Past Exhibits

  • December 6, 2011 to April 6, 2012

    The diversity of the College of William & Mary community finds expression in a vari

  • December 9, 2011 to March 30, 2012

    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.

  • October 13, 2011 to March 27, 2012

    This exhibit is part of a continuing series about the presidents of William & Mary. It provides a history of the university as seen through the eyes of its presidents. The first exhibit spans the administrations of presidents James Blair, William Dawson, William Stith, and Thomas Dawson.

  • October 18, 2011 to March 12, 2012

    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.

  • February 16, 2011 to February 27, 2012

    The fifth in a series of library exhibits of W&M faculty publications has opened at Swem.

  • April 28, 2011 to December 4, 2011

    “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.”

  • May 5, 2011 to November 28, 2011

    The first issue of The Flat Hat was printed on October 3, 1911.

  • March 16, 2011 to October 23, 2011

    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.

  • March 22, 2011 to October 11, 2011

    This year marks the 250th Anniversary of Thomas Jefferson attending the College of William and Mary. In 1760, Jefferson set off from his rural estate in Albemarle County, Virginia to Williamsburg in order to further his education. After he graduated from William and Mary in 1762, Jefferson continued his education by studying the law for five years under George Wythe, lawyer and future professor of law at the College. Williamsburg helped to shape the mind of the future author of the Declaration of Independence and President of the United States of America. This exhibit contains letters, photographs, and other material documenting Williamsburg during the period Thomas Jefferson was a student there

  • April 1, 2011 to September 30, 2011

    The Civil War and the years leading up to it are among the most studied periods in American history. Many of the interpretations of the coming of the War may be grouped into one of two major schools of thought: Irrepressible Conflict or Blundering Generation. The Irrepressible Conflict school argues that the North and South were becoming such different societies that they could no longer co-exist in one nation, and war was the inevitable consequence. However, the historians of this school do not all agree on what the crucial differences were between North and South. The Blundering Generation school argues that radically different societies can co-exist without going to war. Instead, a series of mistakes and misjudgments by a “blundering generation” of politicians allowed extremists to dominate, leading eventually to war.