Primary Sources
available on-line

The Online Digital Image Collection is the Archives most heavily used source for primary documents. Search this collection by topic for photographs, prints, paintings, drawings, and single-page manuscripts. Other original documents available online are listed below.

• Biographical materials

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

• Class records

• 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

• University Catalogue, 1888-1889, section on the Medical School

• Class of 1891 Class Day programme, June 1891

• The Record (selected yearbooks of College classes)

• The Women's Record (selected yearbooks of classes from the College for Women)

• Commencement Programs (selections)

• Curriculum and course materials

• Eighteenth century

• Nineteenth century

• Institutional documents

  • Constitution (1749) and Charter (1753) of the Academy of Philadelphia

  • 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

  • Trustees Minutes (1749-1791, 1969-present)

  • Tuition Account Books, 18th century

  • University Catalogs

• Memorabilia, printed

  • Calendar of University of Pennsylvania scenes, 1911

  • 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
  

• Muybridge's Animal Locomotion Study

• Medical Class of 1889 Glass Slide Collection

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

  • Penn Gazette

  • The Record, begun 1863

  • University Catalogs, dating to 1825

  • University Magazine, founded 1875

  • The Women's Record, begun 1913

• 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, published in December 1930

• Published books

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

  • Animal Locomotion Prospectus and Catalogue of Plates, by Eadward Muybridge, 1887

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

• 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, 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

• 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

• Minority presence

• 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

• 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