The Donors

The Cornell University Library celebrates the acquisition of its seven-millionth volume

Cornell Library's seven-millionth volume arrived by special art courier on December 19, 2002. The library’s seven-millionth volume, Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War, is the gift of Thomas A. Mann ’64 and Diann Goodman Mann ’66. The book is now housed in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, where it enriches Cornell University Library’s collections chronicling American history. It enhances holdings of significant rare books, manuscripts, and photographs documenting the history of the abolitionist movement and the American Civil War.

Highlights from the library’s spectacular American historical materials, including Gardner’s Sketch Book, will be on view from June to September of 2003, as part of a major exhibition on the history of abolitionism from its origins in the eighteenth century through the Civil War. The exhibition will provide a rare opportunity to view some of the library’s greatest treasures, including a copy of the Gettysburg Address in Abraham Lincoln’s hand, a manuscript copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Lincoln, and a presentation copy of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Cornell University Library is one of the ten largest academic research libraries in North America. Among its nineteen unit libraries are collections numbering 7 million printed volumes, 68,000 serial titles, 8 million microforms, and 68,000 cubic feet of manuscripts. The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, located in the Carl A. Kroch Library, includes 300,000 printed volumes, more than 70 million manuscripts, and over one million photographs, paintings, prints, and other visual media.

Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War will be on display in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library, through September, 2003.


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Plate 16. Inspection of Troops at Cumberland Landing. Pamunkey, Virginia. May, 1862 Albumen print photograph by John Wood & James F. Gibson

Cornell University

Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections

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