Archives & Special Collections
Please Respond Personally: Commemorating the 1974 Black Student Sit-In
Richard Schimmelpfeng Gallery
Dodd Center for Human Rights
Monday - Friday, 9am to 4pm
through December 13, 2024
The exhibit commemorates the direct action taken by Black and Brown students on the Storrs campus to challenge structural racism in higher education by sitting in at the Wilbur Cross Library on April 22nd 1974. This historic event of activism, where roughly 370 students occupied the library at varying times across 3 days, was the culminating event during a semester long campaign of student organizing to demand representation and resources for students of color at the University of Connecticut. Through curated documents this exhibition will feature the perspectives of the student organizers, the Afro-American Cultural Center, the University and its administration to portray this campus-wide call to action which resonates to our present day. This 50th anniversary is also an opportunity to highlight approaches to student activism and the centrality of the library as an institutional setting both for democracy and also one vulnerable to upholding systems of oppression.
This exhibition draws from the experiences of alumni Rodney Bass (’75BA/’76MA) who read the demands during the sit-in and was co-chair of the Organization of African American Students (OAAS). The archives podcast d’Archive produced an interview with Rodney about Black student organizing in the mid-1970s on the Storrs campus which is revealing in understanding their approach to making demands upon the university for their representation in the student body.
Homer Babbidge Library
A cookie full of arsenic.
Paintings from the lighter side of gloom.
by Gunnar Johnson
Gallery on the Plaza
Homer Babbidge Library
On display through December 15, 2024
The German language has a word to summarize a feeling of blasé skepticism and world weary melancholy: “Weltschmerz,” which translates literally to “world pain.” These paintings offer a generous portion of that ingredient, a touch of ennui and a dash of slapstick comedy. Inspiration is drawn from old movies and TV shows, pop culture, pop art, surrealism, urban street art and the Mel Brooks quote, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”
Gunnar Johnson majored in art at UConn and graduated with a BFA in 1982, despite one his teachers suggesting he major in something else. His work has appeared in Mad Magazine, Reader’s Digest, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, and the Orlando Sentinel. He worked for 25 years at the Providence Journal and four years at the South Florida Sun Sentinel, where he was on a team that won a Pulitzer Prize. His artwork has been shown in Paris, Rome, Dublin, Milan, Vienna, Cairo, Brazil, Peru and Cuba.* Over 200 of his greeting card designs have been published and he authored a travel blog with over a million page views. He resides with his wife Sherry in Middletown, CT.
*On display in libraries in Paris, Texas; Rome, New York; Dublin, California; Milan, Tennessee; Vienna, West Virginia; Cairo, New York; Brazil, Indiana; Peru, Illinois and Cuba, Missouri
Online Exhibits
25 for 25: Celebrating Twenty-Five Years of Collecting
Online Exhibition, UConn Archives & Special Collections
Archives & Special Collections presents 25 for 25: Celebrating Twenty-Five Years of Collecting, a virtual, year-long exhibition celebrating collections and collecting. 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the dedication of the Dodd Center for Human Rights, which brought together the collections and practices of the University’s Historical Manuscripts & Archives and Special Collections departments for the first time. Over the course of a year, Archives & Special Collections staff will explore 25 objects selected from the collections, engaging with and reflecting on the meaning of these objects and the activity of collecting over time. Through these objects, Archives & Special Collections celebrates the act of historical preservation and the recognition that collections constantly evolve, grow, and expand so that future educators, students, researchers, and learners may be inspired and informed by the objects within.
The American Approach to Montessori Teaching and Learning
Online Exhibition, UConn Archives & Special Collections
The Montessori method of education was first introduced to the United States in the early 1900s yet quickly fell out of favor with American educators. Widespread American interest in Montessori did not return until the 1950s, thanks in large part to teacher Nancy McCormick Rambusch. Rambusch founded the American Montessori Society in 1960, which sought to promote the Montessori method in the United States. AMS succeeded in reviving the Montessori method in the United States and gaining recognition for it as a valid educational system. This exhibit explores the origins of the Montessori movement in the United States and the Americanization of the Montessori method. It is comprised of materials from the American Montessori Society Records, which were donated to the UConn Archives in 2006 and digitized beginning in 2016.
Homefront: Connecticut Businesses in World War II
Online Exhibition, UConn Archives & Special Collections
The outbreak of World War II dramatically changed Connecticut businesses. Long a vibrant part of New England industry, local firms switched from making clocks and wool coats to mass producing artillery cartridges and Army pea-coats. Selections from the Connecticut business collections held by the University of Connecticut’s Archives & Special Collections paint a detailed portrait of this remarkable moment in history through the lives of the people who lived it.