Benjamin Sharp Family Papers
Scope and Contents
The collection consists primarily of correspondence from friends and colleagues, memorabilia from Swarthmore College, and family materials, including the diary of Rebecca Sharp.
Dates
- Creation: 1809-1915
Creator
- Sharp, Benjamin, 1858-1915 (Person)
- Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (Contributor, Organization)
- Sharp, Rebecca, 1823-1853 (Contributor, Person)
- Sharp, Virginia Mae Guild (Contributor, Person)
- Swarthmore College (Contributor, Organization)
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Friends Historical Library believes all of the items in this collection to be in the Public Domain in the United States, and is not aware of any restrictions on their use. However, the user is responsible for making a final determination of copyright status before reproducing. See http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/.
Biographical / Historical
Benjamin Sharp (1858-1915), a zoologist who was primarily affiliated with the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, attended Swarthmore College (1876) and earned a M.D. and Ph. D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Travelling and studying in Europe, he received a second Ph.D. from the University of Wurzburg, Bavaria in 1883.
A birthright member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), Dr. Sharp was the son of Benjamin and Hannah B. (Leedom) Sharp of the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pa. He worked as a professor of zoology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and later at the University of Pennsylvania, and also traveled extensively, to Europe, Hawaii, the Caribbean, and the Arctic circle. He served as Corresponding Secretary of the Academy of Natural Sciences for eleven years.
Sharp was married in 1881 to Virginia May of Ridley, Massachusetts, and had three children, two sons, Karl and Harold, and a daughter, Dorothy. Sharp was a member of the Green Street Monthly Meeting of Philadelphia. Sharp and his family moved to Massachusetts (Brookline and Nantucket) in his last ten years. There he was elected as representative for Nantucket to the Massachusetts Legislature and served as vice-president of the Nantucket Historical Association. He died in 1915.
Extent
1 linear ft. (2 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Benjamin Sharp (1858-1915), a zoologist who was primarily affiliated with the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, attended Swarthmore College (1876) and earned a M.D. and Ph. D. from the University of Pennsylvania. A birthright member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), Dr. Sharp was the son of Benjamin and Hannah B. (Leedom) Sharp of the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pa. He was married to Virginia May of Ridley, Mass. The family moved to Massachusetts in the early 20th century, and Dr. Sharp served as Representative for Nantucket to the Massachusetts Legislature. The collection consists primarily of correspondence from friends and colleagues, memorabilia from Swarthmore College, and family materials, including the diary of Rebecca Sharp.
Arrangement
The collection is divided into five series:
- Biographical and genealogical
- Benjamin Sharp correspondence
- Swarthmore College, 1875-1879
- Family papers, including the diary of Rebecca Sharp
- Miscellaneous
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donor: Virginia S. Richmond, 1989
Separated Materials
A group of books originally included in the collection were noted and recatalogued.
Genre / Form
Topical
- Naturalists
- Quaker naturalists
- Quakers -- Massachusetts
- Quakers -- Pennsylvania
- Quakers -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
- Quakers -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
- Universities and colleges -- Pennsylvania
- Universities and colleges -- Pennsylvania
- Universities and colleges -- Pennsylvania -- Swarthmore
- Zoologists
- Title
- An Inventory of the Benjamin Sharp Family Papers, 1809-1915.
- Author
- FHL staff
- Date
- 1989
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- English
- Sponsor
- Encoding made possible by a grant by the Gladys Kriebel Delmas Foundation to the Philadelphia Consortium of Special Collections Libraries
Find It at the Library
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