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Francis Campbell Macauley autograph collection and vocabulary notebooks
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Held at: University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts [Contact Us]3420 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6206
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Francis Campbell Macauley (sometimes spelled "Macaulay") was an American lawyer, literary aficionado, and archaeological advocate of the 19th century. Macaulay came to reside in Philadelphia in 1888. The following year he proposed to Dr. William Pepper and other leaders of the University of Pennsylvania the creation of an archaeological museum associated with the university. His efforts led to the foundation of the Museum of American Archaeology, which is now the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Macaulay's great interest in Italian literature resulted in an extraordinary collection of early editions of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Torquato Tasso, as well as assorted autographs and vocabulary notebooks, which he bequeathed to the University of Pennsylvania in 1896.
The collection comprises the autographed manuscripts of various literary, political, and intellectual figures from the 15th to 19th centuries collected by Francis Campbell Macaulay, as well as five vocabulary notebooks on the dialect of Nice compiled by him. The collection is accordingly divided into two series. The first consists of sundry manuscripts, mostly letters, but also a few clippings, poems, and other documents, featuring individual autographs. The autographs are arranged alphabetically. The second series comprises the vocabulary notebooks, which were completed before Macaulay's donation of the complete collection to the University of Pennsylvania in 1896.
Highlights of the collection include autographs of U.S. presidents James Buchanan, Millard Fillmore, Thomas Jefferson, and Martin Van Buren; founding father and financier Robert Morris; Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger B. Taney; Italian Renaissance poet Ludovico Ariosto; and French author Alexandre Dumas. Also present are several documents pertaining to events in the career of Charles Stewart McCauley, an American naval officer of the War of 1812 and the Civil War, and several letters of American naval hero Charles Stewart; both ancestors of Francis Campbell Macaulay. This collection includes items that may be of incidental interest to a variety of researchers, in particular those interested in Italian literary and intellectual figures from the 15th through 19th centuries and French dialects.
Gift of Stuart Culin, 1916.
- Publisher
- University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts
- Finding Aid Author
- Kevin Stuart Lee
- Finding Aid Date
- 2014 March 24
- Access Restrictions
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This collection is open for research use.
- Use Restrictions
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Copyright restrictions may exist. For most library holdings, the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania do not hold copyright. It is the responsibility of the requester to seek permission from the holder of the copyright to reproduce material from the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts.