The Thomas de Valcourt and Michael Lerner collection contains materials concerning 19th century New England poets and authors, most prominently Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but also Henry David Thoreau, Washington Irving, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, and minor figures. Much of the materials - which predominantly consists of prints, photographs, clippings, photocopies, newspapers, periodicals, postcards, reprints, poetry, and other formats - concerns their famous New England homes and their families' homes, and other literary landmarks in the vicinity. Most of the materials date from the late 19th and early 20th century.
Also included are a scrapbook of clippings of poetry, a 1962 plaster cast bust of Henry David Thoreau by Melvina Hoffman, an 1864 ceramic bust of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by M. Milmore, two paperweights with depictions of the Longfellow house, a brick noted as "being used by Thoreau when adding to the family house on Virginia Road in Concord," and one copper ashtray.
The Elizabeth Wright collection predominantly contains materials relating to Richard Wagner and family members. The materials cover a wide range, including memorabilia, such as a Wagner-themed card game and a ceramic plaque of Richard Wagner, an original note by Siegfried Wagner and facsimiles of letters by Wagner, original photographs of Wagner family members as well as facsimiles and prints of Richard Wagner and others, original advertisements and programs of Wagner's operas, a radio transcript and a typescript about Wagner's composition and staging, and a series of prints depicting scenes from Wagner's operas.
There are also several items not related to Wagner. These are a letter from W. Somerset Maugham, an autographed print of mezzo-soprano Mariana Paunova, and prints of other composers such as Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt, and Richter.
The E. G. Barnhill Collection contains negatives of Florida homes and birds, as well as glass plate negatives of Florida scenes. The collection also contains hand-colored postcards by Barnhill depicting Florida scenes (ca. 1910s-1930s), early Florida ephemera, several biographical pages and scrapbooks put together by Barnhill with many resourceful historical clippings from the early half of the 20th century on pirates, Native Americans, archaeological exploits, early technology, and treasure hunting.
Charles E. Feinberg was an editor Emeritus of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. The collection consists of Walt Whitman related materials; predominantly framed and unframed prints, but also leaves from periodicals and leaves advertising Whitman reissues, a Whitman poetry broadside, a Romanian Institute of Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries catalog for a Walt Whitman Exhibit, and other Whitman memorabilia.
