Daniel Garrison Brinton (1837-99) was one of the founders of modern American anthropology, holder of the first professorship of anthropology in the United States, and an esteemed anthropological scholar. His personal library, the only existing intact research library of a scholar prominent in the development of late nineteenth-century American anthropology, forms the core of the anthropology library at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Brinton Library consists of 4,514 items, including 162 volumes of bound collections of pamphlets or offprints, early travel narratives, colonial histories, Indian captivity tales, missionary reports, and translations of the Bible into several indigenous languages of North and Central America. Materials written in Spanish, French, Italian, and German are also well represented.

Rare archival illustrations show contemporary (1870-1900) photographs of the University Museum building, the Museum library, and portraits of individual participants in the Brinton Library.