The yearly occurrence of Christmas invites celebrations to maintain a sense of tradition and nostalgia. Steeped in the Colonial Revival atmosphere of Williamsburg in the 1930s with the reconstruction of historic buildings on campus and Duke of Gloucester Street, the Yuletide season featured events with traditional inspirations.

When we think of archival collections, we imagine primarily written documentation, be it letters, diaries, or organizational records. But artifacts are sometimes part of those collections and some of those objects tell a story that can enrich and at times may even go beyond the written word. The weapons, ammunition, and equipment of war shown in these three cases were used by soldiers in the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. In addition to arms and ammunition, there are also trench lighters, breastplates, and helmets. This exhibit is by no means attempting to be a comprehensive history of any of these wars, but uses objects that played an important role in armed conflicts to give us an insight into one aspect in the daily life of the soldiers that owned and used them.

“the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,--a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,--an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

The end of the Civil War brought the passage of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) made “separate but equal” the law of the land. Materials in the exhibit show the racism prevalent in the United States and the legal decisions that began to chip away at the problem. Included are images of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, segregated facilities, sub-standard classrooms and a copy of the Brown v. Board decision as well as letters found in Virginia politician’s papers in the Special Collections Research Center.