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The collection of historical photographs and lithographs of New York City consists of about 3,000 items dated from the 1850s until the 1980s. The collection is made up of color photographic prints, color negatives, black-and-white photographic prints, black-and-white negatives, copy prints, studio and cabinet cards, stereo cards, cyanotypes, albumen prints, gelatin silver prints, lantern slides, glass negatives, and Polaroid prints, lithographs, woodcuts, tear sheets, and engravings. The collection also includes official images, newspaper images, and candid images. Also included are images from the photo morgue of the New York Herald-Tribune newspaper, which ceased publication in 1966. Other images were purchased as copies from New-York Historical Society, Museum of the City of New York, WNYC-FM Radio, the Bettman Archive, and from collectors, private vendors, and other institutions. Photos by noted photographers are included.

This collection contains primarily correspondence related to Peisch's Ph.D. thesis on the work of Chicago architects associated with the Prairie School movement. Much of the material is about Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin's work in the United States and Australia and includes letters from and about Marion Mahony Griffin, Francis Barry Byrne, William Gray Purcell, William L. Steele, and George Grant Elmslie. The collection also includes some photographs, clippings, lectures, and papers related to the later publication of Peisch's thesis in book form as "The Chicago School of Architecture: Early Followers of Sullivan and Wright" (New York : Random House, 1964). Lastly, the collection contains a small number of reference files, some gathered long after the completion of Peisch's thesis.