The central topics of the Americana collections are the European exploration and settlement of the New World and the political and military history of the United States from the first settlements through the Civil War. These histories are told in books and documents such as explorers’ and travelers’ descriptions of the land and its peoples; maps; scriptures, liturgical, and devotional works for the use of Christian missionaries and converts—many in Native American languages; Indian treaties and captivity narratives; and collections of legal and church documents from the Oregon Territory and colonial Mexico and Peru.

There are also many letters and other writings of figures such as the Spanish explorers Cortéz and Pizarro; Washington (more than 100, including his earliest extant letter), Franklin (letters, Poor Richard almanacs, and many other products of his printing press), Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln (more than 60 letters), and Grant (80 of his wartime letters and the draft telegram announcing Lee’s surrender).

Early printing in the New World is illustrated by examples such as one of only eleven known copies of the Bay Psalm Book (1640), the first book printed in what is now the United States; and the first complete Bible printed in the Western Hemisphere (1661-1663), the Eliot Indian Bible in the Natick language of Massachusetts.

Fine and Decorative Arts

Fine Arts

Metal, Ceramics, and Glass

Portrait Miniatures

Furniture, Clocks, Looking
Glasses, Lighting, and Textiles

Vertu and Jewelry

Rare Books, Manuscripts,
Maps, and Broadsides

Americana

English, American, and
Continental Literature

Book Arts, Incunabula,
Maps and Broadsides

Judaica, Children’s Literature,
and Rosenbachiana

Collections Highlights

James Joyce's Ulysses

Marianne Moore Archive

Maurice Sendak Collection