OXFORD, Miss. – Many rarely seen treasures from the University of Mississippi’s Department of Archives and Special Collections are featured in a new exhibit, “Preserving our Past: Highlights from Archives and Special Collections.”
The exhibit, which runs through January 2014, focuses on rare items related to Mississippi’s history and culture. Highlights include a draft of “Absalom, Absalom!” from the William Faulkner collection; the papers of Bishop Duncan M. Gray Jr., former minister at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Oxford who attempted to quell the 1962 campus riots; the Civil War letters of Richard Bridges, a member of the University Greys, Company A of the 11th Mississippi Infantry; and selected 78-rpm records by legendary blues artist Robert Johnson.“This exhibit highlights some of the rich resources in Mississippi’s history and culture,” said Jennifer Ford, head of Archives & Special Collections. “From baseballs signed to U.S. House of Representative Doorkeeper William “Fishbait” Miller by players such as Ty Cobb and Ted Williams, to literary papers by such Mississippi authors as William Faulkner, Willie Morris, Ellen Douglas, Barry Hannah and Larry Brown, to blues records, to photographs, there is something for everyone to enjoy.
“So much included in this exhibit has never appeared in public before, such as the Richard Bridges/University Greys letters and the Bishop Duncan M. Gray Jr. papers. I think it is a wonderful opportunity for patrons to see what Special Collections has to offer.”
Special Collections, which contains four units – Main Special Collections, the Blues Archive, the Modern Political Archive and the Visual Collections – holds more than 46,000 rare books related to the state’s history and culture and to the university. Items from each unit of Special Collections are featured in the exhibit.
For example, the Blues Archive acquires and preserves blues and blues-related materials, housing one of the world’s largest collections of blues recordings, publications and memorabilia, and several display cases are devoted to highlights from that collection. Other notable items in the exhibit originate from the Modern Political Archive, the Southern Media Archive and the civil rights collections.
The exhibit is open during Special Collections’ regular hours of 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, except university holidays. The Department of Archives and Special Collections is on the third floor of the J.D. Williams Library.
A series of brown bag lectures by UM faculty whose research relates to subjects covered in the exhibit will be scheduled over the course of the year.
For information about the “Preserving our Past” exhibit visit the Department of Archives and Special Collections.