Just over 120 cubic feet of personal papers, including personal correspondence and manuscripts spanning more than 70 years, are now being re-arranged into acid free conditions.  Devoted volunteers, who have contributed hundreds of hours, have carefully removed staples, paper clips and rubber bands from the papers and transferred them to acid-free folders and boxes.  The next step, already underway, is to re-arrange the filing system so that correspondence from individuals is more easily found.

A growing collection of at least 175,000 slides, 600 reels of documentary film, over 250 pieces of photographic equipment used by Roger Tory Peterson and other naturalists are also housed.  The slides and natural history films include, as well as Dr. Peterson’s, those of Hugh Smith, Olin Sewall Pettingill, Allen Benton and Fran Hall.  Significant other books and materials have come from Mary and Tom Erlandson, Pat Dennehey and Eirik Blom.

Cataloging the contents of our correspondence collection is underway. Please contact us if you need access to the collection or have questions.