Mapping the City: A Stranger's Guide

A cartographic exhibit curated by students from the Borderworks Humanities Lab.

A Mockery of Justice: Caricature and the Dreyfus Affair

An exhibit on caricature and the Dreyfus Affair examines how the notorious legal and political scandal was depicted in the French popular press.

The Road to Desegregation at Duke

This exhibition examines the contributions of African Americans at Duke prior to integration, the process of desegregation at the University, and the ways in which black students have shaped Duke since 1963.  

Keep All You Wish: The Photographs of Hugh Mangum

 This exhibit located in the Center for Documentary Studies Lyndhurst Gallery features turn-of-the-twentieth-century portraits from the Hugh Mangum Collection in the David Rubenstein Library.  The exhibit was curated by graduate student Sarah Stacke in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Liberal Studies.

The Art of SAF: How Student Action with Farmworkers Use the Arts in Education and Advocacy

This exhibition of materials from the SAF Archive of the Rubenstein Library Human Rights Collection demonstrates how SAF uses theatre, the visual arts, oral history, and documentary photography in teaching and outreach. The display includes props and videos of theatre productions; t-shirts, artists books and masks created by children of farmworkers, and artistic signs used in protest campaigns.

SAF: Student Action With Farmworkers: 20 Years of Growing Farmworker Activists

In honor of the 20th anniversary of Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF), the 2012 Documentary Studies Class, “Politics of Food” curated this exhibition on the history of the SAF organization as well as the political and social issues of the food industry. The exhibition includes the history of SAF from its roots in Duke Public Policy Coursework and the Center for Documentary Studies exhibitions, to the internships and advocacy campaigns of today.

Documenting the Politics of Food: Photographs from the Rubenstein Library Collections

In Conjunction with the Student Action with Farmworkers Exhibit on display in the Perkins Gallery, this exhibit features photographs on American agriculture and agricultural labor from the Rubenstein Library's collections. The exhibit was curated by students in Professor Charles Thompson's Politics of Food class in Spring 2012 and include images by William Gedney, Danny Lyon, Alex Harris, Paul Kwilecki, John Moses, Rob Amberg, Cedric Chatterly, Chris Johnson, Jeff Whetstone and Jesse Andrews.

Randolph Bezzant Holmes Photographs, 1910-1919

From Blackface to Blaxploitation: Representations of African Americans in Film

This exhibit features selected items from the African Americans in Film Collection and the Thomas Cripps Film Collection that trace the complex and contested history of African Americans in the motion picture industry. 

What Does Your Doctor Know? Exploring the History of Physician Education from Early Greek Theory to the Practice of Duke Medicine. 

This exhibition highlights the transition of physician education over time, from the days of ancient civilization in Greece to the establishment of Duke’s Medical School.  Materials reflecting these consistencies and changes are from Duke’s Medical Center Archives and from the History of Medicine Collections in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. 

Nation on the Move - The Puerto Rican Diaspora, 

Photographs by Frank Espada, 1963-1990

Forty years after the Farm Security Administration photographic survey of America, Frank Espada traveled from New England to the Pacific Islands photographing the Puerto Rican diaspora.  Espada’s photographs document the harsh living and working conditions Puerto Rican migrants endured in the 1970s and 80s as well as their successes in building strong social-cultural-political organizations to improve their quality of life.

I Recall the Experience Sweet and Sad: Memories of the Civil War 

To mark the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, this exhibit showcases the memoirs of men and women who lived through it--Union and Confederate nurses, a former slave turned camp nurse and laundress, a southern woman married to a Union solider, and Walt Whitman, whose work as an army hospital nurse inspired some of his greatest works. 

Instruments of Torture

"Tools of Conservation" showcases some of the tools we use in book and paper conservation. Small items such as scalpels, brushes and bone folders are displayed, as well as materials like Japanese paper and sewing threads.

Charles Dickens: 200 Years of Commerce and Controversy

In this exhibition, commemorating Dickens’s 200th birthday (February 7, 2012), rare works by Dickens and from his time illuminate the intersections between Dickens’s marketable public persona and the many controversies in which he involved himself, from copyright law to poverty.  

