Marguerite Archer Collection of Historic Children’s Materials

In 1982, Mrs. Marguerite P. Archer donated to the J. Paul Leonard Library of San Francisco State University a collection of approximately 3,500 historical children's books, textbooks, and periodicals, ephemera, and realia, including puzzles, toys and educational games. The collection, originally based upon the Peter Parley to Penrod Bibliography, is considered to be a major scholarly resource showing the progressive development and growth of American children's literature from the 1820s to the 1920s, and includes many original editions of literary classics, as well as early textbooks and related teaching aids.

To find items from the Archer Collection in OneSearch, use Refine my Results to select Special Collections in the Library facet.

You are welcome to submit questions or requests via email. Please allow up to five days to respond to your email. Thank you for your patience.

Instruction Requests

The faculty of Special Collections also offer instruction.  Utilizing primary source materials, Library faculty can create course-specific assignments and lead customized classes to support primary source literacy.  Faculty can request instruction through our Primary Source Instruction Request form

Marguerite Archer wanted her collection to reside in a public institution where they would be used. As an educator, librarian, and innovator, she taught reading and convinced the editor of School Library Journal to devote an issue to "individualized reading.” She explored ways to meet children's differing styles of learning and developed an early elementary media center in Westchester County, New York. Later she was a Professor of English and Library Science at Shippensburg State College in Pennsylvania. Archer founded the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the first National Council of Teachers of English.