Collector. A collection of Americana including historical letters and documents, family and personal papers, broadsides, financial and legal papers, illustrated and printed ephemera, government and legislative documents, military records, journals, and printed matter relating primarily to the expansion and development of the United States from the colonial period through the 1876 centennial.

Correspondence, diaries, account books, memorandum books, legal and business records, indentures, and miscellaneous papers of Thomas Lee Shippen, William Shippen Jr., Anne Home Shippen Livingston, Edward Shippen, and other family members. Also included are papers of the Nicholson family.