Selected Special Collections

Peter Force Library

Early American imprints and incunabula.

[Peter Force, three quarters length, seated, carte-de-visite]. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

The holdings of Americana in the Library of Congress owes much of their strength to the collecting zeal of Peter Force (1790-1868). In the course of preparing his "Documentary History of the American Revolution," a compilation better known today as American Archives, this Washington publisher and politician assembled what was probably the largest private collection of printed and manuscript sources on American history in the United States. The Peter Force Library was purchased by act of Congress in 1867. In one stroke, the Library of Congress established its first major collections of eighteenth-century American newspapers, incunabula, early American imprints, manuscripts, and rare maps and atlases. Although no complete inventory survives, many of the approximately 22,500 Force volumes are recorded without source designation in the Catalogue of Books added to the Library of Congress from December 1, 1866 to December 1, 1867.

Incunabula, pre-1801 American imprints, and other rare publications from the Force Library have been absorbed into the collections of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. The Division holdings include important compilations of pamphlets that were assembled by such collectors as William Duane, Ebenezer Hazard, Jacob Bailey Moore, Israel Thorndike, and Oliver Wolcott. It is estimated that over 8,000 of the approximately 40,000 pamphlets purchased from Force were printed before 1800.

	Blanchard, Jean-Pierre, 1753-1809. Journal of My Forty-Fifth Ascension: Being the First Performed in America, on the Ninth of January, 1793. Philadelphia: Printed by Charles Cist ..., 1793. Page Turner - Bibliographic Information
	Cusick, David, Sketches of Ancient history of the Six Nations. Tuscarora Village, Lewiston, Niagra Co., [Lockport. N.Y. Cooley & Lothrop, printers] 1828. Page Turner - Bibliographic Information
	Joutel, Henri, 1640?-1735, Journal Historique du Dernier Voyage que feu M. de LaSale Fit dans le Golfe de Mexique, pour Trouver l'Embouchure, & le Cours de la Riviere de Missicipi, Nommeé à Present la Riviere de Saint Loüis, qui Traverse la Louisiane, Paris: Chez Estienne Robinot, Libraire ..., 1713. Page Turner - Bibliographic Information
	Thevet, André, 1502-1590. Les Singvlaritez de la France Antarctiqve, Avtrement Nommée Amerique: & de Plusieurs terres & Isles Decouuertes de Nostre Temps. Par F. André Theuet, Natif d'Angoulesme. A Paris, Chez les heritiers de Maurice de la Porte, 1557. Page Turner - Bibliographic Information
	Uring, Nathaniel. A Relation of the Late Intended Settlement of the Islands of St. Lucia and St. Vincent, in America; in Right of the Duke of Montagu, and Orders, in the Year 1722. London, Printed for J. Peele, 1725. Page Turner - Bibliographic Information