James Hosmer Penniman collection

The James Hosmer Penniman Collection consists of three separately acquired groups: personal papers of Penniman; manuscripts relating to education and American history collected by Mr. Penniman and given to the Yale University Library from 1921 through 1926; and materials acquired from various sources relating to education which were added to the collection after his death as part of the Penniman Memorial Library of Education.

James Hosmer Penniman (1860-1931) graduated from Yale in 1884. Yale relatives whose papers are also at Yale include James Lanman (B.A. 1788), Matthew and Roger Griswold (both B.A. 1780), and Charles J. Lanman (B.A. 1814). After 28 years as a teacher and administrator of the Lower School of the DeLancey School, Philadelphia, Mr. Penniman retired in 1913 and devoted the remainder of his life to literary pursuits and travel. He founded the Maria Hosmer Penniman Memorial Library of Education at the University of Pennsylvania (1915), the Penniman Memorial Library of Education at Brown (1921) and the Penniman Memorial Library of Education at Yale (1920). To the volumes on education already in the university library, Dr. Penniman added books, magazines, and reports, and rare books and manuscripts as the opportunity offered. He gave to the Library more than 4000 books and 1000 pamphlets, and from funds provided by him more than 6200 volumes were purchased up to the time of his death. To maintain and increase the library, he endowed a fund of $50,000 in 1927.

In addition to his interest in libraries and education, Mr. Penniman was an internationally known authority on George Washington and the early history of the United States and a collector of Washingtoniana. Some of the manuscripts in the collection relate to the preparation of many of his books which included: Common Words Difficult To Spell (1891), Practical Suggestions In School Government (1899), Books And How To Make The Most Of Them (1910), George Washington As Commander In Chief (1917), George Washington As Man Of Letters (1918), George Washington At Mount Vernon (1921), Our Debt To France (1921), What Lafayette Did For America (1921), Philadelphia In The Early Eighteen Hundreds (1923).

At the time of his death, he had largely completed a two-volume work on George Washington. Some of the letters relate to his proposal to build the "Highway of the Thirteen Original States," from Washington to Mount Vernon.

In August, 1982, an autograph book, kept ca. 1875-1882 by James H. Penniman, was added to the collection. Because of the value of some of the autographs (e.g., Presidents Grant and Hayes), this item has been placed in the Security File.