Boynton Collection of Early Claremont
Morrill G. Boynton, Pomona College 1904, was an amateur photographer. His collection of glass plate negatives, housed in Honnold/Mudd Special Collections, candidly and personally capture aspects of life in Southern California, especially Los Angeles, Claremont, and Pomona College. Most of these images in the Boynton Collection were shot between about 1900 and 1905.
The bulletins of the California Department of Water Resources and its predecessor agencies present findings from hundreds of investigations conducted throughout the years from one end of the State to the other. The collection also contains materials pertaining to the creation and operation of the Central Valley Project, the California State Water Project, and their component units.
Campi Phlegraei, Observations on the Volcanoes of the Two Sicilies
The two volumes of the Campi Phlegraei (1776) and the Supplement to the Campi Phlegraei (1779) provide a firsthand report from Sir William Hamilton which documents the late eighteenth century eruptions of Mount Vesuvius and are important to the science of volcanology due to the precise descriptions of the changes in the appearance of the volcano, the lava flows and other volcanic activity. Displayed here in their entirety, these books contain text in both English and French and 59 hand-colored plates with accompanying explanations.
City of Claremont History Collection
The City of Claremont History Collection documents the development of Claremont from its boom years at the end of the nineteenth century to the present day. Composed of photographs over a one hundred year span, the collection provides a glimpse of Claremont’s past through photographs of its buildings, neighborhoods, local landscape, and daily life. This project is a work in progress, so please check back for updates.
Claremont Colleges Photo Archive
Historical photographs from the five undergraduate colleges and two graduate universities of The Claremont Colleges are housed in the Libraries' Special Collections. As part of an ongoing digitization project, photographs depicting aspects of college life, buildings, and landscapes are digitized to provide online access to The Colleges' archival photographs for teaching and research.
The Claremont Discourse Lecture Series was established in spring 1998. Its main function is as a forum for faculty at The Claremont Colleges to present current research, publications, and creative projects.
The Lindley Scrapbooks were assembled by Dr. Walter Lindley (1852-1922), early resident of Los Angeles and prominent physician. Covering the period from 1861 to 1921, the scrapbooks are a testament to the impact Lindley had on the development of the city of Los Angeles. Included are letters from noteworthy members of Los Angeles society, clippings from regional newspapers, photographs, pamphlets, leaflets, and booklets.
Edward Ellerker Williams Notebook
This manuscript notebook created by Edward Ellerker Williams (1793-1822) dating from about 1819-1820 was the notebook on which Williams was working just prior to his unfortunate fatal sailing accident with Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1821. In his notebooks Williams recorded his travels during his stint in the Navy then afterward on the Continent with his friends and family, and are an important source for study of Shelley's last days. This notebook contains many sketches, botanical specimens, fragments of poems, and one particular pencil portrait that might be of Shelley.
Edward Vischer Drawings, Photographs and Other Material
A German born artist who immigrated first to Mexico and then to California, Edward Vischer (1809-1878), sketched and photographed California missions, trees, mountains, rural scenes, and mining operations in the second half of the 19th century. Honnold/Mudd Library Special Collections houses one of the largest collections of Vischer drawings, lithographs, albumen prints, and bound volumes.
Fashion Plate Collection, 19th Century
The collection is comprised of over 700 images of nineteenth-century fashion plates in the Macpherson Collection of the Ella Strong Denison Library at Scripps College. The full-color fashion plates were gathered from a variety of women's periodicals and other mass-circulating publications from 1789 to 1914. The images are primarily from France, Britain, America, and Spain, and depict scenes of nineteenth-century middle and upper-class life with an emphasis on the leisure practices of bourgeois women, men, and children.
Gradual from Maundy Thursday to the Vigil of Pentecost
This illuminated Renaissance manuscript, officially named "Denison Library, Perkins 4. Gradual. s. XVI," is a choir book that contains Latin text and plainsong music sung by cantors and choir at the Roman Catholic Church mass. The book was created in northern France, probably Rouen, in the early 16th century.