Rare Book Room Cases

Flesh and Metal, Bodies and Buildings: Works from Jonathan Hyman’s Archive of 9/11 Vernacular Memorials

This exhibition brings together a selection of Jonathan Hyman's photographs documenting vernacular 9/11 memorials across the U.S., curated by Pedro Lasch, professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke.

Language, Power, Stories, Words: an Exhibit from the Dorothy Allison Papers

This exhibit includes selections from Allison's writings, activism, and personal life. Dorothy Allison crosses boundaries and defies definitions: a quintessential South Carolinian who has lived in northern California for decades; a lesbian feminist who has broken onto bestseller lists and won mainstream critical acclaim; a writer known for her fiction who has also published poetry and essays and performed a one-woman show; a seemingly fearless activist and advocate for the LGBTQ community who has written compellingly of the fear that lives in all of us.

Future Fantasteek! Zines and Sketchbooks by Jackie Batey

An exhibit of original sketchbooks and the zines produced from them by artist Jackie Bates on display in the Lilly Library foyer.

The Life of Memorials: Manifestations of Memory at the Intersection of Public and Private

10 Projects: Analog to Digital

This exhibit is on display in the conservation gallery, lower level 1 Perkins, across from Room 023. For the past five years the men and women in DPC have worked to bring library collections to new life in digital format, this exhibit highlights some of their  favorite digitization projects.

Look Boys and Girls! Advertising to Children in the 20th Century

This exhibit examines the history of advertising to children in the 20th Century through items found in Duke University's Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History.

Changing the Face of Medicine

This touring exhibition, on loan from the National Library of Medicine, highlights women physicians and scientists who have been leaders or made major contributions to the field. There are additional exhibits celebrating women in medicine on display in the library and available on-line.

Brave deeds are proudly spoken of: African American Military Service 

This exhibit highlights some of the experiences and personal stories of African American men and women who have served in the U.S. military. The display includes materials from the RBMSCL covering a variety wars including the Civil War, World War I and II and the Vietnam War.

On the Migrant Trail: Stories from the U.S.-Mexico Border

This exhibit documents the experiences of migrants, as seen through the eyes of DukeEngage Tucson participants.

Philanthropist, Environmentalist, Collector: Doris Duke and Her Estates

Most biographies of Doris Duke have focused on her glamorous lifestyle, often overlooking her efforts to make a difference in the world.  This exhibit reveals how she continued the family's quiet but innovative pattern of philantrhopy, her drive to address environmental issues, her keen eye for art and design, her passion for preserving colonial-era houses, and her love of music. 

PERFORMING IDENTITIES: An Investigation on Race and Gender through Dance

Mastering Craft: Interpreting Historic Bookbindings

The Preservation Department's new exhibit highlights work from the Triangle Research Libraries (TRLN) Master Bookbinders Group. Our group consists of staff members from the conservation labs of UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State and Duke University libraries. Its purpose is to research historic bookbindings to deepen our understanding of the history of the book, and develop knowledge and skills that help inform our daily conservation work.

To Keep the Future Worthy of the Past

This exhibit celebrates the centennial of William Preston Few's inauguration as President of Trinity College on November 9, 1910. Few accepted the presidency using the title of this exhibit and it would prove to be no hollow promise. Over the next three decades he would cultivate the strong and growing liberal arts college into a major research university and help shape James B. Duke's transformative gift.  Memorabilia from the inauguration as well as documents and images pertaining to the growth of Trinity into Duke University will be on display.

Book + Art: Artists' books from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture

Artists' books combine graphic design, printmaking & bookbinding with contemporary art practice to create works of art, all based on the beloved form of the book. This exhibit highlights a selection of contemporary artists' books by women on themes of body politics, family and domesticity.

Photographs by Amy Cotter

This student exhibit investigates the environmental impacts of local merchants as well as a natural habitat for animals.

