This collection contains the papers of the Keatings, a Philadelphia-based family of doctors, lawyers, and scientists. John Keating (1760-1856) was an officer in an Irish brigade of the French Army. In 1792, during the French Revolution, being a royalist, he resigned his post and immigrated to the United States. Keating settled in Philadelphia, where he became identified with many of the city's institutions, including the University of Pennsylvania. His son John Julius, a lawyer, married Elizabeth Hopkinson, the granddaughter of Declaration of Independence signer Francis Hopkinson. Keating's other son, William Hypolitus (1799-1840), was a professor of Chemistry and Minerology at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the founders of the Franklin Institute and the Reading Railroad.

This collection also contains manuscripts of Erich Bollmann (1769-1821), a German-born physician known for his involvement in a failed attempt to rescue the Marquis de Lafayette from imprisonment at Olmütz and for his role in the Burr conspiracy. William Hypolitus Keating married Bollmann's daughter.