American Philosophical Society

The Library houses over 180,000 volumes and bound periodicals, six million manuscripts, and thousands of maps and prints, as well as sound recordings featuring Onondaga speaker Lucenda George, among others. You can search MOLE, the Manuscripts Online Guide and VOLE, the Vaughan Online Catalog, and there are Finding Aids and Subject Guides. Various digital collections are available online for browsing. Within the Society's library, the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research "houses photographs, audio recordings, and archival manuscripts from 270 indigenous cultures of the Americas. The collections also span hundreds of years, from the present-day back to 1743, when Benjamin Franklin founded the APS and began the Native American collections by printing thirteen books of treaty negotiations that illustrate the oratorical brilliance of indigenous speakers." Many relevant holdings are catalogued under 'Anthropology and Native Americans,' which include: "Abbot-Charnay Collection, 1859-1882, Photographs of Mexican archaeological sites, Lacandon, Mayan, Mixtec, and Yucatec "racial types" taken by the French photographer Désiré Charnay during his expeditions of 1858-1860 and 1880-1882.Franz Boas Papers, ca.1875-1942, Photographs and some original artwork relating to the anthropologist Franz Boas... William N. Fenton Papers, ca.1935-1980, Approximately 300 photographs of Iroquois Indians from New York state and Canada, ca.1930s-1960s. Alfred I. Hallowell Papers, 1919-1971, Several hundred photographs of Abnaki and Ojibwa Indians of Canada and Wisconsin (Berens River, Lake Winnepeg, Manitoba, and Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin areas) taken mostly during the 1930s and 1940s. H. O. Hanson Collection, with images of the Inter-Tribal Ceremonial at Gallup, N.M., the Jemez Pueblo, and of the Santa Fe Fiesta, 1952 and 1953. John Alden Mason Papers, ca.1875-1942, Photographs taken by the archaeologist, John Alden Mason, including images of Pima Bajo, Papago, Northern Tepehuan, Southern Tepehuan, and Tepecano Indians. Zeno Shindler Collection, 1858-1868, 95 photographs of members of American Indian delegations to Washington, D.C., 1858-1868, taken by the photographer A. Zeno Shindler. Frank Speck Collection, ca.1870-1942, Hundreds of photographs of Native Americans taken or collected by the anthropologist Frank Speck, primarily between 1910 and 1930. Speck-Choate Collection, 27 photographs taken by J. N. Choate, a local commercial photographer in Carlisle, Pa., of the Indian Training School at Carlisle Barracks, with a number of images of visiting chiefs in traditional dress, including the Lakota chief Spotted Tail, and the Cheyennes Man on Cloud and Mad Wolf. One photograph depicts Richard Henry Pratt seated with Quaker supporters. Among the tribes represented are the Lakota, Laguna, Cheyenne, Creek, Lipan, and Pueblo." See website to search full holdings and for details on accessing collections.