The principal repository of Vassar College, the Archives and Special Collections Library houses rare books dating from the fifteenth century, an extensive manuscript collection, and the Vassar College Archives. The holdings range from medieval illuminated manuscripts to modern manuscripts and include over 500 collections of Vassar College graduates, faculty, and others affiliated with the college. Of special note are the papers of writers Mary McCarthy and Elizabeth Bishop, Samuel L. Clemens, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, early naturalist John Burroughs, historian Lucy Maynard Salmon, feminist and historian Alma Lutz, astronomer Maria Mitchell, anthropologist Ruth Benedict, and physicist Albert Einstein.