Digital Collections

Featured Knee-Hi, the Free Library of Philadelphia mascot

Collections

Automobile Reference Collection

The contents of Automobile Reference Collection have been transferred to the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) Library & Research Center and the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum. For inquiries or image requests please contact jwolfe@aaca.org

Carson Collection on Common Law

View images from books, pamphlets, and illustrations related to the trials of King Charles I, William Penn, Daniel O'Connell, and Queen Caroline, from the Hampton L. Carson Collection Illustrative of the Growth of Common Law.

Central Library's 75th Anniversary Collection

The Central Library, on Philadelphia's beautiful Benjamin Franklin Parkway, was dedicated on June 2, 1927. Seventy-five years later, it is a dynamic, evolving destination where the world is at your fingertips and you can travel anywhere in time or place through books and multiple electronic media.

Charles Dickens

View our unique collection of Dickens manuscripts, original illustrations, autograph letters, and other mementos, which were given to the Free Library by collectors William Elkins and D. Jacques Benoliel.

Children's Literature

Take a look behind the scenes at the process of creating a children's book—from manuscripts, sketches and preliminary art to book dummies, color separations, and final artwork—in this collection of images from our archives.

Fine Arts Collection

Among the Free Library's art collection are prints by Rembrandt van Rijn, Abrecht Dürer, Michel Wohlgemut and other Old Masters, as well as fourteen original paintings by N.C. Wyeth.

Fleisher Collection

Browse through portraits, certificates, and memorabilia from the Symphony Club founded by Edwin A. Fleisher.

From Our Collections

View images from a variety of subjects housed at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Historical Images of Philadelphia

The images contained in this digital collection are from the Print and Picture Collection's Philadelphiana Collection, which includes photographs, prints, watercolors, and scrapbooks documenting Philadelphia. Of particular interest are images of Old Philadelphia in Early Photographs, the Samuel Castner Scrapbooks, and the watercolors of Augustus Kollner.

Manuscripts of the Muslim World

These handwritten books and paintings in the Rare Book Department come from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia and were made between 1000 and 1900. Browse a sampling of religious texts, calligraphic poetry, literary illustrations, and court portraits.