This exhibit showcased traditions and innovations that combine Humanities and Engineering perspectives in Union’s curriculum, student and faculty research, campus structures, and co-curricular and student activities. The exhibit also displayed treasures from Union’s Permanent and Special Collections including several rare Olivier Models (19th century teaching tools for engineering that echo forms in modern sculpture) and plates from Union’s copy of John James Audubon’s Birds of America (purchased directly from the artist himself, and displayed with background information about how Audubon “engineered” both image and story).
This new exhibit series is an investigation into the distinctive ways in which graphic novelists/artists construct a narrative. The first installment focuses on the use of color as a storytelling device and showcases sample images from graphic novels in Schaffer Library’s collections.
The “Dickens in America” exhibit opened in Schaffer Library on February 9, 2010. It commemorated Charles Dickens’ two mid-nineteenth century tours of the United States, both of which included stops in nearby Albany. The exhibit featured first editions of Dickens’ fiction and non-fiction writings on the United States as well as archival materials from the papers of John Bigelow (Union College Class of 1835), who became personally acquainted with Dickens during his “public readings” tour of the U.S. in 1867/68. Also featured in the exhibition: the College’s recent acquisition of an illustrated first edition of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843) along with subsequent editions of this famous work, a condensed version of which Dickens included among his public readings in Albany in March 1868.
The Darwin @ Union exhibit in 2009 celebrated the conjunction of three events: the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth in 1809, the 150th anniversary of the first publication of his On the Origin of Species in 1859, and the gift to Union College of a first and sixth edition of On the Origin of Species as well as the first volume of Darwin’s The Descent of Man (1871), all donated to the College by Aaron J. Feingold, Union College Class of 1972. Dr. Feingold’s gifts joined his earlier presentation to the College of the first edition of Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).
Schaffer Library’s Remembered First Citizen exhibit honored John Bigelow (Union College Class of 1835). Part of a larger project at Union College celebrating the accomplishments one of its most distinguished alumni, the exhibit took its name in tribute – but also in answer – to Margaret Clapp’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Bigelow, Forgotten First Citizen (1947).
Schaffer Library Gallery exhibits North-African Postcards depicting Jewish women, children, & families dating from the early twentieth century.
The demographic dispersion of Jews is generally described in three categories: Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrahi. While Ashkenazi Jews make up the majority of world Jewry, the Feingold Postcard Collection focuses mainly on Jewish populations living in North Africa, which consisted of a combination of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. The term Sephardi designates the diaspora of Jewish people from Spain who migrated to Mediterranean regions, such as France and North Africa. Mizrahi Jews, on the other hand, originated in Persia and diverse locales in the Middle East and moved eastward. Mizrahi Jews were often seen as outsiders by both natives and other sects of Jews because they had dark skin, spoke different languages and had different customs.