Public Libraries and Private InstitutionsThe strengths in the collection of the Philadelphia Free Public Library, Pennsylvania,
include early imprints of the American Sunday School Union and tract society, for the
city was a publishing centre for this type of material. Lloyd Alexander donated his
manuscripts, including the Prydian cycle, while Evaline Michelow Ness donated her art
for the Caldecott winning Sam Bangs and Moonshine (1966). Other area donors to this
collection include Katherine Milhous, who described the Pennsylvania Dutch ethnic
group.
A number of private special collections have highlighted their children’s literature
book holdings during the last two decades. Some of them are at work on special projects
to identify and catalogue these materials to make them more accessible to researchers.
The Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City stages magnificent exhibits for the
public. In 1988 after the extended original showing at the Tate Gallery in London, an
outstanding Beatrix Potter: Artist and Storyteller exhibition moved to the Pierpont
Morgan. The beautifully printed catalogue is a treasure in itself. In 1993 the Morgan
exhibited its Antoine de Saint-Exupéry holdings for his The Little Prince (1943); the
illustrations, on onion-skin type paper, correspondence and photographs enhanced the
exhibit. Harcourt Brace published a facsimile edition from this exhibit for the fiftieth
anniversary of the book’s original publication.
At the Henry E.Huntington Library, located in San Marino, California it is possible to
obtain facsimiles of its rare holdings. Among them are Cinderella, Old Mother Hubbard
and Her Dog and a reprint of Lafcadio Hearn’s The Boy Who Drew Cats published in
Tokyo in 1898.
The Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has long been
known for its holdings of early children’s books. It published one of the first catalogues
of historic collections of children’s books, and today it is known for its almost exhaustive
holdings of Maurice Sendak, including his Caldecott Award winning Where the Wild
Things Are (1963).
Homes and Museums for children’s literature figures abound in America. One can
visit the Joel Chandler Harris home in Atlanta, Georgia, and the house in which Wanda
Gág grew up in New Ulm, Minnesota. In Hannibal, Missouri is Mark Twain’s Home and
Museum, while in Hartford, Connecticut is the home he built in the last part of the
nineteenth century. The Laura Ingalls Wilder/ Rose Wilder Lane Museum is located in
Mansfield, Missouri. The year 1994 was the 100th anniversary of Wilder’s arrival in
Missouri, her home state for sixty-two years. The first in her series of pioneer books,
Little House in the Big Woods (1932) was set near Menomonie, Wisconsin, where another
homestead site is preserved.
Research in Special CollectionsRecent research has made much use of the special collections in the USA. In some
cases, major collections may satisfy individual research topics—Ezra Jack Keats or Kate
Greenaway at the de Grummond Collection, for example—while recent volumes in the
Twayne Authors series were researched by Gary D.Schmidt (May Massee Collection for his
Robert McCloskey (1990)), George Shannon (Kerlan Collection for Arnold Lobel (1989))
THE CONTEXT OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE 545