Billings, J. S., New York, NY, 23 May 1899

File — Box: 1

Scope and Contents

From the Collection: The first extensive autograph collection of Fellows of the American Surgical Association was donated to the Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia by John B. Roberts in 1903. Roberts had been working on this project for some years. The collection, viewed as an adjunct to a similar photograph collection, was sorted alphabetically and housed in a post binder. An envelope containing a few additions made on 17 January 1917 was filed with this binder. On 16 April 1925, Astley P. C. Ashhurst, probably operating on behalf of the Roberts estate, presented a collection of 168 additional autograph letters and 13 photographs to the College; each letter received in this donation bears the typewritten legend, "Collection of John B. Roberts, April 16, 1925". These letters were filed in the Autograph Case of the Library while the photographs were integrated with the existing collection in the Museum. It is likely that additional John B. Roberts correspondence was added to the Autograph Case at various times. The Roberts correspondence was removed from the Autograph Case and roughly sorted, possibly by W. B. McDaniel II in 1957. In 1989, the 1903 and 1917 autograph collections along with a card index file of Fellows' information, were transferred to the Historical Collections of the Library of the College of Physicians from the Mutter Museum (Library Transfer 1989-8). [The photograph collection had been transferred circa 1980-1982, unframed, and integrated with the existing photograph collections in Picture File 1 and 2. In the Portrait Catalogue, each item from the photograph collection has received the designation (ASA).]

The Roberts autograph collections and correspondence were processed in July, 1989. The contents of the three autograph collections were filed alphabetically, dated, and listed. No attempt was made to integrate the three collections, and there is some amount of overlap.