The Rush-Williams-Biddle Family Papers chronicle the lives and careers of seven generations of the Rush, Stockton, Williams, Alexander, and Biddle families, all of whom were interrelated by marriage.\\Major historical figures represented in the collection include prominent Philadelphia physician Dr. Benjamin Rush (1746-1813) and his wife, Julia Stockton Rush (1759-1848);\\Richard Stockton (1730-1781), signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his wife, Annis Boudinot Stockton (1736-1801);\\Jonathan Williams (1750-1815), great-nephew of Benjamin Franklin;\\Colonel Clement Biddle (1740-1814), aid to George Washington;\\and Colonel Alexander Biddle (1819-1899), who served at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Primarily a family correspondence, the Rush-Williams-Biddle Family Papers are also comprised of business papers, financial records, diaries, and photographs.\\The collection, which spans the period just before the American Revolution through the first World War, documents various aspects of the social, economic, scientific, medical, political, and military history of Philadelphia and the United States.\\The papers shed light on major events in American and European history, including the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Civil War, the expansion of the American West, and World War I.\\The women's correspondence in the collection documents the experiences of seven generations of American and European women.\\The collection also features letters written by important figures in American history, including John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, James Madison, James Monroe, Charles Willson Peale, Philip Syng Physick, Theodore Roosevelt, and George Washington.

The Rush-Williams-Biddle Family Papers were donated to the Rosenbach Museum & Library in 1976 by Julia Rush Biddle Henry (1886-1978), a native of Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania.\\Mrs. Henry inherited the papers from her father, Alexander Williams Biddle (1856-1916), and grandfather, Colonel Alexander Biddle (1819-1899).\\In 1943, under the terms of a trust created in 1899 by the will of Colonel Alexander Biddle, another large group of papers was dispersed at auction at the Parke-Bernet Galleries in New York.\\Mrs. Henry purchased a select group of documents at this auction which she added to her collection of family papers.

Computer generated guide and index available in the library; folder-level control.

1976 Julia Rush Biddle Henry (1886-1978) Gift