Deena Stryker: Photographs of Cuba, 1963-1964

Deena Stryker's photographs offer a window onto an unsettled time in the early years of the Cuban Revolution, after the Missile Crisis and before Che's departure for the Congo, when Fidel Castro was solidifying his control over the revolutionary government. The exhibit includes contemporary 11x14 gelatin silver prints and smaller proof prints made by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda who assisted Stryker during her visit to the island.

10 Years, 10 Treatments: An exhibit of conservation treatments from the Duke University Libraries Conservation Laboratory

This year marks the Preservation Department's tenth year serving the Duke University Libraries. This exhibit celebrates the work of  the conservation laboratory by displaying a variety of different treatments from the libraries collections.  The department is  planning several events to mark the occasion which includes this exhibit, an open house, and interviews with staff members; for  more information visit their blog Preservation Underground.

July 15, 2010-October 2010

Mixed Blood: Conservation Work and Decision-Making in Support of the Study of Racial History

Curated by Mary Yordy, this exhibit highlights materials held by the Duke University Libraries pertaining to the study of mixed racial heritage. Crossing multiple disciplines and reflecting cultural influences that are international in scope, items from these collections are used heavily and frequently by students, faculty, and scholars. Within this exhibit, the materials show the necessity of conservation work and preservation care to ensure the long term use and availability for future scholars.

January 27, 2010- April 2010

'As Far As Possible from Forgetfulness': The Trinity College Historical Society

This exhibit displays artifacts collected by the Trinity College Historical Society (TCHS). TCHS was a student group originating in 1892 that believed the best way to learn history was to see it first hand through artifacts and manuscripts. This collection, along with over 525,000 manuscripts and books collected by TCHS, eventually formed the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library of Duke University.

August 3, 2010-October 10, 2010 |

The Power of Refined Beauty: Photographing Society Women for Pond's, 1920s-1950s

Selection of fashionable British and American society women photographed by prominent photographers Edward Steichen, Cecil Beaton, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, and others in advertisements for Pond’s beauty products are on exhibit courtesy of the J. Walter Thompson Company.

 "You've Got . . . Personality: Testimonial and Celebrity Endorsement Advertisements"

This exhibit, a complement to “The Power of Refined Beauty: Photographing Society Women for Pond’s, 1920s-1950s," highlights some examples of testimonial advertisements as documented in the collections of the Hartman Center.

Start: April  2010|  End: June 2010 | Rare Book Room Cases

Illustrating the Hebrew Bible

This exhibit, curated by the Librarian for Jewish Studies, Rachel Ariel, presents a sample of the abundance of art work done by Jewish artists illustrating the Hebrew Bible.. 

Abusing Power: Satirical Journals from the Special Collections Library

Duke University Libraries collection of satirical magazines offers a panorama of international journalistic caricature from its origins in the 1830s to the present day.  This show surveys the spectrum of comic journalism, examining the visual languages of graphic satire, and investigating its rhetorical power.

Cedric Chatterley: Photographs of Honeyboy Edwards, 1991-1996

Chatterley's black and white photographs trace the path of blues musician David "Honeyboy" Edwards' life and career beginning at his birth place in Shaw, Mississippi, continuing through the Mississippi Delta to New Orleans, Memphis and north to Chicago.

Start: January 18, 2010 | End: March 28, 2010 | Rubenstein Gallery

Conscience of a Nation: John Hope Franklin on African-American History

This exhibit was curated in memory of Dr. John Hope Franklin (1915-2009), renowned historian, author, teacher, and activist. Through the many forms of historical documentation in the collections of the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, the exhibit touches on four periods crucial to understanding the history of African Americans in the United States.

Bald Head Island Conservancy

An exhibit of photographs by Cat Crumpler during her research for the Hart Leadership Program through their Service Opportunities in Leadership Program.

Haiti: Photographs by Gary Monroe and Documents from the Perkins Library Collection

 An exhibit mounted by the Duke Libraries' Department of International & Area Studies and the Archive of Documentary Arts as a tribute to the Haitian people. Please join the Duke Relief effort http://www.duke.edu/haiti/

Beyond Cities

An exhibit of photographs exploring the urban environment by student Michal Koszycki, class of 2010.Meaning and form intersect at different levels of intensity from road signs and billboards to piers supporting a highway.

