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British Americana Collection

The British Americana Collection was founded in 1939 in response to the college's close association in the 1930s with the Rhodes Trust and contains travel accounts by British visitors to the United States. The accounts include novels, biographies, memoirs, and bibliographies of travel dating back to the 1580s. The collection, one of the best in the country, is arranged chronologically by date of the visit described. Within the collection, researchers can find highly vituperative to equally gracious descriptions of the United States, and occasionally, Swarthmore itself.

Map from volume 2 of Thomas Anburey's Travels Through the Interior Parts of America, 1791