UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
Primary Sources Available Online

The Online Digital Image Collection is the Archives most heavily used online source for primary documents. Search the Online Digital Image Collection by topic for photographs, prints, paintings, drawings, and single-page manuscripts.

Other original documents from the collections of the University Archives are available online as listed below. Note that while additions are constantly being made to this expanding list of online primary sources, it will be many years before all of the vast numbers of documents in the University Archives will be viewable online. Researchers are welcome to visit the University Archives to view documents not found online.

Alumni catalogs

• 1880: Catalogue of the Trustees, Officers and Graduates of the Departments of Arts and Science and of the Honorary Graduates of the University of Pennsylvania, 1749-1880,Google Books version of book available in Penn's University Archives

• 1917: General Alumni Catalogue of the University of Pennsylvania, 1917, HathiTrust Digital Library version of book available in Penn's University Archives

• 1922: General Alumni Catalogue of the University of Pennsylvania, 1922, Google Books version of book available in Penn's University Archives

Biographical materials

• Nathan Francis Mossell, M.D. 1882, autobiography and Douglass Hospital history

Booklets, programs and reports

• International activities

• International Students House News, first issue, 1927 booklet

• Universidad of Pensilvania, 1910 bulletin printed in Spanish for Latin American students

• University of Pennsylvania Service of Commemoration World War II, 1946 May 30th, includes list of Penn men who lost their lives

• Minority Permanence at the University of Pennsylvania, 1992 report

• Student organizations

• Houston Club, 1896 booklet

• Memories of the earliest days of the oldest Newman Club, 1942 booklet

• The Philomathean Society of the University of Pennsylvania: A Sesquicentennial History, 1965

• Rosetta Stone Report by the Philomathean Society, 1858

• War time activities

• List of Penn students and alumni enrolled in the Plattsburgh camps, 1916

• University of Pennsylvania in War, 1942 booklet

• Roster of Penn's 20th General Hospital, World War II

• This is our Crucial Year, 1944 booklet on the impact of World War II on the University

• VE Day service in Irvine Auditorium 1945 program

Class records and Yearbooks

• Class of 1865 Scrapbook and Class Poem

• Medical Class of 1866 course rosters and admission tickets

• Class of 1886 Cremation Hymns, November 1886

• Medical Class of 1889 Reunion booklets for 1904, 1914 and 1934

• Class of 1891 Class Day programme, June 1891

• The Record, selected yearbooks from the College, 1863-1970

• The Women's Record, selected yearbooks from the College for Women, 1912-1950

• Commencement Programs, selected, 1789-2011

Curriculum and course materials

• Eighteenth century curriculum

• University Catalogs, 1825-1911

• Abstract of the Regulations of the University Collegiate Department from the Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the University of Pennsylvania, 1830

Histories of the University

• Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania, by Benjamin Franklin, 1749

• Benjamin Franklin and the University of Pennsylvania, by Francis Newton Thorpe, 1893 (Google Books version of book available in Penn's University Archives)

• "The University of Pennsylvania" by Francis N. Thorpe, from Harper's Magazine, July 1895

• Early History of the University of Pennsylvania from Its Origin to the Year 1827, by George Bacon Wood, Frederick Dawson Stone, 1896 (Google Books version of book available in Penn's University Archives)

• A History of the University of Pennsylvania: From Its Foundation to A. D. 1770, by Thomas Harrison Montgomery, 1900 (Google Books version of book available in Penn's University Archives)

• University of Pennsylvania: Its History, Traditions, Buildings and Memorials, by George E. Nitzsche, 1918 (Google Books version of book available in Penn's University Archives)

• The University of Pennsylvania, Franklin's College: Being Some Account of Its Beginnings and Development, Its Customs and Traditions and Its Gifts to the Nation, by Horace Mather Lippincott, 1919 (Google Books version of book available in Penn's University Archives)

• The Early Years: The Charity School, Academy and College of Philadelphia, prepared by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, 1972

• Building America's First University, by George E. Thomas and David Bruce Brownlee, 2000 (Google Books version of book available in Penn's University Archives)

• A History of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania: From Its Foundation in 1765 by Joseph Carson, 1869 (Google Books version of book available in Penn's University Archives)

• An Historical Sketch of the Law Department of the University of Pennsylvania by Hampton Lawrence Carson, University of Pennsylvania Dept. of Law, 1882 (Google Books version of book available in Penn's University Archives)

• History of the Graduate School, by William Romaine Newbold as printed in Old Penn, vol. 10, nos. 26-29 (1913, March - April)

Institutional documents

• Constitution and charters

• Deeds

• Financial Reports

• Institutional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania

• Information for Owners and Residents, 1960, prepared during neighborhood redevelopment for construction of the Annenberg School

• Provost Reports,1882-1907

• Trustees Minutes, 1749-1791 and 1969-present

• Tuition Account Books, 18th century

• University Catalogs

Memorabilia, printed

• 1911 Calendar of University of Pennsylvania scenes

• Alice Paul suffragette stamp, program for ceremony on first day of issue

Photographs and other images

• Online Digital Image Collection

• Charles Albert Dickson Photographs, album of a student in the Department of Metallurgy and Mining, c. 1890-1891

• Franz Frederick Exner Photographs, album of a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry, 1901

• Lewis Muhlenberg Haupt Student Photograph Album, c. 1881 - 1884

• Medical Class of 1889 Glass Slide Collection

• Books by Eadweard Muybridge:

• Prospectus and Catalogue of Plates, 1887

• Animal Locomotion Prospectus and Catalogue of Plates, 1887

• Descriptive Zoopraxography or the Science of Animal Locomotion Made Popular by Eadweard Muybridge, 1893

Publications by the University and its students, selected volumes and issues

• Penn Gazette, selected, 1902-1992

• University Magazine, selected, 1875-1885

Published articles

• Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania, by Benjamin Franklin, 1749

• "The University of Pennsylvania" by Francis N. Thorpe, from Harper's Magazine, July 1895

• "Recollections of a Football Fan", by Davidson Kennedy, Class of 1878, December 1930

Speeches and debates

• William Heathcote Delancey, Provost, speeches, 1828 and 1830

• Graduate Department for Women, speeches delivered at the opening, 1892

• Philomathean Society Semi-Centennial Celebration, 1853, containing texts of addresses delivered for the occasion

• M. Edgar Richards, "Improvements of the Age," Commencement Speech, 1851

• William Smith, Memorial address on the life of Benjamin Franklin, 1792

• Zelosophic Society Call to Debate on the Fifteenth Amendment, c. 1870

• Zelosophic Society Debate with Swarthmore College, November 8, 1907