Arthur Huff Fauset (1899-1983) was an African American anthropologist, folklorist, writer, educator, and activist. His collection of papers includes creative writing, journalism, and correspondence. The Rare Book Collection also holds a small group of books and pamphlets that belonged to Fauset.
Penn's libraries are home to a wide range of special and general collections related to the Holy Land.
The Mary Binney Wheeler collection of photographic slides is one of the largest individual collections of its kind in the United States. Amassed over the course of fourteen trips to Afghanistan, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, the collection provides us with more than 9,000 images of an astounding diversity of people, places, and events throughout the Indian subcontinent. Though considered a great Romantic traveler, her images are more than picturesque or exotic; she was unique in her ability to balance the timeless with the mundane, splendor with domesticity.
Penn Libraries holds more than 3,000 manuscripts from South Asia, making it one of the largest collections of its kind in the Americas. Predominantly Indic in provenance, the manuscripts are chiefly Sanskrit works written in Devanāgarī script. Though generally informed by traditional Hindu learning, the collection nevertheless remains thematically comprehensive and contains significant Buddhist and Jain texts. (Note: this collection is often referred to as the Collection of Indic Manuscripts.)