The Allen G. Debus collection focuses on early entertainers, pioneer recording artists, vaudeville, minstrelsy, and the popular musical forms of the late 19th and early 20th century. The collection includes sheet music, photographs, correspondence, ephemera, and other primary source documents, as well as a sizeable collection of early 78 rpm disc and cylinder players.

"Allen George Debus (1926-2009) was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of George Walter William and Edna Pauline Schwenneke Debus. Raised in nearby Evanston and educated in the Evanston public schools, Debus nurtured—in the museums in and around Chicago and with the encouragement of his parents and his great aunts—boyhood and ultimately lifelong interests in history, paleontology, Egyptology, early recorded music, and science.

34.2 linear feet (5 cartons, 2 document boxes, 1 half-size document box, 23 flat boxes)

Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Research Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Research Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Department of Special Research Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.

The collection is open for research.