Has Special Collections acquired a Jamestown spy map from the Civil War era? Lindsay Bliss weighs in!
Special Collections
Sep 2019
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September 24, 2019In honor of Banned Books Week, Ute Schechter explores censorship and early modern science through an investigation of a clandestine edition of Galileo's Dialogo.
Aug 2019
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August 28, 2019Tracy Melton '85, member of the William & Mary Libraries Board of Directors, considers the words we use to describe crime and death in archival work. Read on to learn more about a nineteenth-century fatality recounted in the Galt Papers.
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August 23, 2019A 1677 document in Special Collections explores how the British used print and language to both build relationships with and exert control over Native peoples.
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August 7, 2019In 1574, as well as the rest of her reign, Queen Elizabeth I’s place as England’s monarch was continually challenged based on her mother’s reputation, her lack of a husband, her religion, and her gender. Even as one of the most powerful women in the 16th century, she still needed to prove herself.
Jul 2019
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July 30, 2019Do you keep your receipts? Special Collections has a good number of receipts and these seemingly mundane documents can provide valuable insight into early Virginians’ lives.
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July 25, 2019L'abbé Antoine Banier and his Mythology are unique in the position they take on the historical nature of myth and legend. Banier was a proponent of euhemerism, a school of thought that claims myths, legends, and folklore all have real historical basis.
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July 18, 2019Joe Catanzaro explains a pivotal moment in cartography captured in our collections.
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July 11, 2019Abolition was not a radical nineteenth century idea that miraculously emerged from the political ideologies of the Age of Revolution. A 1767 address from Arthur Lee of Virginia serves as a reminder that the abolitionist movement did not have a linear trajectory, and that individuals protested slavery throughout its existence.
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July 3, 2019Before Jon Stewart ’84 and Trevor Noah, before Stephen Colbert and John Oliver and Saturday Night Live, before Tina Fey and Samantha Bee and Andrea Gibson, there was George Jean Nathan and H.L. Mencken. A slice of the Nathan/Mencken story lives in the Special Collections Research Center at Swem Library.
Jun 2019
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June 26, 2019"Dog and Cat"This summer we're publishing a series of blog posts written by students for