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Gilbert S. Guinn Collection

The Guinn Collection of Military Aviation and History, totaling over 1800 books and pamphlets, was donated to the Thomas Cooper Library in late 2001 by Dr. Gilbert S. Guinn, professor emeritus of history at Lander University in Greenwood, SC, and Dr. Susan H. Guinn, professor of English at Lander University.

As with several other collections, the Guinn books, which included material from World War I onwards, came to Thomas Cooper together with the parallel donation of archival materials to one of the University's archival collections. 

Dr. Guinn, who earned his BA, MA, and PhD degrees from USC, has had a continuing research interest in the stories of British airmen who trained in the US during World War II, and he has donated his oral history archives about this topic to the South Caroliniana Library.

Although the primary focus of the collection is on aviation itself, it also includes much incidental material illustrating broader social-historical trends.

The books in the Guinn Collection focus on both British and American military aviation, across both World Wars, and provide a welcome complement to the library's previous special collections in military history. The Guinn Collection also contains additional volumes of related general history.

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