The collection holds correspondence and documents which are primarily the papers of the Philadelphia antiquarian collector John A. McAllister, but it includes some additional material relating to his family and their optical business. As McAllister was an active collector of autograph letters, there are items from many of the important names in nineteenth-century politics, culture, religion, and the military, including members of the Peale family and other Philadelphians. A large component of the collection relates to McAllister's acquisition methods, so there are letters from private and institutional collectors of Americana in other parts of the country as well as with working historians such as Benson J. Lossing. Much of the collection focuses on the American Civil War (1861-1865); the single literary item is a manuscript by Edgar Allan Poe., John A. McAllister's collection is now in the Library Company of Philadelphia; parts of the collection are either described as individual items in the library's online catalog, or in a series of archival finding aids., Some of the items in this collection were formerly assigned accession numbers 5786.F and 5787.F., On deposit at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107. For service, please contact the Historical Society at 215-732-6200 or http://www.hsp.org., John A. McAllister was an antiquarian collector living in Philadelphia.
Creator
McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896, collector
