Cartes-de-visite, such as this clever little pastiche from the prominent New York studio of C.D. Fredricks, became commonplace in the U.S. in the period just before the Civil War. Here, the giant photographed head of an anonymous man sits atop a pint-sized caricature of his body, the angle of his spindly legs echoing his spectacular handlebar moustache.
Like an archaeological excavation through layers of what has been left behind, this series of artist’s books digs deep to create beauty amid decay and loss. Each of the ten titles (so far) in the Stratigraphic Archives is a new exploration of remnants of the past.
Literary commonplace books flourished in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. Compilations of excerpts from beloved, meaningful, or thought-provoking texts, typical literary commonplace books like this one offer a window into the reading habits of their makers.
This graphically arresting envelope depicts President Abraham Lincoln as the Great Comet of 1861, which could be seen with the naked eye throughout the summer in much of the United States. The anonymous illustrator has combined several visual elements to create greater meanings: the white stars on a blue background representing both the heavens and … Read more
Wesleyan is now a member of the Center for Research Libraries, an international consortium focused on unique primary source materials in both physical and digital form, encompassing the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
As a founding member of the Connecticut/Trinity/Wesleyan consortium in the late 1980s, the Wesleyan Library has long believed in and relied upon the power of consortia and relationships with other institutions both to strengthen and extend the resources available for research and teaching.
Starting this January, the Library has added campus-wide access to the Financial Times. Using your Wesleyan username and password, you can now sign-in to the Financial Times using both their website and tablet/phone apps.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Special Collections & Archives is open by appointment only. We will be open by appointment when allowed by the Current Alert Level on campus and when the library is open.
This month marks thirty years since the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, also known as NAGPRA. NAGPRA is a federal law that protects Native American graves and funerary objects. It also provides a process by which museums and agencies must repatriate Native American human remains, funerary objects, and certain categories of cultural objects to lineal descendants, Native American tribes, and Native Hawaiian Organizations.
On November 16, 1990, Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This important human rights legislation aimed to restore dignity and respect to the ancestral human remains and cultural objects being held in museum collections, and provided a process for their repatriation to culturally affiliated tribes, lineal descendants, and Native Hawaiian … Read more
