Further Resources
The University Archives has a substantial, though by no means comprehensive, amount of material created by family members. Coverage across the date ranges below is uneven, and there are sometimes significant gaps. Material created by various members of the Drexel family includes:
- Clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, objects, and ephemera, the bulk of which date from 1880–1950
- Letters, diaries, and memoirs, 1820s–1970s
- Legal and financial records, including estate and residence inventories, 1830s–1970s
- Ledgers, scrapbooks, and ephemera relating to the Drexel & Co. corporation and its successors from 1872–1979
- Ledgers and other account books for the Anthony J. Drexel estate and trusts, 1893–1976
- Photograph albums documenting travel aboard George W. Childs Drexel’s yacht the Alcedo from 1905–1914, as well as travel manuscripts and logs by Francis M. Drexel and others
- Family genealogy and 1991 reunion documentation
- Essays about the family and university from the 20th century
Research and digital access
Drexel family material in the Drexel Libraries digital repository. These digitized items all come from Drexel University Archives collections and represent only a small portion of the Drexel family-related material held by the archives.
University Archives Drexel Family Research Guide, which includes information about the collections held by the University Archives, genealogical material and register, and family-related material held by other libraries and archives.
The University Archives collections database. Here researchers can search finding aids, or detailed guides to archival collections.
The Drexel University Libraries webinar Incorporating Archival Material in Your Curricula: Drexel Family Collections introduces faculty to just some of the collection material available to be used for course assignments or a longer partnership with the University Archives.
Project Partners
Visit the project partners websites to view more images and information about their collections.
Drexel Founding Collection and William B. Dietrich Online Gallery
Genealogy
These family tree charts and genealogical register may be of use for visitors researching the genealogy of the Drexel family. The register was created by Drexel University Archives staff and is a work in progress.
Selected Bibliography
Anglada, Brenna Cussen, Veronica Buchanan, Kate Feighery, Patrick Hayes, Stephanie Jacobe, Michele Levandoski, Allison Spies, Maka Black Elk, and Jaime Arsenault. Catholic Truth & Healing: Catholic-operated Native Boarding Schools in the United States pre-1978. (2023).
“Annual Reports of the Department of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1897: Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs,” Vol. 28. United States Office of Indian Affairs, Government Printing Office, 1897.
Barker, Debra K. S. “Kill the Indian, Save the Child: Cultural Genocide and the Boarding School.” In American Indian Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Contemporary Issues, ed. Dane Morrison. (New York: Peter Lang, 1997), 47–.
Biddle, Cordelia Drexel, and Kyle Crichton. My Philadelphia Father. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955.
Biddle, Cordelia F. Saint Katharine: The Life of Katharine Drexel. Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2014.
Bresie, Amanda. “Mother Katharine Drexel’s Benevolent Empire: The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions and the Education of Native Americans, 1885–1935.” U.S. Catholic Historian, 32, no. 3. (2014): 1–24.
—. Veiled Leadership: Katharine Drexel, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, and Race Relations. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of American Press, 2023.
Butler, Anne M. “A Woman for the West Mother Katharine Drexel.” In Across God’s Frontiers: Catholic Sisters in the American West, 1850–1920. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press eBooks, 2012), 191–230.
“Department of the Interior Releases Investigative Report, Outlines Next Steps in Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.” 11 May 2022. U.S. Department of the Interior: Press Releases.
Dolores, Sister M. The Francis A. Drexel Family. Cornwells Heights, Pa.: Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, 1939.
Dilworth, Richardson, and Scott Gabriel Knowles, eds., Building Drexel: The University and Its City 1891–2016. Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 2016.
Duffy, Consuela Marie. Katharine Drexel: A Biography. Cornwells Heights, Pa.: Mother Katharine Drexel Guild, Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, 1966.
Lomawaima, K. Tsianina, Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy, and Teresa L. McCarty. “Native American Boarding School Stories.” Journal of American Indian Education 57, no. 1 (2018): 1+.
McDonald, Edward David, and Edward Martin Hinton. Drexel Institute of Technology, 1891–1941: a Memorial History. Camden, NJ: Printed by the Haddon Craftsmen, Inc., 1942.
Meriam, Lewis. Meriam Report: The Problem of Indian Administration. Baltimore, Maryland: Institute for Government Research (Brookings Institution) / Johns Hopkins Press, 1928.
National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. (n.d.).
Newland, Bryan. Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of the Interior, 2022.
Rottenberg, Dan. The Man Who Made Wall Street: Anthony J. Drexel and the Rise of Modern Finance. Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.
Shelton, Brett L., Michael Johnson, Danielle R. Gartner, Meredith L. McCoy, and Rachel E. Wilbur. “Trigger Points: Current State of Research on History, Impacts, and Healing Related to the United States’ Indian Industrial/Boarding School Policy.” 2019. Native American Rights Fund.
Williams, Shannen Dee. Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2022.
—. “‘You Could Do the Irish Jig, But Anything African Was Taboo’: Black Nuns, Contested Memories, and the 20th Century Struggle to Desegregate U.S. Catholic Religious Life.” The Journal of African American History. 102, no. 2 (2017): 125–56.