Feleky Collection
The Feleky Collection, now at the Library of Congress, includes more than 10,000 books and 15,000 periodical issues, plus biographical files, newspaper clippings, questionnaires, and other materials about about 920 Hungarian Americans. It also has photographs, prints, music scores, maps, broadsides and posters, recordings, and manuscripts.
Charles Feleky started the collection to gather anything written in English about Hungary. He was born in Budapest in 1863 and moved to the United States in 1885 as a musician. He later conducted music for plays, including a touring production of Ben Hur. His interest in Hungary grew after he bought a book about Lajos Kossuth, a leader after the 1848 revolution. He built a network of book dealers in the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, British Africa, India and Australia who sent him English-language books about Hungary and Hungarians. His New York apartment became his library.
After Feleky died, his wife sold the collection to the Hungarian National Museum, which started the Hungarian Reference Library in New York. By then the collection covered many academic subjects. In 1941, when Hungary declared war on the United States, the U.S. Office of Alien Property seized the collection and stored it. The Library of Congress bought it in 1953 for $2,000.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 11:46 (CET).