Digital Special Collections

Manuscript materials, unique or handwritten, digitized from Lehigh Libraries Special Collections. These materials are often organized by collection, designated by an SC MS number, and are usually digitized at the folder level. For more information about our archival collections, please visit our Archives Research Portal.

Event programs, scrapbooks, and team photographs documenting the history of Lehigh University sports and athletics.

An Archive of Lehigh Valley Industry and Culture highlights the Lehigh Valley’s development from the mid nineteenth-century industrial ascendance of the region through the late twentieth century.

Materials collected during the COVID-19 pandemic to document the effect of the virus on Lehigh University academics and the personal life of the greater Lehigh community. Includes items submitted through the "Collecting COVID" Special Collections initiative and from a class partnership.

This collections consists of over thirty representative historical bridge engineering monographs, manuals, and artifacts from the Lehigh University Libraries' Special Collections. Digitization of this materials was underwritten in part by Library Services & Technology Act (LSTA) funds administered through the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Library's NETShare program. Major development and production activities for this collection occurred from May 2001 through March 2002.

The diaries that Thomas Butler Gunn maintained in the period between 1849 and 1863 contain a wealth of information about the New York literary scene in general and the Pfaff's bohemians in particular. The anecdotes that Gunn records come from first-hand observation as well as second- or even third-hand accounts, so readers should exercise caution in taking everything that he says at face value. Page images, transcriptions, and metadata of the Thomas Butler Gunn diaries have been provided by the Missouri History Museum

Special Collection's autographed letters collection has continued to grow since the inception of Lehigh University in 1865. Special Collections' holdings include letters, manuscripts, and ephemera from famous pens throughout the centuries. In its digital incarnation, the archive will include letters from over 400 writers.

The Kenner Lecture on Cultural Understanding and Tolerance is one of the premier events on Lehigh's calendar. It was established in 1997 by Mr. Jeffrey (Jeff) L. Kenner, who was a member of the class of 1965 as an industrial engineering major. He then earned a second degree in business in 1966 and began his career as a management consultant with Price Waterhouse and Company, later joining a Wall Street firm active in leveraged buyouts and venture capital.

This collection contains historical photography created by Lehigh University community members, including the Communications and Public Affairs departments and its predecessors. Photographs were digitized from film negatives, glass plates, positive prints, slides, and other formats. 

Catalogs, brochures, calendars, postcards, and other publications related to the Lehigh University Art Galleries (LUAG) and its predecessor, the Department of Fine Arts. LUAG is a free art museum located at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. Tracing its roots to 1926, the current museum cares for a permanent collection of over 19,000 works of art from diverse cultures and time periods, including over 50 outdoor sculptures.  Through exhibitions, programs, and community engagement, it is a resource for all who wish to view, study, or teach with works of art.

These volumes from the Pennsylvania Geological Survey fourth series provide a wealth of detail about Lehigh and Northampton Counties, including their geography, geology, meteorology, and history.

Works related to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and the greater Lehigh Valley and eastern Pennsylvania area. This collection includes municipal records, publications by Bethlehem Steel and other local business, works about regional infrastructure, community donations, and histories of religious communities. 

Maps, illustrations, and prints depicting the Lehigh University campus, Pennsylvania locales, and the wider world.

Lehigh University, in partnership with the Moravian Archives, was awarded a $90,000 grant under the Council on Libraries and Information Resources (CLIR) Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives Program funded by the Mellon Foundation.

Rare or scarcely held material digitized by Special Collections. Items in this collection represent recent acquisitions, research requests, exhibition material, inter-library loans, etc.