Anti-Slavery Collections at Cornell

Cornell University played an early and key role in the preservation of abolitionist history. In 1870, the University’s first President, Andrew Dickson White, acquired the complete library of his friend Samuel J. May, an abolitionist minister from Syracuse, New York. Word of Cornell’s acquisition spread among prominent abolitionists, many of whom responded to the call to contribute their personal papers and documents to the Cornell Library. White supplemented May’s collection of more than 10,000 anti-slavery pamphlets with an extensive Civil War collection of his own. Housed in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections in the Carl A. Kroch Library, both collections form part of Cornell's vast holdings documenting ante-bellum and Civil War America.

Later additions to the Library’s holdings have continued to build upon Andrew Dickson White’s vision. In 1950 Marguerite Lilly Noyes presented Cornell with the Nicholas H. Noyes ’06 Collection of Historical Americana, consisting of some of Cornell’s most valuable letters and documents. In 2002, Gail ’56 and Stephen Rudin donated a spectacular collection on slavery in America to the Cornell University Library, enhancing Cornell’s ability to teach the history of this terrible struggle to future generations of students and scholars.

Continue the tour

• Anti-Slavery Collections at Cornell
• Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
• May Collection Designated a National Treasure