A new exhibition now open in the First Floor Gallery of UVA’s Harrison Institute and Small Special Collections Library makes a bold and compelling claim: a portrait long held in the Library’s collections has for nearly a century been misidentified and is now believed to be the most accurate image of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in existence. Arranged to appear almost like an evidence board on a detective show, the exhibition calls on the viewer to look with their own eyes, asking, “What do you see?”
[The exhibition] examines the works in the period of Black artistic and intellectual activity centered in a New York neighborhood. The Harlem Renaissance began in the early 1900s as racist violence and diminishing economic opportunity pushed Black Southerners to head north in a movement known as the Great Migration.
“These young people, like Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Gwendolyn Bennett … their approach was, ‘We’re not going to try to aspire to white person standards. We’re not going to try to aspire to the Black middle-class standard. We’re fine being Black,’” George Riser, chief exhibition curator, said.
Guest post by Holly Robertson, Curator of University Library Exhibitions
One hundred years ago, the artistic and political revolutions of the Harlem Renaissance were in full swing. The unmistakable sounds, images, words, and conventions of the era indelibly shaped American culture.
Students are back on Grounds, classes are in session, and the Library is here to help. As a UVA student, you can use the Library to access books, journals, databases, makerspaces, and media equipment. You can contact a librarian any time of day through the Ask a Librarian portal or explore Library spaces to find a favorite study spot for years to come. And you can meet new friends by joining the Library Student Council, which is holding its first interest meeting of the year this evening, Aug. 28.
It’s been a somewhat quiet summer on Grounds as we await students’ return for the fall semester. Renovations on the main library continue, with the building’s grand opening scheduled for April 2024. And we recently bid adieu to the four panels of the Berlin Wall that have been stationed near the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library since 2014.
Far from Grounds, though, several UVA librarians have appeared in local and national news stories about pressing issues in literary world: book censorship in Virginia school and public libraries, authors concerned about AI technology, and trauma-informed archival practices.
Guest post by Rob Smith, Digital Production Group Project Manager
We offer singular experiences in the UVA Library — for our staff, for our student employees, for scholars near and far, for our patrons, for the communities we connect with and serve, and for others tied to the broad networks of knowledge wrapping around our world. Typically, we do this work and our outreach in unique ways. It’s how we roll.
As case in point, the Digital Production Group (DPG) received a request in the spring semester to scan William Faulkner’s handwritten manuscript of “The Sound and the Fury.” (Handwritten! By William Faulkner!) This is one of many literary treasures we hold in Special Collections. (A detail from “Benjy’s Section” of the manuscript is shown below.)
It’s possible to mistake Ivy Creek Natural Area & Historic River View Farm, located off Earlysville Road in Albemarle County, for simply a nice place to take a hike, with gentle hills, thriving wildlife, and views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Lisa Shutt, an Associate Professor in UVA’s Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies, had taken several walks in the area before she took an interest in a towering white barn near the trailhead.
In June, the U.S. celebrates Pride Month, in honor of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising. Across the country, people gather with parades, events, parties, and other celebrations to honor the history and impact of the LGBTQ+ community. This post highlights podcasts, literature, and archives that document the rich array of lived experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals.
Whether you are exploring your own identity or want to build your allyship capacities, we hope that this month’s materials provide you meaningful ways to learn about our vibrant community.
- Catalina Piatt-Esguerra, she/hers (Associate Dean for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility)
There are only a few more weeks to catch “Visions of Progress: Portraits of Dignity, Style, and Racial Uplift,” UVA Library’s vibrant exhibition that showcases portraits that African Americans in central Virginia commissioned from the Holsinger Studio during the first decades of the 20th century. Curated by UVA associate professor of history John Edwin Mason, the exhibition has garnered national media attention and drawn thousands of visitors to the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. It closes on June 24.
On Dec. 10, 1938, on the eve of World War II, Herbert Friedman boarded a train in Austria bound for England. It was the day before his 14th birthday. He joined nearly 10,000 children, virtually all of them Jewish, who were rescued from Nazi-controlled territory across Europe and taken to the United Kingdom. His son, University of Virginia alumnus Mark Friedman, has donated materials documenting his father’s remarkable life to UVA’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.
Rare Book School at the University of Virginia's 2025 schedule includes more than 40 classes, featuring online courses and in-person possibilities. In-person courses in Charlottesville will be offered in the University of Virginia's newly renovated Edgar Shannon Library. For the best chance of being admitted on the courses, applications should be submitted by February 17.
If you haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading a story by Alice Berry, let me introduce you to her work.
The University of Virginia’s massive library system, which houses copies of the Declaration of Independence, is just part of her “beat,” one of the many areas she is responsible for covering.
Her storytelling task ballooned as the school undertook the gigantic overhaul of Shannon Library. In her story on one of UVA's last card catalogs, Alice revealed tantalizing details about issues of UVA’s student newspaper, the Cavalier Daily, dating back to the 19th century. Her piece even inspired UVA Today’s latest installment of Obscura, which documents lesser-known objects and places across Grounds.
After a nearly four-year closure for renovations, Shannon Library has re-established itself as the University of Virginia’s main study spot. This December marks a full academic year since five floors of expanded seating and a grilled cheese café joined historic reading rooms and the checkered entrance hall students first crossed back in 1938.
