Charles Sellers

Charles Coleman Sellers (March 16, 1903 in Overbrook, Pennsylvania - January 31, 1980 in Sydney, Australia) was an American historian and librarian.^[1]

Life

Sellers was the great-grandson of Charles Willson Peale.^[2] He graduated from Haverford College with a BA in 1925, Harvard University with an MA in 1926, and Temple University with a Ph.D. in 1957.

From 1937 to 1949 Sellers was the bibliographic librarian at Wesleyan University. In 1947 he became a research associate for the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, remaining there until 1951. In 1949 he became curator of the Dickinsoniana Collection at Dickinson College, and head librarian in 1956 after the retirement of May Morris. In 1956 he also became the librarian of the Waldron Phoenix Belknap Jr. Research Library of American Painting in Winterthur, Delaware, remaining until 1959, when he became editor of the American Colonial Painting magazine. With the opening of the May Morris Room in the new Spahr Library, Sellers once again became historian and curator of the Dickinsoniana Collection in 1968, holding this post until his retirement in 1979, when a grateful Dickinson College awarded him an honorary doctorate of letters.^[3]

Sellers helped with an exhibition of Peale's work at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.^[4]

On October 6, 1932 he married Helen Earle Gilbert (died February 1951). On June 12, 1952 he married Barbara S. Roberts.

His papers are held at the American Philosophical Society,^[5] and the Smithsonian Institution.^[6]

Awards

• 1970 Bancroft Prize

Works

• Lorenzo Dow: The Bearer of the Word, Minton, Balch & Company, 1928
• Benedict Arnold: The Proud Warrior, Milton, Balch & Company, 1930
• Theophilus, the Battle-axe: A History of the Lives and Adventures of Theophilus Ransom Gates and the Battle-axes, Press of Patterson & White Co., 1930. About Theophilus Ransom Gates (1787-1846).^[7]
• Portraits and Miniatures by Charles Willson Peale, American Philosophical Society, 1952
• Benjamin Franklin in Portraiture. Yale University Press. 1962. ISBN 978-0-300-00893-7. 
• Charles Willson Peale, Scribner, 1969 (Bancroft Prize)
• Dickinson College: A History, Wesleyan University Press, 1973
• Patience Wright, American Artist and Spy in George III's London. Wesleyan University Press. 1976. ISBN 978-0-8195-5001-9. 
• Mr. Peale's Museum: Charles Willson Peale and the First Popular Museum of Natural Science and Art. W. W. Norton & Company. 1980. ISBN 978-0-393-05700-3. 

References