Seagram Museum rare book collection

In 1997, the Seagram Company and the Seagram Museum donated the rare book collection and the early archives held by the Seagram Museum Library to the University of Waterloo Library.

Seagram Museum Library bookplate The collection of more than 1200 titles covers every aspect of the beverage alcohol industry. Topics include distillation, wine and wine making, brewing, viticulture, bottling and cooperage, taxation and government regulations, temperance and prohibition, the culinary arts, and advertising. The collection complements the University of Waterloo Library's existing research collections in the fields of chemistry, chemical engineering, and the history of technology as well as the decorative arts, temperance, and social history.

The earliest imprint is the 1545 Italian translation of Charles Estienne's Vinetum..., an early work on viticulture. Other notable early works include De Secretis Remediis aut Potius Thesaurus by Konrad Gesner (1554), and Livre du Vigneron et du Fabricant du Cidre ... et Autres Vins de Fruits by Joseph de Mauny de Mornay (1838).

An exhibition featuring the Seagram Museum Library collections is available.

The collection includes many examples of fine bindings and illustrations.

Also present is a small group of books that belonged to the Seagram family.

Books, pamphlets, periodicals and other printed items are fully catalogued and listed in Primo, the combined catalogue of the TUG Libraries (University of Waterloo, University of Guelph, and Wilfrid Laurier University).

The University of Waterloo Library received only a portion of the total collection held by the Seagram Museum, including the rare book collection and the archives relating to the local Seagram whiskey distillery in Waterloo, Ontario to 1928, the year it was acquired by the Bronfman family.

The Seagram Museum collections were dispersed to a number of institutions, including Wilfrid Laurier University (prints, paintings, lithographs and art works on paper), and Brock University (the wine-related library, artifacts and historic wine bottles).

The official repository for both The Seagram Company and the Bronfman Family Archives is the Hagley Museum, Wilmington, Delaware.

Special Collections

Seagram Museum rare book collection