The earliest American almanacs in the Library of Congress have been brought together as a collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. The collection is strongest in eighteenth and nineteenth century material and contains about 4,000 titles. Represented are imprints from at least thirty-five states and the District of Columbia, including the only known copy of Kikinawadendamoiwewin, a Chippewa almanac for the year 1834, which is probably the first book printed in the state of Wisconsin.

This collection of nearly 17,000 books and pamphlets printed in the United States between 1640 and 1800 covers a wide range of subjects including early interactions between Europeans and Native Americans, government relations, and captivity narratives.

Rare Book and Special Collections has a particularly strong collection of Bibles in 150 different languages spanning from the 15th to 20th century. Native languages represented in the collection include Mohawk, Cherokee, Miꞌkmaq, Choctaw and more.

Mostly single-sheet publications (similar in size to modern posters) from Europe and the Americas, with the vast majority from the United States, dating from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. One example is the "Indian Land for Sale" poster shown above.

The Americana collection of Marian Sadtler Carson (1905-2004) spans the years 1656-1995 with the bulk of the material dating from 1700 to 1876. The collection includes more than 10,000 historical letters and manuscripts, broadsides, photographs, prints and drawings, books and pamphlets, maps, and printed ephemera from the colonial era through the 1876 centennial of the United States.
Please note: The Rare Book and Special Collections Division shares custodial responsibility for the Carson Collection with the Library’s Geography & Maps Division, Music Division, Prints & Photographs DIvision, and Manuscript Division. Collection material may be housed in any one of these locations.

Larry Dingman was the owner of Dinkytown Antiquarian Bookstore in Minneapolis, MN, and a fervent collector of Western Americana. His collection documents the rise of American Western fiction, including the changing attitudes towards Native Americans in the United States over time. While there are some non-fiction reference works in the collection, the majority of materials are fictional works, including novels, short story collections, and volumes of poetry, by both Native and non-Native authors.

Making their first appearance in roughly 1860, the first dime novels were largely Indian and pioneer tales that were highly moralistic in spirit. In the 1870s detective adventures, society romances, and rags-to-riches stories were introduced and soon the term dime novel was popularly applied to any sensational, blood-and-thunder novel issued in pamphlet form. Through copyright deposit the Library of Congress has accumulated a dime novel collection of nearly 40,000 titles, from 280 different series.
Please note: While the Rare Book and Special Collections Division has custodial responsibility for the Dime Novel Collection, due to the fragility of these items, much of the collection has been microfilmed, and is most accessible in that format. For information on these microfilmed materials, please refer to the Microform & Electronic Resources Center.

In 1882, the U.S. government purchased a portion of the papers Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) had bequeathed to his grandson William Temple Franklin (1790-1823). At the time of that purchase, the books and pamphlets in the collection were sent to the Library of Congress. The collection embraces 850 volumes that were written, printed, edited, or published by Franklin. Of particular importance is a copy of Franklin’s essay, Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America (1784), in which Franklin records his first-hand observations of Iroquois life.

Perhaps best known for Bibliotheca Americana Vetusissima, a description of over three hundred writings on America published between 1492 and 1551, Henry Harrisse (1829-1910) wrote extensively on Christopher and Ferdinand Columbus, John and Sebastian Cabot, and the early voyages of American exploration. Through his bequest, the Library of Congress acquired in 1915 his personal copies of his publications, complete with marginal comments and interleaved notes. In addition to over two hundred volumes, the collection preserves correspondence pertaining to Harrisse's research, an original letter by Pietro Martire d'Anghiera, and a manuscript (ca. 1533) describing a voyage along the northern coast of South America.
See: The finding aid for the Henry Harrisse Collection.

Thomas Jefferson, whose personal library provided the foundation upon which the Library of Congress is built, maintained an active interest in American Indians and their languages. His library is rich in accounts by both European and American explorers, settlers, missionaries, and historians of their encounters with Indian peoples.

Like many of his contemporaries, Jefferson had a complicated view of Native peoples. Based on Enlightenment views that environment shapes human appearance and culture, Jefferson believed that Indians would be equal to the white man if only they would give up their semi-nomadic lifestyle and adopt European styles of living and cultivating agriculture. However, throughout Jefferson's lifetime there was widespread fear of Indian tribes in times of war, not only directly against Americans, but also fear that the Indians would ally themselves with the British or Spanish, creating additional problems for Americans. Jefferson's library reflects his own research and theories about the Native Americans and the views of his contemporaries on the subject.

A few examples of works in Jefferson's library which deal (directly or indirectly) with Native American affairs and the complex relationship between Indigenous peoples and their colonial neighbors include: An account of the European settlements in America : in six parts, An historical account of the expedition against the Ohio Indians, in the year 1764, The history of the Five Indian Nations of Canada..., and A memoir of the Moheagan Indians.
Please note: Materials from Jefferson's library are on permanent exhibit in the Great Hall and require requests placed well in advance of your visit for viewing in the Rare Book Reading Room. Please use the "Ask a Librarian" link on the left to inquire about viewing any materials from this collection.

Encompasses more than three thousand rare books, maps, manuscripts, historic documents, artifacts, and works of art related to early American history and the cultures of Florida, the Caribbean, and Mesoamerica. North American specific material focuses on the Seminole Tribe of Florida and locations like Saint Augustine.

Taking the illustrated book as its central theme, this collection contains books from the last six centuries and manuscripts from the three preceding. Of particular interest are depictions of Native Americans by engraver Theodor de Bry. In 1587 he traveled to England, where Richard Hakluyt gave him a copy of Thomas Harriot's A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia: of the commodities and of the nature and manners of the naturall inhabitants. In 1590 De Bry published the work in Latin, German, French, and English as Part I of the Great Voyages. ... the succeeding parts were published only in Latin and German. As De Bry never visited the Americas himself, his illustrations were based on first-hand accounts by others.

In 1882 Joseph Meredith Toner (1825-1896), Washington physician and medical historian, presented his research collection to the Library of Congress.The 30,851 volumes and 7,739 pamphlets include extensive runs of nineteenth century medical journals. The collection by his own description is "chiefly medical works and general and local American histories; publications relating to our climate and diseases; biographies of medical men...and works on the history of medicine in America from the settlement of the country to the end of the first half century of our national existence."