In 2003, the Libraries of the Claremont Colleges began growing a digital library by creating strategic plans, operating plans, background research, requests for proposals, user surveys, task forces and work groups. The collection continues to develop as the documents that are created in the process of running and expanding the Claremont Colleges Digital Library (CCDL) are revised, digitized and added to the collection.
Guides to Manuscript Collections
Guides to Manuscript Collections at the Libraries of The Claremont Colleges provide access to detailed descriptions of various personal papers and manuscript collections held in Honnold/Mudd Library Special Collections and Ella Strong Denison Library. Special collections at the Libraries hold several hundred separate collections of literary and historical manuscripts, college records, and personal papers. They include a wide variety of materials, such as letters, diaries, photographs, literary manuscripts, and ephemera.
Handbook of the Indians of California
Originally published in 1925, this monograph is a representative work of Alfred L. Kroeber’s (1876-1960) contributions to American Indian ethnology. Kroeber’s handbook provides a comprehensive look at the Indians of California and offers a foundation for the ethnographical study of California’s Native American cultures.
The Honnold Library Record was published by the Honnold Library Society between 1958 and 1975. The Record gives a glimpse at the collections and history of the Libraries of The Claremont Colleges.
Italian Renaissance Manuscript Collection
On view in this digital collection are eleven autograph, signed letters written between members of the Medici family of Florence and others in their social and political circles, including Angelo Poliziano, the Sforza family, Palla Strozzi, and Francesco Guicciardini. Written between 1426 and 1522, the letters touch on a number of issues urgent to the House of Medici including military campaigns, political associations, and the trials of family life.
The Larry Oglesby Collection consists of 35 mm color slides of flora and fauna taken by Professor Larry Oglesby, Professor Emeritus of Biology at Pomona College. Taken in the field, the slides depict plants such as Sky Lupine or Field Mustard and animals such as the Pacific Pond Turtle and Killdeer. The photographs were taken primarily in California and Oregon but photographs of the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and other locations may also be found. Each item within the collection displays the color slide and Oglesby's notations on the slide mount.
Library Research, Publications and Events at The Claremont Colleges
Library Research, Publications and Events at The Claremont Colleges contains a variety of videos, and related materials, about the different activities that occur at the Libraries. Videos that depict the history of The Claremont Colleges and the libraries are also included in the collection. While many different activities occur at the libraries, two of the ongoing series include GIS Day and National Library Week.
Matrimonial Investigation Records of the San Gabriel Mission
The matrimonial investigation records, or diligencias matrimoniales, are part of a collection of California materials gathered by William F. McPherson, an Orange County rancher, scholar and collector. Predominantly though not exclusively the records of Mission San Gabriel (other California missions are also represented), these investigations of the period 1788-1861 consist of notarized interviews with couples requesting marriage in the Roman Catholic Church. There are 165 investigations in all, with 173 men and 170 women being interviewed.
N.A. Chandler California Gold Rush Era Letters
The N. A. Chandler Gold Rush Era Letters collection consists of fifty-six handwritten letters from 1855 to 1872. Newton Amos Chandler (1818?-1880) wrote these letters from San Francisco and California mining camps, and Nevada silver and gold rush locations. These letters offer insights on life in San Francisco, Virginia City, Civil War opinions in California and Nevada, and the opportunities and discouragements of a prospector. In addition, Chandler's letters provide some information on the settling of Nevada, Native American interactions, and the mining history of Northern California and Nevada.
Pueblo and Plains Indian Watercolors
The artworks in this collection were produced by artists from the Pueblo and Plains American Indian cultures in the early twentieth century. The works demonstrate a number of very fine examples of the broad aesthetic of American Indian Modern painting: they are representational, depicting flat figures with clear outlines and unadorned backgrounds. While primarily produced for outside audiences, the works are distinctly 'Native' in terms of their function as historical records of Indian life in the early twentieth century.
Scripps College Architectural Drawings
The architectural drawings, plans, renderings, and blueprints used in the construction of the Scripps College in Claremont, California reveal the conception of one of America’s most beautiful college campuses. The collection includes plans for major campus buildings such as academic units, campus support facilities, and student housing as well as plans for campus layout and infrastructure, including landscaping, and utility systems.
