Jerry,
I think the continued steriotypic reaction to universities is really a shame. Few if any of these instances are warrented and ANY university has a real interest in American History which is what we are talking about.

FWIW, when I want to learn something about the phylogeny of muzzleloading gunmakers, I go to my University library, where I can find a goodly number of books on the wall. I have not researched archives simply because my interests are not that deep.

University museum collections (similar but different than libraries) are being databased now and can often be searched from around the planet. They are the institutions that will be around and will be available to people as far into the future as we can hope.

It is too bad there is such animosity towards higher education by the gun crowd. But that is another sad story for a different thread.

Brent

PS. Michael, most of your interests are in eastern gunsmiths if I read you right. Perhaps a Pennsylvania, New York or similar New England school would be willing to archive carefully organized notes on American gun making. I think some research into such schools will prove fruitful.

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BrentD, (Professor - just for Stan)
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