John A. McAllister collects the Civil War.

Among the Library Company's most important donors was the enigmatic antiquarian and third-generation collector John A. McAllister (Fig. 1), who gave the library a voluminous and multifaceted accumulation of paper documenting more than a century of American history and popular culture. Part printed matter and part manuscript, the collection dips into the eighteenth century, spans nearly the entire nineteenth century, and tells both a local and national story through ephemera, manuscripts, and visual images. The greater share of the McAllister collection is printed material meant for timely distribution, such as posters, lottery and admission tickets, trade cards, playbills, ...