Archives, manuscripts, special collections

Archives, manuscripts, and special collections

Manuscripts

Special Collections

Archives

Material generated by or related to Academy alumni

The permanent, official, institutional records of the U.S. Military Academy

A variety of published materials including books, maps, and West Point publications

Digital Collections

Digitized versions of a variety of materials from all three categories

Highlights from our Archives

This series includes U.S.C.C. rules governing honor and disciplinary systems, proper dress and grooming, inspections and reviews, maintenance of quarters, cadet privileges, absences, and leave, and many other topics relating to cadet life.

Note: Link is to digital collection. This series records the number of demerits and nature of delinquency for each cadet. Typical delinquencies included tardiness, having their uniform out of order, "trifling" in ranks, and being out of bed after taps. George A. Custer received some of the highest numbers of demerits in his time at West Point.

Edgar Allan Poe may be the most famous West Point cadet to have never graduated. Following a short tenure at the Academy, CDT Poe was court martialed and discharged. This did not stop his classmates from raising a collection to fund his first book of poetry, though.

Highlights from our Digital Collections

Digitized maps from our holdings in Special Collections, including Revolutionary and Civil War era maps of West Point.

Collection of photos taken by William H. Stockbridge. Images are of West Point faculty, staff, buildings, and cadet life in the early twentieth century.

Yearbooks of the United States Corps of Cadets between 1897 and 1949.

View all of our digital collections

Highlights from our Manuscripts Collection

Our collections feature many letters written by cadets during their time at West Point. The earliest of these are from CDT Samuel Newman written in 1807 and 1808, just a few years after the academy was founded in 1802.

Our collections feature many scrapbooks from cadets' time at West Point and from officers' later careers. One of the largest sets in our collection is from GEN Omar N. Bradley. Along with his personal papers and other items, we have many scrapbooks covering Bradley's career from his time as a cadet through his time as a five star General of the Army.

Letter from George Washington discussing the treason of Benedict Arnold.

Highlights from Special Collections

This first edition copy of Henry O. Flipper's (USMA 1877) autobiography details his time and experiences at the U.S. Military Academy as he worked to become the institution's first known black graduate. Flipper published this memoir in 1878, just one year after graduating, and it tells, among other things, of his four years being "silenced," or completely ostracized, by his fellow cadets.

This volume, published in 1977 after the Plebe year of the first class of female cadets (Class of 1980), is one of four annual reports. These reports described and evaluated the admission of women to the U.S. Military Academy and the progress of that first class of women during their four years at West Point. Volume 1 includes data on opinions of the public, West Point leadership, and current cadets on this change to the student body.

This map details the extent of the newly formed United States of America at the close of the Revolutionary War. It is also available in our digital collections and is just one of many fascinating maps that we hold in Special Collections.