On Tuesday, October 4, 2011, students and staff from Walsingham Academy visited the Special Collections Research Center at Swem Library. Martha McArthur, a Walsingham teacher, brought her tenth graders to view and use manuscripts and rare books. Special Collections staff Susan Riggs and Ben Bromley instructed the students on how to handle and analyze these primary sources.
Walsingham Academy has been bringing students to see rare materials at Swem for many years. Ms. McArthur notes that “years later former students reported back how special they discovered” the visit to be. The tenth graders who visited Swem are studying modern history, covering from the Enlightenment to the present day.
Among the materials available for the students were volumes of the first European encyclopedia, the Encyclopédie, edited by Frenchman Denis Diderot in the 1700s, which is considered a classic Enlightenment work. Other items included letters written by slaves, diaries from people ranging from a great Virginia planter in the 19th century to a teenaged girl in 1950s New Jersey, a Civil Rights Movement songbook, and many other rare or unique materials.
