It’s a pleasure to reopen this blog, devoted to presenting projects by Penn students who are working to transcribe and analyze Penn’s rich manuscript resources, from all periods and covering all fields.
This summer, we offer a series of posts by a group of interns who have been working together to transcribe early records of the University of Pennsylvania: Finian Connors, Aidan Goodchild, Cole McCann-Phillips, and James Morrison. They’ll be sharing some of their discoveries here. After more review is finished, we expect to make the full transcriptions available for all to read: stay tuned.
Shown here: the opening page of minutes, from 1749. The Trustees Minutes are the most complete surviving source documenting the establishment and early governance of Penn. The school was known for much of the eighteenth century as “The College, Academy, and Charitable Schools” of Philadelphia and often referred to, for short, as the College of Philadelphia. (The name University of Pennsylvania was not given until 1791.) Held at the University Archives and Records Center, these minutes have been scanned—but no full transcription has ever been made.
View scans of Volume 1 (1749-1768)
View scans of Volume 2 (1768-1779, 1789-1791)
For the transcription process, we have uploaded scanned page images to FromThePage, a website and software tool for collaborative transcription projects. FromThePage allows users to examine a digital image while transcribing text; to work collaboratively; and to review transcriptions.
The work of transcribing accurately (deciphering letterforms, abbreviations, superscripts, and so on), and proofreading the work, demands time and concentration, and multiple pairs of eyes. I’ll begin with a little discovery made by Cole. In Volume 2 of the Minutes, in the year 1774, we find:
The Request of the Faculty concerning the appointment
of a Librarian is referr’d to further Consideration; and in the
mean Time, Dr Smith, Dr Alison & Dr Shippen Junr. are
appointed a Committee to prepare a Catalogue of the
Books in the College Library, & a List of the appara-
tus, & to lay the same before the next Board.
The entry is likely in the handwriting of Provost William Smith. The Trustees had begun buying books for the school as early as 1750—the lists of first purchases appear at the end of Volume 1 of the Minutes, like the list below. But, apparently, they never thought that they might need a librarian to keep track of them until much later: 1774. And even then, they didn’t seem to think it was a good idea!
[1750] Books delivered to the English Master
A Bible, Quarto……………
Ainsworth’s Dictionary, Eng. & Latin 4to.
Bailey’s Dictionary, 2 Vols 8vo
Dyche’s Dictionary………….. 8vo
Cowley’s Works, Fol.
Milton’s Paradise lost, & regain’d, &c. fol. } Given by Mr L. Evans
Milton’s Prose Works, fol. ……. Given by Dr Milne
Rollin’s Belles Letters. 4 Vol. 12.mo Given by B Franklin
A number—though by by no means all—of these books survive at Penn and are part of the Founders Collection in the Kislak Center.
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