printed volumes. The APS inventory in MOLE is extraordinarily detailed. The aim of this entry is not to reproduce what is already readily accessible, but to focus on material that is unavailable in printed or online sources.
Most notable are a series of bound volumes that capture different aspects of Franklin's professional career. The bound volumes include a nearly complete record of the colonial Post Office that Franklin headed, numerous account books from Franklin's time in England and France, and official account books of the U.S. mission in France. In addition to these bound account and ledger books, the collection also includes a copy of the earliest known deed for the Pennsylvania statehouse property, various sketches and drawings thought to be done by Franklin, and four large volumes of a journal of John Lindsay Crawford's travels with the Russian Army from 1737-1739 that include large maps of Europe. Franklin kept these four volumes in his private library and are separately described in MOLE under Crawford.
The Franklin Papers, along with the papers of his grandsons at the APS, provide a nearly complete picture of Benjamin's time as an American ambassador to France during the American Revolution. Aside from the manuscript records from this period, the collection has a nearly complete set of account books detailing both the official and personal transactions of Franklin in France.
The APS also houses a collection of books that came from Franklin's personal library. The library offers insight into Franklin's own reading and intellectual life. A box of miscellaneous papers in the manuscript collection may also be of related research interest. This box includes a variety of documents that Franklin had in his possession, such as copies of newspapers that have marginalia, that are not included in the official published papers.
