[WAC][Korean War] Women’s Army Corps photo album, compiled by Sgt. Elizabeth Adamek of Cairnbrook, PA ca. early to mid 1950s, extensively recording enlisted women in post-1948 U.S. Army administrative operations at Camp Zama, Japan during the Korean War period. Elizabeth Adamek, later Elizabeth Adamek Pierce (1932–2016), served approximately twenty years.....

Social and athletic life of partially identified Black male college students at one of the oldest historically black universities, Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1854 in Pennsylvania, Lincoln University became an important center for Black intellectual development, producing generations of educators, clergy, political leaders, and professionals during the era of.....

Tuskegee Airman William E. Rice depicted in a signed photograph documents one of the first generation of African American military aviators trained by the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Rice served with the 100th Fighter Squadron of the 332nd Fighter Group, the segregated combat unit known.....

Southern cotton commerce documents spanning 1815 to 1850 recording the shipment, pricing, and commercial circulation of cotton during the formative decades of the antebellum cotton economy. These records document the infrastructure of the American cotton trade connecting southern ports such as Savannah and New Orleans with northern commercial centers including.....

[Slavery & Abolition] [Underground Railroad] [ Fugitive Slave] Signed letter mentioning threats of arson against an abolitionist community in Pennsylvania, 1850. Lancaster stood on a volatile antislavery route in 1850, with fugitives moving west toward Columbia and the Susquehanna River while pro slavery men targeted communities accused of sheltering escapees.....

Mine inspection and safety archive of six booklets dating from 1893 through World War I, documenting evolving labor practices and safety standards in the mining industry. Mine safety practices expanded rapidly after lethal mining disasters and labor conflicts of the late nineteenth century forced government intervention in regulating ventilation, machinery.....

[Medical History] [Education] Lasher, Weston William. Medical notebook, 1892 documents formal instruction in clinical medicine at the Western Pennsylvania Medical College and provides direct evidence of how diseases, symptoms, and treatments were taught to medical students in the late nineteenth century. The volume records lectures delivered by instructors including Professor.....

[Cold War] [Nuclear History] [Activism] "No Nukes" rally photograph archive, May 6, 1979, documents the largest anti-nuclear demonstration in United States history, organized in direct response to the March 28, 1979 partial core meltdown at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania. Held on the National Mall in Washington.....

Anthracite coal mining photographs, circa 1930s to 1950s, document the daily labor conditions, environmental hazards, and union activity within Pennsylvania’s coal industry and provide direct visual evidence of industrial work in one of the most significant energy sectors in the United States. Created during a period when anthracite coal production.....

Fire destruction of Trinity United Methodist Church on South 2nd Street in Clearfield, Pennsylvania, photographed during the active overnight blaze of December 21, 1968, in a dramatic sequential record of one of the borough’s largest twentieth century urban fires. The archive captures the church while fully engulfed, preserving flames erupting.....

[Labor][Union Orgazning] Bell System telephone workers on strike in Philadelphia press photo archive, November 1950, recording the Communications Workers of America's fight for better wages and working conditions in the postwar wave of American labor conflict that followed WWII wage controls. Captions identify the strike as part of a national.....

Bertha Walters criminal court file from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, 1886, documenting a Lycoming County prosecution that joined charges of lewdness, common scold, assault and battery against a woman accused of sexual misconduct, neighborhood disturbance, and disorderly public behavior. The indictment uses the severe vocabulary of nineteenth century public morals law, calling.....

General Washington and General Jackson on Negro Soldiers, 1863, a Civil War pamphlet advocating for the enlistment of African American soldiers in the Union Army. The pamphlet addresses Union military recruitment, wartime policy, and political arguments for Black enlistment. Drawing on historical precedent and wartime necessity, the text argues for.....