Images from the Rare Book and Manuscript Collections
About this collection
This digital collection includes a cross section of items from the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections (RMC), Cornell’s principal repository of rare books, manuscripts, and archival materials. The Division holds over 500,000 printed volumes, more than 80 million manuscripts, and another million photographs, prints, artifacts, and other visual media.
The images in this collection span topics reflecting the strengths of these collections, including literature and art, the history of science, natural history and technology, the history of the book, photography and graphic design, the history of architecture, 19th and 20th century reform movements, African American history, gender and sexuality, food, wine and culinary history, contemporary music, along with the social, intellectual, and political history of Europe, the Americas, and Asia.
Historical context
This collection includes a range of collections within RMC. Historical context for these collections can often be found on the specific collection’s finding aid.
Using the collection
Use the Archival Collection facet to limit searches to specific RMC collections.
Some, but not all, items in this collection will include a link labeled "Finding Aid" in the "About the Collection" information box on the right-hand side of the metadata display under the image viewer. In the instances where that link is not present, identify the originating collection (typically in the metadata field labeled as "Cite As", and look up the collection name in the library catalog.
More information
- Collection steward
- Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections
- Metadata creation
- Cornell University Library
- Credits
- This collection overview was last reviewed in 2025.
- Collection sources