A massive collection documenting the U.S. textile industry is set to become one of Cornell University Library’s largest acquisitions ever.
The collection, from the Osborne Library at the recently closed American Textile History Museum (ATHM), is expected to fill eight or nine tractor-trailers when it arrives in Ithaca this spring. It comprises around 90,000 books, periodicals, manuscript collections, photographs, textile sample books, tintypes, glass plate negatives and trade catalogs that tell the story of the textile industry in New England and across the country.
The textile collections will complement textile union collections in the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, including the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union archives. Materials related to textile production, science and agriculture will become part of Mann Library; rare items will become part of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections (RMC).