Essays and Dissertations

The John H. Murdoch collection consists of various papers, newspaper clippings, audiotapes, and photographs collected by Murdoch during his involvement with Three Mile Island Alert. John Murdoch was a long-time resident of Lower Allen Township, Cumberland County and became involved in emergency communications and the activities of Three Mile Island Alert, the public-awareness group, following the accident at Three Mile Island on March 28, 1979. Throughout the decade after the accident, Murdoch devoted much of his time and energy to the fight against the restart of Three Mile Island.

The collection documents several generations of the Poulson family and its role in publishing Poulson's American Daily Advertiser. It includes submissions, woodcuts, and sample issues from the Daily Advertiser; correspondence; genalogical materials; and financial and legal documents. Correspondents include Horace Binney, Benjamin Rush (1811-1877), Samuel Sartain, John Sargeant (1779-1852), and Noah Webster. The genealogical notes address the Poulson, Carlyle, Graham, Gurney, Knorr, and Wood families.

This collection includes letters, documents, clippings, pamphlets, and photographs relating to Joseph Priestley and his descendants. It was presented to the college by Mrs. Temple Fay.

This collection includes articles, manuscripts, newspaper clippings, and programs about Joseph Priestley and related topics. Also included in the collection are genealogical materials - correspondence, notes, charts - collected by Priestley family members

Leon Cushing Prince (1878-1937) graduated from Dickinson College in 1898 and received his law degree from the Dickinson School of Law and his masters from New York University. Prince returned to Dickinson in 1907 to become a professor of history, where he would teach for thirty years until his death. He was elected a Pennsylvania state senator in 1928 and served for two terms. The collection contains material dated 1898-1937, and includes correspondence, legal documents, literary materials, printed materials, and other memorabilia. The bulk of the collection centers around manuscripts of Prince's research notes, sermons, speeches, and writings. Other materials in the collection include newspaper clippings, correspondence with other professors regarding lecture appearances, and printed material on the Kiwanis Club.

The William Charles Ford Reed Collection was donated to the college in 1951 by the sons of William C. F. Reed, Class of 1851. The collection contains some of Reed's student writings, notebooks, and his complete set of school books. A subsequent donation in 1956 consisted of a few papers and 37 school books belonging to William's older sister, Ann Reed. The papers are arranged into three series: Notebooks, Writings, and Miscellaneous. There is also a photograph of William C.F. Reed.

Daniel K. Richter taught history and American studies at Dickinson College from 1985 to 1998. This collection includes papers presented by Richter at conferences, as well as book reviews and title pages of scholarly articles written by him. In addition, the collection contains reviews of books authored by Richter, newspaper clippings, press releases, and a small amount of correspondence.

The collection includes essays written by Alexander Sharp while he was a student at Dickinson College. Also included are grammar school essays written by Alexander and his sister Mary.

James Gordon Steese (1882-1958) was a member of the Dickinson College class of 1902. Among his many activities, Steese served as president of the Board of Road Commissioners for Alaska; the Steese Highway in Alaska is named for him. He later was involved with the development of railroads in both Alaska and Maryland and with several oil companies. Diaries and journals chronicle Steese's military service and his later years. The collection contains mostly professional correspondence, pamphlets, and reports on the Alaskan Road Commission and Steese's military service. Also included are several newspaper articles, maps, charts, and correspondence with Steese's family. A large photograph collection, mainly in the form of photo albums, supplements the document collection.

Wilbur Morris Stine (1863-1934) graduated with Dickinson College's class of 1886 and later received advanced degrees from both Dickinson College and Ohio University. He served on the engineering faculty at Ohio University, the Armour Institute of Technology, and Swarthmore College. Stine also received national recognition for his research with x-rays. These papers include documents dealing with his 1891 battery patent application and clippings of articles written by Stine on electricity, x-rays, and science education. The collection also includes some correspondence pertaining to Stine's short involvement with the Swarthmore College Press, as well as 30 literary notebooks containing typescripts of essays, poems, speeches, and stories written by Stine.

Allen C. Tanner (1898-1987) was an Illinois-born pianist. At fifteen he was awarded a scholarship to study music in Chicago. There he met Margaret Anderson, editor of the Little Review. Tanner then moved to New York City where he performed in musical salons and accompanied many musical greats of the era including Marguerite Namara and Marguerite d'Alvarez. In 1922, Tanner left for Berlin, where he met Russian artist Pavel Tchelitchew and the two men became lovers. In 1924 the pair moved to Paris to pursue their artistic careers. There they became friends with literary greats Gertrude Stein and Edith Sitwell. Tanner and Tchelitchew ended their relationship in 1934. Tanner returned to the United States where he coached piano students in concert repertory. In 1967 he released the album Allen Tanner Plays Bach, Debussy, Scriabin, Granados, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, and Steinert. The collection contains correspondence, writings, programs and publicity, news clippings, financial documents, sheet music, sound recordings, photographs, and books. The correspondence comprises the bulk of this collection. In addition to Tanner's correspondence with fellow musicians and cultural figures, Tanner also exchanged letters with authors and publishers who were interested in his memories of individuals such as Tchelitchew, Gertude Stein, Edith Sitwell, and Margaret Anderson.

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University also holds a collection of Allen Tanner papers. 

William Van Bergen Tudor (1832-1916) graduated from Dickinson College in 1850 and earned a Doctor of Divinity degree from Centenary College in Louisiana in 1872. He served as a minister in the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as well as in the St. Louis and Virginia Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. This collection contains a number of Tudor's sermons, in addition to a small amount of correspondence and other writings.

The collection consists of the papers of the families of Jacob and Cornelius Vanderbilt, farmers and tax assessors of Newton Township, Cumberland County, Pa. Accounts of the Civil War are included among family correspondence, bills, accounts, and tax lists. Also included in the collection are a Psalm book and a small Civil War photograph.

Eleanor T. Waugh Hanley (19??-1940) was the daughter of Karl Tinsley Waugh, who served as president of Dickinson College from 1932 to 1933. Hanley enrolled in the Dickinson class of 1935 and participated in numerous campus activities, although she did not graduate from Dickinson. Hanley died from pneumonia on October 4, 1940 while recovering from burns received in a house fire. These papers contain materials such as notes, essays, and exams from her college and secondary school days.

The Willoughby collection is divided into three series and housed in four document boxes. It is comprised mostly of drafts of literary works, contained in the Literary Productions series, as well as correspondence, mostly relating to his librarian work, and miscellaneous other materials. The materials date from 1928 to 1965, with the majority of materials dating from the 1940s and 1950s.

The collection includes correspondence, speeches, essays, notebooks, bills, printed materials, and notes on debates and other such topics as the Light Street Institute and the Washington Temperance Society. The collection spans three main time periods in Zug's life: his enrollment at Dickinson College from 1836 until 1839, his formation of and participation in the Light Street Institute from 1839 until 1840, and his involvement in the Washington Temperance Society from 1840 to 1842. Other time periods are included, but not as extensively. The collection contains no large gaps in documentation. One item of interest is a manuscript entitled "An Old Bachellor's[sic] Mountain Musings." The opening line of the piece, which is not dated, states that the author, presumably Zug, is forty-seven years old. However, this is not possible, as Zug died on September 5, 1843, at the age of twenty-five.