About Manuscript Collections

Manuscript collections in the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center reflect the research interests and strengths of the University of Chicago over time. Our manuscript collections are split into two categories based on their age: early manuscripts and modern manuscripts.

The early manuscript collections include manuscripts from the ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and early modern periods to 1700. Areas of strength include:

• Edgar J. Goodspeed papyri collection
• Goodspeed Manuscript Collection of New Testament and related liturgical and devotional texts
• Late medieval and Renaissance secular and religious texts, including books of hours and works of Boccaccio and Chaucer
• Sir Nicholas Bacon Collection of English Court and Manorial Documents
• Samuel R. and Marie-Louise Rosenthal Collection of Northern Italian Historical Documents
• Rome Collection of Manuscripts
• Commonplace books
• Musical scores
• Sermons
• Papal dispatches
• Poetry
• Letters

Related to these materials are archival records and faculty papers documenting two extended University of Chicago projects centered on early manuscripts:

• New Testament studies of Edgar Goodspeed and his colleagues in the Divinity School
• Chaucer Research Project led by John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert

Spanning the period from the eighteenth century to the present, the modern manuscript collections are developed to support research and teaching at the University of Chicago. The current extent of the modern manuscript collections is 13,216 linear feet. Areas of strength include:

• Early history of Kentucky and the Ohio River valley
• Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Civil War era
• Politics, public policy, and political reform
• Poetry magazine and modern poetry
• Atomic science and political organizations
• Cold War intellectual politics and world constitutionalism
• Native American education and community organization
• Modern commercial printing and publishing
• Chicago labor and social reform
• History of medicine
• History of the Hyde Park-Kenwood neighborhood in Chicago
• Chicago Jazz