Herbert Spencer Cyclopedia
Asked to write an introduction to a scholarly edition of Spencer’s Principles of Sociology, Carneiro became fascinated by Spencer and increasingly began to notice scholars quoting Spencer on a variety of subjects. Carneiro began collecting the quotes and organizing them by topic. Enormously popular in the 19th century (a mountain peak in California and a street in New York City were named after him), Spencer went into eclipse in the 20th century and only recently, the depth and breadth of Spencer's ideas come once again to be appreciated. This unique collection and presentation of Spencer material seeks to redress the absence of this scholar’s thought from traditional anthropological work and offer a resource for and inspire future research into Spencer’s work.
The Spencer Cyclopedia collection is comprised of three parts. At the heart of this collection is Carneiro’s extensive eleven volume Spencer Quote Albums of quotations by and about Spencer collected over five decades and organized by subject. The digitized albums are now searchable and browsable by topic. The second and third parts of the collection are comprised of Carneiro’s reprint file of nearly 250 scholarly articles by or about Spencer and the American Museum of Natural History’s Library’s growing collection of books relating to Spencer.
To access the Spencer Quote Albums, use the alphabet below to navigate to subject topics or browse the list of Carneiro-designated topics below. To search the content of the entire Spencer Quote Albums, download a pdf file here.
View a list of Herbert Spencer Reprint Files.
See a list of the Library’s Herbert Spencer Collection monographic holdings relating to Spencer.
Appointments are necessary to access to the Spencer Reprint Files and Spencer Quote Albums, an archival collection, part of the Museum Archives. Please visit the Museum Archives to set up an appointment.
No appointment is needed to access the Library’s Herbert Spencer Collection monographic holdings. Individual items may be paged for visitors during the Library’s public hours.
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
HERBERT SPENCER REPRINTS (Download/Print)