Tulip 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.
Brother David Steindl-Rast Papers
August 2017-January 31, 2018
Location: SCUA and Learning Commons, Du Bois Library
Brother David is one of the most important figures in the modern interfaith dialogue movement, leaving Mount Savior in the mid-1960s to study Zen Buddhism with Hakuun Yajutami, Shunayu Suzuki, and Soen Nakagawa. He was the first Benedictine to learn directly from Buddhist teachers and received Vatican support for his bridge-building work in 1967. When not in seclusion, Brother David has served as a teacher of contemplative prayer, the intersection of Zen and Catholicism, and gratefulness as a spiritual practice. Through many books and articles, lectures, and residencies in spiritual centers like Tassajara and the Esalen Institute, Brother David has developed an influential philosophy and much of the current popularity of mindfulness and Zen-influenced living and activism owes a debt to his teachings.
The Brother David Steindl-Rast Papers include Brother David’s extensive published and unpublished writings, sermons, memoirs, personal journals, correspondence, photographs, recordings, and videos of his teachings. His papers extend back to his youth in Vienna, documenting his childhood and experience during the war, including a complete run of Die Goldene Wagen, the children’s magazine published by Brother David’s mother Elisabeth Rast.
W.E.B Du Bois at 150
Feb 1, 2018 – August 2018
Location: SCUA and Learning Commons, Du Bois Library
Scholar, writer, editor of The Crisis and other journals, co-founder of the Niagara Movement, the NAACP, and the Pan African Congresses, international spokesperson for peace and for the rights of oppressed minorities, W.E.B. Du Bois was a son of Massachusetts who articulated the strivings of African Americans and developed a trenchant analysis of the problem of the color line in the twentieth century.
Drawing from the rich and vast Du Bois Papers, containing the personal and professional papers of a remarkable social activist and intellectual, “W.E.B. Du Bois at 150” touches on all aspects of his long life from his childhood during Reconstruction through the end of his life in 1963. The exhibit reflects the extraordinary breadth of his social and academic commitments from research in sociology to poetry and plays, from organizing for social change to organizing for Black consciousness.
1968: Past, Present, Future
August 2018 – Winter 2019
Location: SCUA and Learning Commons, Du Bois Library
Following on the heels of the Summer of Love, 1968 seemed like a world apart. It was a year of social experimentation and optimism, but also a year of rebellion, assassination, political agitation, and violence. It was a year of Nixon and Agnew and hippies and revolutionaries. To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of 1968, the exhibit will draw upon the social change collections in the Libraries’ Department of Special Collections and University Archives to explore a watershed year in American history.
Stonewall at 50
Spring 2019-early fall 2019
Location: Learning Commons, Du Bois Library
Pioneers: African Americans at UMass Amherst, 1897-1968
Spring 2019-early fall 2019
Location: SCUA, Du Bois Library
| Exhibits online | |
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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. |
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100 photos: Arthur Mange
 Photographs from the collection of Arthur Mange. |
 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 |
| Photographer: Diana Mara Henry
Photographs from the collection of Diana Mara Henry. An exhibit by Chuck Abel. |
 An examination of social reform and antislavery in Antebellum New England. An exhibit by Charles Weisenberger. |
Rhetoric or Research
 interprets student protests against CIA recruitment at UMass Amherst during the 1980s through a selection of images taken by student photojournalists. |
 A digital curriculum for teaching U.S. history using archival resources. An exhibit by Emily Oswald (ETHIR recipient, 2011). |
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) |
 Science fiction readership in the Cold War and beyond. An exhibit by Morgan Hubbard. |
Fifteen letters
 Conrad D. Totman’s letters home from Korea, 1954-1955. An exhibit by Alex McKenzie. |
 An online exhibit on the life and legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois based on his papers. |
Herbals and Insects
 A selection of rare botanical and entomological books from the SCUA collections. |
 Books on bees and beekeeping. An exhibit by Richard A. Steinmetz. |