Newberry Library, Chicago
American Antiquarian Society
Historic New England, Boston
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Ohio 
Timken Museum of Art, San Diego 

Catholic Blackfoot Indians entering St. Patrick’s Cathedralon Easter Sunday, 1913, by American Photographer		Native Americans performing a tribal group dance by George Catlin (1794-1872)

Newberry Library, Chicago was founded by the bequest of Walter Loomis Newberry, a businessman and prominent citizen, who had been an active book collector and president of the Chicago Historical Society before his death in 1868 since Chicago had no public library at the time.

"We must encourage every thing that tends to enlighten and polish the human mind.... We purpose to lay the foundation of a library which we hope to see go on increasing until it becomes the pride and boast of our city." - Walter L. Newberry, 1841

The Library's holdings span the history and culture of Western Europe from The Middle Ages to the mid-twentieth century and the Americas from the time of first contact between Europeans and Native Americans. Its strengths include: European discovery, exploration, and settlement of the Americas; the American West; local history, family history, and genealogy; literature and history of the Midwest, especially the Chicago Renaissance; Native American history and literature; the history and theory of music; the history of printing; and early philology and linguistics.

St. Patrick's Day in America, published by Duval and Hunter, Philadelphia, 1872		'Butler Hanged, The Negro Free, on Paper', 1863

American Antiquarian Society(AAS) is an independent research library founded in 1812 in Worcester, Massachusetts. The library's collections document the life of America's people from the colonial era through the Civil War and Reconstruction. Collections include books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, broadsides, manuscripts, music, graphic arts, and local histories.

Dummy board, 'Phyllis', probably from Boston, 1740-50, American School, (18th century)		Staffordshire mug depicting the English School, (19th century)

Historic New England, Boston was founded by William Sumner Appleton in 1910 for "the purpose of preserving for posterity buildings, places and objects of historical and other interest." This mandate has resulted in an extraordinarily broad collection of objects of historical and aesthetic significance, family heirlooms presented in their original context and household ephemera that might not otherwise have been saved.
Many institutions have chosen to collect masterpieces. However, Appleton also considered the mundane, the ordinary, and the trivial worth preserving. Thus, Historic New England's collection reflects both the necessities and the luxuries of New Englanders.

Brillo Boxes, 1964, Andy Warhol (1930-87)		Two-wheeled ox cart with ox and two standing attendants,Chinese School, Tang Dynasty (618-907)

Allen Memorial Art Museum, Ohio, founded in 1917 and run by Oberlin College has an outstanding collection of more than 12,000 objects – including paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, prints, drawings and photographs – that provide a comprehensive overview of the history of art from a variety of cultures.

 The collection is particularly strong in European and American paintings and sculpture from the 15th century to today, and has important holdings of Asian paintings, scrolls, sculpture and decorative art.  High-quality African, Pre-Columbian, and ancient art is also represented.