The Huntington, officially known as The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, is an educational and research establishment founded by Henry E. Huntington and Arabella Huntington in San Marino, California.
Beyond its impressive library, The Huntington boasts a comprehensive art collection emphasizing 18th and 19th-century European and American art from the 17th to the mid-20th century. Additionally, the property encompasses around 120 acres of meticulously designed botanical gardens, featuring notable areas such as the “Japanese Garden,” the “Desert Garden,” and the “Chinese Garden.”
The library structure was designed in 1920 by Southern California architect Myron Hunt in a Mediterranean Revival style.
This library has an impressive collection of rare books and manuscripts, primarily focusing on British and American history, literature, art, and the history of science. Encompassing a timeline from the 11th century to the present day, the library’s holdings comprise over 400,000 rare books, 7 million manuscript items, and over a million photographs, prints, and various ephemera.
Notable treasures include one of only eleven vellum copies of the Gutenberg Bible, Chaucer’s Ellesmere manuscript, and significant correspondence and manuscripts from bastions of history like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln.
The library also boasts a collection of authors such as Alexander Pope, Mark Twain, Charles Bukowski, Jack London, William Blake, and William Wordsworth.
The library’s primary exhibition hall showcases some of its most extraordinary rare books and manuscripts, while the West Hall regularly hosts rotating exhibitions. The Dibner Hall of the History of Science is a permanent exhibition dedicated to the history of science, with an emphasis on astronomy, natural history, medicine, and light.
With the acquisition of the Burndy Library in 2006, a trove of nearly 60,000 items, Huntington solidified its status as one of the premier institutions worldwide for the study of the history of science and technology.
