The following pages present descriptions and context for all of the items, with some representative images, on display in the lobby of Library Hall from February to October 2011.

A Selection of Items from the American Philosophical Society Library’s Treasures

The American Philosophical Society presents its annual exhibit of selections from the APS Treasures collection. This year, established exhibit favorites are paired with items recently rediscovered by the present National Endowment for the Humanities project to increase access to the APS collections.

Taken as a whole, the exhibit highlights the political, intellectual and geographical formation of the United States, and includes material related to the Drafting of the Declaration of Independence, British Loyalists during the American Revolution, the Lewis and Clark expedition, as well as the artist and natural historian Charles Willson Peale.

Reflecting both the start and the finish of the American Revolution, we are exhibiting Thomas Jefferson’s Draft of the Declaration of Independence along with George III’s commission granting David Hartley full powers to sign the Treaty of Paris.  Lewis and Clark journals and maps relate the rapid physical growth of the nation, and material related to the long and varied life of Charles Willson Peale  span his time as a young Revolutionary to an established citizen and museum proprietor.