The John Davis Batchelder Collection includes more than 1,800 signatures from bold-faced names who helped define Western societies from the Renaissance to the early 20th century. Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Frederick the Great, Henry VIII, Napoleon, Beethoven, Debussy, Rodin, Goethe, Voltaire, Isaac Newton, José de San Martin, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Florence Nightingale, Orville Wright, and a host of U.S. Founding Fathers. Many of the signatures are on minor, personal documents that give a window into the daily lives of historic personalities.