Manuscripts of Modern America

The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections' Modern American manuscript classification includes all manuscript groups originating, wholly or primarily, in North America since the end of the Civil War. The great majority of these items originated in the United States. Manuscripts of Modern America contains collection-level descriptions of the Department's processed holdings in this area. Individual collections are typically distinguished by unity of provenance; consequently, the collections described on this site vary greatly in size, from a single manuscript to several thousand.