The American Musicological Society's purpose is to advance scholarship in the various fields of music through research, learning, and teaching. They were founded in 1943, reflecting trends in musicological scholarship and academic training through the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Penn holds the administrative records, oral history documentation, journal production records, and more.
The East Asia Comics Collection embodies the Libraries’ strategic priorities to collect and preserve global voices, and to make accessible materials related to borders and belonging.
Penn Libraries’ collection of Indigenous children’s literature from Latin America is modest but notable.
The Penn Libraries is actively growing our Japanese Women Photographers Collection, reflecting a vast range of artistic and social visions by Japanese women who may or may not have had a visible platform during their active years as photographers.
Marian Anderson (1897-1993) was world-renowned as a contralto. She also challenged racial barriers in the United States. Her dramatic open-air concert at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, after she was banned from singing in Constitution Hall, was delivered to 75,000 listeners. She was the first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in 1955.
The Marlboro Music School and Festival Records spans Marlboro’s history from 1950 through 2013.
Otto Edwin Albrecht (1899-1984) was an internationally known music bibliographer and professor of romance languages and musicology at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Robert and Molly Freedman Jewish Sound Archive is among the most important resources in the world for the study of Jewish culture, folklore, history, linguistics, and literature through the medium of sound.
Rudolf Serkin (1903-1991) was an American classical pianist known as one of the 20th century’s greatest soloists and for fostering a vibrant culture of chamber music via the Marlboro Music School and Festival.