Provenance
Assembled from the following manuscript purchases, listed by accession date and number: 1955 1030ms; 1955 1031ms; 1967 2641ms; 1971 1189ms; 1971 1667ms; 1971 1819ms; 1972 434ms; 1972 476ms; 1974 1450ms; 1975 92ms; 1976 1490.fms; 1979 1519ms; 1979 1661ms; 1980 1301ms; 1981 1963ms; 1983 780ms; 1984 196ms; and from the following manuscript collections: AL1.2; B: AL1.3; B Se25L. Accession and call numbers are found at the end of the description of each letter.
Preferred citation
Cite as: Adam Sedgwick Collection, American Philosophical Society
Processing information
Recatalogued by Charles Greifenstein, 2004
Related material
As was typical of his milieu, Sedgwick was a voluminous letter writer. The largest collections of Sedgwick material are found at Cambridge University. The University Library holds most of his correspondence as well as material gathered for the biography by Clark and Hughes (at least 20 linear feet total). Trinity College Library also has Sedgwick correspondence. The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences has Sedgwick's field notebooks, specimens, personal artifacts, and material related to the production of Museum catalogs.
A large group of almost 300 letters is found at the Geological Society of London in the Robert I. Murchison Papers. There is a collection of over 100 letters to John Phillips at the Museum of Natural History at Oxford University. In addition, there are smaller holdings in collections throughout Great Britain and elsewhere.
Sedgwick letters are found in the following APS collections:
- Charles Darwin Papers (B D25L), letters from Sedgwick to Charles Lyell
- William Hutton Papers (B H978)
- J. P. Lesley Papers (B L56)
- Letters of Scientists (509 L59)
- Sir Charles Lyell Papers (B L981)
- Samuel Pickworth Woodward Collection (B W854)
- APS Archives (506.73 Am4Le, vols. I and III), letters on nomination for membership and acknowledging election
Bibliography
Barrett, Paul H. "The Sedgwick-Darwin Geologic Tour of North Wales." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. Vol. 118, no. 2, pp. 146-164. Call no. B 506.73 Am4p
Clark, John Willis and Thomas McKenny Hughes. The Life and Letters of the Reverend Adam Sedgwick. Cambridge: University Press, 1890. Call no. BIO Se25c
Hudson, John, Ed. A Complete Guide to the Lakes, Comprising Minute Directions for the Tourist; with Mr. Wordsworth's Description of the Scenery of the Country, etc.; and Five Letters on the Geology of the Lake District, by the Rev. Professor Sedgwick. Edited by the publisher. Kendal: John Hudson; London: Longman and Co., and Whittaker and Co., 1853. Call no. 554.2 C73h
Sedgwick, Adam. A Discourse on the Studies of the University. Fourth edition. Cambridge: John Smith, for J. & J.J. Deighton, and John W. Parker, 1835. Call no. 370.4 Se3d.4
Sedgwick, Adam. Adam Sedgwick's Dent: A Facsimile Reprint in One Volume of Two Classics of Dales History: A Memorial by the Trustees of Cowgill Chapel (1868) and Supplement to the Memorial (1870). With a new Introduction and notes by David Boulton. Sedburgh [Cumbria]: R.F.G. Hollett and Son; Dent [Cumbria]: D. Boulton [c1984]. Call. no. 942.783 Se3d
The APS also has several journals in which much of Sedgwick's work appears: Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Cambridge; Annals of Philosophy; Proceedings of the Geological Society of London; Transactions of the Geological Society of London; Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London
Early American History Note
The Adam Sedgwick Collection consists primarily of correspondence among English scientists in the middle of the nineteenth century.