Santa Clara has a long history, first as a Franciscan mission and then as a Jesuit college and university. The materials found in Archives & Special Collections document that history. Primary sources as well as contemporary secondary sources can provide a view of how the early Franciscan padres and Jesuit educators influenced and changed the environment of the Santa Clara Valley.
The Mission Santa Clara Manuscript Collection consists of hundreds of manuscripts primarily written and collected by the Franciscan missionaries from the founding of the Mission in 1777 until the arrival of the Jesuits in 1851.