Digital Collections at Bryn Mawr College

Finding aids for a select group of manuscript and archive collections are available through the PACSCL Finding Aids Site. In addition, search finding aids for manuscript and archival collections for all of the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL) members.

Bryn Mawr College Library Special Collections holds a large number of illustrated botanical books printed before 1900, ranging from Renaissance medicinal guides and Enlightenment taxonomic treatises to the garden books and field guides popular among hobbyists and amateur botanists of the nineteenth century. The illustrations in these books cover the full spectrum of printing techniques, from descriptive woodcuts intended to aid in plant identification to colorful lithographs of artfully arranged flowers.

Scrapbooks assembled by Bryn Mawr College Alumnae, focusing on their years at Bryn Mawr College. The alumnae represented graduated at various times between 1891 and 1950. The vast majority of the scrapbooks come from the earlier years of Bryn Mawr College.

There is huge variety among items in this collection. Some scrapbooks contain a great deal of material while others are sparse. Some provide commentary on the items, ranging from simple labels to diary-length entries. Most contain personal memorabilia such as letters and cards, as well as Bryn Mawr College-related materials. These include programs, photographs, newspaper clippings, souvenirs from dances and dinners, and college traditions material. Poems, drawings, and notes from friends give a distinctive perspective into the daily life at Bryn Mawr College.

The literary genre of the emblem book was initiated in 1531 with the publication of the Emblematum liber by Andrea Alciato (1492-1550). This book, which was published in over 170 editions, is a collection of up to 212 small pictures accompanied by a short, often cryptic, motto and an explanatory poem; each emblem relates a human moral state to an aspect of nature, an incident from history or an observation on society. Most authors of emblem books follow the three-part structure of image, motto and poem used in the Emblematum liber. However, there are instances of unillustrated emblem books (emblemata nuda), and later editions of many books include extensive scholarly commentary on each emblem. In any of its forms, the emblem book provided its reader with both the pleasure of puzzling over the encoded message and the moral instruction derived from its deciphered meaning.

The Letters and Documents Collection is mainly composed of individual, unrelated cards and letters, but also includes some manuscripts, autographs, and other small ephemera that are not part of other manuscript collections at Bryn Mawr College. Some of the letters have been removed from or are tipped into books in the Rare Book collection. Some letters that have been in the Library since the early years of the College have unknown provenance. Occasionally, letters of note from unprocessed manuscript collections have been included in the Letter File, with an explanation of their original provenance.

It is impossible to work with the medieval and Renaissance manuscripts at Bryn Mawr College without a constant reminder of the generosity of Howard L. Goodhart and his daughter Phyllis Goodhart Gordan (Bryn Mawr Class of 1935). Many of the manuscripts now in the collection were at one time Goodhart's own. He presented them to Bryn Mawr College, along with over nine hundred incunabula, as the foundation of the Library's Marjorie Walter Goodhart Medieval Library. Established in 1951, and named after Goodhart's wife (Class of 1912) this collection of early printed books and manuscripts brings alive his interest in the development of thought and education in the middle ages. The College is fortunate that Mr. Goodhart's concerns transcended the theoretical study of the medieval university, and extended to a practical interest in the education of modern women.

The Collection on Polar Exploration was the gift of Josephine R. Bull, Bryn Mawr College 1932, who, as the grand niece of Henry Bryant, collected this fascinating material related to his life and to the subject of polar exploration in the early twentieth century. The collection is comprised of materials related to the Society's interest and sponsorship of the polar expeditions of the early 20th century. The letters and other materials highlight the great interest in polar exploration at the time, as well as chronicling some of the impediments facing explorers wishing to chart the polar regions.

Bryn Mawr College Library Special Collections holds over 600 books printed before 1850 that are related to travel.

The Women's Suffrage Ephemera Collection includes a variety of ephemera related to the fight for women's suffrage dating from c. 1910 until the early 1920s.

The collection includes around seventy-five broadsides (including posters, advertisements, and persuasive arguments), pamphlets and leaflets published by various women's suffrage groups across the United States.. The collection also contains three-dimensional material from various suffrage conventions and conferences, including a large collection of pins, ribbons and buttons, many owned by Jane Campbell or M. Carey Thomas. Also included in the collection are postcards, both pro- and anti- suffrage, newspaper clipppings on the life of Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, and portrait photographs of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. For additional material, see the Carrie Chapman Catt Papers and Albums.