Collections : [Columbia University: Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

Columbia University: Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Columbia University: Rare Book & Manuscript Library

6th Floor East Butler Library
535 West 114th St.
New York, NY 10027, United States
Located in Butler Library, the Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) is Columbia's principal repository for rare and unique materials, with holdings that span four thousand years of recorded knowledge, from cuneiform tablets to early printed books and born-digital archives. Each year RBML welcomes thousands of researchers and visitors to their reading room, exhibitions, programs, and classrooms.

Search Results

Collection
Armstrong, Edwin H (Edwin Howard), 1890-1954

Professional and personal files including Armstrong's correspondence with professional associations, other engineers, and friends, his research notes, circuit diagrams, lectures, articles, legal papers, and other related materials. Of his many inventions and developments, the most important are: 1) the regenerative or feedback circuit, 1912, the first amplified radio reception, 2) the superheterodyne circuit, 1918, the basis of modern radio and radar, 3) superregeneration, 1922, a very simple, high-power receiver now used in emergency mobile service, and 4) frequency modulation - FM, 1933, static-free radio reception of high fidelity. More than half the files concern his many lawsuits, primarily with Radio Corporation of America, over infringement of the Armstrong patents. Litigation continued until 1967. Other files deal with his work in the Marcellus Hartley Research Laboratory at Columbia University, 1913-1935, and with the American Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I, his Air Force contracts for communications development, Army research during World War II, the Radio Club of America, the Institute of Radio Engineers, FM development at his radio station at Alpine, N.J., the use of FM in television, his involvement in Federal Communications Commission hearings and legislation, and his work with the Zenith Radio Corporation. Also, letters to H.J. Round

Collection
Tilton, Eleanor M (Eleanor Marguerite), 1913-

This collection includes nine letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as letters of Louis Agassiz, Amos Bronson Alcott, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, John Lothrop Motley, Charles Sumner, and John Greenleaf Whittier. In addition, there are two incomplete manuscripts by Emerson and one document from the Liverpool Custom-house signed by Nathaniel Hawthorne as Consul for the United States. The collection also includes the corrected typescript, index, and page and galley proofs for Thomas Franklin Currier, A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (New York, 1953) which was edited by Professor Tilton. Also, some early correspondence and photographs of the Tilton family and friends. There are letters from the actors Annie Louise Ames, Richard J. Dillon, and Hans L. Meery to Tilton's grandfather, Bernard Paul Verne, as well as photographs, tintypes, and daguerreotypes of the Verne family and friends.

Collection
Hough, Henry Beetle, 1896-1985

Correspondence, manuscripts, typescripts, research files, documents, printed materials, photographs, and memorabilia of Mr and Mrs Hough. Correspondence includes both personal and business letters, dealing with wildlife conservation, civic interests, and birding. There is some correspondence of George A. Hough, Sr., father of H.B. Hough, who was editor of the New Bedford MA Standard. Most of the correspondence is arranged alphabetically, by personal name or subject, out-going and in-coming filed together. Henry and Elizabeth Hough's correspondence, for which there are no in-coming or related letters, are filed chronologically. Cataloged correspondents include Calvin Coolidge, Max Eastman, Helen Keller, John F. Kennedy, Emily Post, and James Reston.

Collection
Raphaelson, Samson, 1896-1983

Correspondence, playscripts, screenplays, scenarios, short stories, and other manuscripts, drafts, photocopies, contracts and other documents, tearsheets, clippings, and other materials relating to his career as a screenwriter, playwright, and author of short stories. Correspondence with friends, students, admirers, and professional colleagues concern his teaching, playwriting, films, articles, photography, and literary topics. There are also two groups of letters from students and readers about his textbook, "The Human Nature of Playwriting" (1949). Among the cataloged correspondence are William Gibson, MacKinlay Kantor, Anna Louise Strong, Louis Untermeyer, and Carl Van Doren. Included are manuscripts, drafts, or photocopies of almost all his films, plays, and short stories, such as playscripts and drafts of his plays, "The Jazz Singer" (1922), "Skylark" (1939), "Jason" (1942), and others; screenplays and scenarios, many in photocopy, of "Trouble in Paradise" (1932), "The Merry Widow" (1934), "The Shop Aroung the Corner" (1940), "Suspicion" (1941), "Heaven Can Wait" (1943), and many other films; and manuscripts, drafts, tearsheets, and printed copies of his short stories and articles of film and television criticism. There are also many clippings and reviews, programs, and other printed materials about his plays and films.

Collection
Spewack, Samuel, 1899-1971

Correspondence, manuscripts, playscripts, screenplays, diaries, documents, contracts, financial records, photographs, phonograph records, motion pictures, playbills, posters, sheet music, cartoons, art work, memorabilia, scrapbooks, and printed materials. . The collection consists chiefly of correspondence and production files relating to the creation, production, and performance of their works for stage, screen, radio, and television, such as Leave It To Me and Kiss Me Kate (with music by Cole Porter), Boy Meets Girl, and My Three Angels. Correspondence (with twentieth century authors, playwrights, musicians, political figures, and actors) includes: George Abbott, Jean Arthur, Bennett Cerf, Katharine Cornell, Jo Davidson, George and Ira Gershwin, Alec Guinness, W. Averell Harriman, Lilli Lehmann, Mary Martin, Laurence Olivier, Mary Pickford, Cole Porter, Regina Resnick, Eleanor Roosevelt, Robert E. Sherwood, Lincoln Steffens, Kurt Weill, Rebecca West, and Thornton Wilder. There is also correspondence concerning Bella Spewack's work with the New York Girls' Scholarship, UNRA, and the Sports Center of Israel. In addition to the production files, there are manuscripts and typescript drafts for novels, short stories, and articles by the Spewacks.

Collection
Bronk, William

Correspondence, manuscripts, audio cassettes, photographs, and printed materials. The correspondence covers the years 1934 through 1999 and consists mostly of letters to and from James L. Weil, whose Elizabeth Press was Bronk's publisher from 1969 to 1981, from Eugene Canadé, an artist who illustrated many of Bronk's books, from Bronk's sisters, and from many friends. There are also letters from W.H. Auden; Paul Auster, Cid Corman (Bronk's first publisher and founder of ORIGIN, the magazine in which many of Bronk's early poems first appeared), Robert Creeley, Samuel French Morse, Gilbert Sorrentino, and many other well-known authors. The manuscripts include notebooks and binders containing handwritten and typed drafts of poems and essays. They document nearly all of Bronk's published writings including the collection of essays he completed in the 1940s which was published in 1980 as THE BROTHER IN ELYSIUM as well as the collection of poems published in 1981 as LIFE SUPPORTS: NEW AND COLLECTED POEMS for which Bronk won the American Books Award in 1982. There are also page proofs, photographs of Bronk, many audio cassettes of Bronk reading his work in the 1970s and the 1980s and printed materials