Tulip poplar leavesTulip poplar leaf Arthur Mange Collection

Drawing upon the unique materials under their care, the staff of the Department of Special Collections and University Archives organize two to three exhibits a year in their reading room and work regularly with their colleagues in the general library to prepare other exhibits for display on the Lower Level of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library.

Current and Upcoming Exhibits

Visibility for Disability: A Look at the History of Disability

Feb. 10, 2020-Winter 2021

W. E. B. Du Bois Library
Lower Level and Floor 25

Drawing from the growing collections documenting disability history in Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA), the exhibit uses the organizational records and collections of personal papers documenting the history of disability and disability rights in the United States. Among other focal points for the exhibit are cross-disability activism and the psychiatric survivors’ movement.

An Exhibit on Daniel Ellsberg

Postponed

W. E. B. Du Bois Library
Lower Level and Floor 25

The exhibit celebrates the library’s recent acquisition of Ellsberg’s personal papers, which join other highly regarded collections in Special Collections and University Archives documenting the history of social unrest and change in the U.S. Following a decade as a high-level government official, researcher and consultant, Ellsberg distributed the top-secret Pentagon Papers in 1971, exposing decades of deceit by American policymakers during the Vietnam War.

Exhibits online
Kenyon Butterfield

Class of 1967 Memorial and Monuments Tour
Highlights the rich legacy of alumni giving and participation on the UMass Amherst campus from 1867 to today. See the buildings, structures, monuments, plaques, gardens, sculptures, trees, and benches that tell the story of a century and a half of generosity. Exhibit courtesy of the Class of 1967; prepared by Cheryl Harned.

Icon for fifty photographs exhibit

The premise of this exhibition is simple: to select one image each from fifty collections in SCUA both as an effort to explore the growth of these holdings and the range of “social feelings” embedded in them. For many collections, it is a challenge to select just one “favorite” image, and many of our favorites and some of our best photographic collections have been edged out. But the beauty of photography is that it will always be there to remind us of our lapses.

Arthur Mange

100 photos: Arthur Mange
Photographs from the collection of Arthur Mange.

Through the Photographer's Eyes

Photographs taken by Henry along with a rich array of related materials—speeches, press releases, brochures, and her personal notes—collected over the years, which document the political and cultural scene of the second half of the twentieth century

Diana Mara Henry Photographs

Photographer: Diana Mara Henry
Photographs from the collection of Diana Mara Henry. An exhibit by Chuck Abel.

E.D. Hudson

An examination of social reform and antislavery in Antebellum New England. An exhibit by Charles Weisenberger.

Rhetoric or research

Rhetoric or Research
interprets student protests against CIA recruitment at UMass Amherst during the 1980s through a selection of images taken by student photojournalists.
By Tom Hohenstein (ETHIR recipient, 2011).

Gordon Heath

A digital curriculum for teaching U.S. history using archival resources. An exhibit by Emily Oswald (ETHIR recipient, 2011).

I see dead people

Behold And See As You Pass By
An online exhibit on gravestones and mortuary art in Early New England drawn from the Association for Gravestones Studies Collections. By Molly Campbell (ETHIR recipient, 2011)

Robot reader

Science fiction readership in the Cold War and beyond. An exhibit by Morgan Hubbard.

Letters home

Fifteen letters
Conrad D. Totman’s letters home from Korea, 1954-1955. An exhibit by Alex McKenzie.

Du Bois photographs

An online exhibit on the life and legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois based on his papers.

A scarab beetle

Herbals and Insects
A selection of rare botanical and entomological books from the SCUA collections.

A bee

Books on bees and beekeeping. An exhibit by Richard A. Steinmetz.

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