Pierre Eugène Du Simitière

Among the prized acquisitions of the Library Company of Philadelphia is the collection of more than 1500 books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, and prints once belonging to Pierre Eugène Du Simitière (1737-1784). The collection, which was first displayed in a 1985 exhibition of the Geneva-born artist, naturalist, and antiquary, is featured in the revised and reissued catalog Pierre Eugène Du Simitière. Du Simitière opened the first American museum in 1782 to display his fossils, coins, medals, Indian artifacts, rocks, plants, and natural history specimens. While the fate of those materials is unknown, his extraordinary collection of contemporaneous pamphlets, broadsides, and prints that established him as the Archivist of the Revolution remains in the Library Company's collection. Published nearly 250 years after the collection was acquired and featuring dozens of marvelous illustrations, the handsomely produced Pierre Eugène Du Simitière focuses on his materials relating to the Stamp Act and the American Revolution. An introduction puts Du Simitière's fascinating life and work in historical context, while other chapters present his varied interests in calligraphy, heraldry, numismatics, and natural history, as well as his interactions with Native Americans and his travels to the West Indies.