The Cather family, their friends, and many other donors have been very generous to the National Willa Cather Center over the years, contributing to collections that were begun by our organization's founders. As a result, the National Willa Cather Center houses the earliest Cather collections and continues to add to its growing collection of letters, photographs, artwork, and personal items, which we make available to scholars and researchers. Thanks in part to a National Endowment for the Humanities CARES Act grant, the NWCC has begun to make our collections available online for scholars and readers. Please contact our archivist to arrange an in-person visit.

Click the button below to access and search the collection. Please note that this ongoing project does not include all materials. No images may not be used without explicit written permission from the NWCC. For tips on using this tool, see below "How to Search."

How to Search

The collection galleries are divided by type. Once inside a gallery, you may browse, or use the search feature to search the online collection by Title, Artist's Last Name, or by Object Type. (Note that many museum pieces will not have an Artist name known.) 

When searching by Object Type, bear in mind that we use the controlled vocabulary of Nomenclature for Museum Cataloging to help provide consistent labelling, though we have adopted broader terms in some instances (for example, we use the term "Adornments" as it encompasses all jewelry, or "Postcards" instead of more granular classifications).