"I Take Up My Pen”: British Women Writers in the Nineteenth Century

Nineteenth century Britain—a world of progress and reform, discovery and innovation, industrialization and social upheaval—was also the era of the professional woman writer. Nineteenth century women, desiring to contribute to cultural discourse, to voice their opinions, and to tell their own stories, demanded a place beside men in the world of letters. This exhibit focuses on women’s writing as both a means of self-definition and a powerful tool for social change and highlights the tension between women’s domestic lives and their public contributions to nineteenth century discourse.

   Perkins Gallery

Insects of the Duke Campus

These photographs are part of a student project in the Fall 2008 Entomology course (Biology 222L). Using stereo microscopes equipped with digital cameras, the students produced extended focal image macrophotographs of insects by using software to combine a series of photos taken at different focal planes.

Start: 7 October 2009  |  End: 18 November 2009 |  Student Wall, Perkins Library

What is Jazz?: Selections from the Jazz Archive at Duke University

The Jazz Archive at Duke has set out to collect and explore jazz's material resonances in order to grapple with the history and impact this cultural phenomenon has had over the past century.  In this exhibit, photographs, posters, analytic prose, music manuscripts, and recorded audio, join with playing cards, album covers, and literary fiction to demonstrate a part of the process of documenting jazz's social and cultural history.  By exploring some of the traces of jazz's past, and implicitly challenging viewers to consider the possibilities of jazz's future, this exhibit provides one response to the ever-present question, "What is jazz?"

Start: October 2009 | End: January 2010 | Rare Book Room Cases

October 2009- January 2010 

Beyond Beauty: Photographs from the Duke University Special Collections Library

 An exhibit at the Nasher Art Museum features more than 80 original photographs, films, personal artifacts and rare published portfolios, many of which will be on view for the first time. The exhibition includes photographic material from the 1860s to the present, selected from Duke's Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library. The exhibition was organized by Duke's Special Collections Library and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University and will be on view at the Nasher Museum from July 2 through October 18, 2009.

The Bathers: Photographs by Jennette Williams

Jennette Williams, a fine arts photography instructor at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, has been selected to receive the fourth Center for Documentary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography for her stunning platinum prints and color photographs of women at European and Turkish bath houses.  Duke’s Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library (RBMSCL) acquired a selection of the exhibit photographs through the generosity of the Honickman Foundation established by Lynne Honickman. 

Sustainability at Duke: Leave your mark not your footprint

The staff of Sustainability at Duke, in conjunction with many organizations on campus, created this exhibit to inspire our community to decrease our collective carbon footprint by presenting some of the issues, sharing some local solutions, and introducing a few Sustainability related organizations on campus.

The Art of Protest

The stylistic affinities of protest art across space and time are compelling evidence of historical ties and strategic convergence between seemingly disparate actors in the social justice and human rights movements.   We invite you to further explore these issues in the Archive for Human Rights collections of the Rare Book Manuscript and Special Collections Library from which items in this exhibit are drawn.

Start: July 2009 | End: September 2009 | Rare Book Room Cases

The Sea is History 

Hundreds of thousands of Haitians, Dominicans and Cubans have left their homelands since 1960 by sea. They travel in fragile vessels or smugglers’ boats without prearranging authorized entry into another country.  The aim of this exhibit is to raise questions, increase awareness, and encourage informed thought about these people.

 18 August-18 October 2009

July 23rd-August 31, 2010

 Perkins Gallery

Marguerite Kent Repass Ocean Conservation Center, Duke Marine Lab campus.

William Gedney & Paul Kwilecki

Photographs by William Gedney & Paul Kwilecki

The Beautiful Eye of the Beholder

This exhibition traces the making of the book “Das schöne Auge des Betrachters" (The Beautiful Eye of the Beholder)by showcasing sketches, materials and objects related to the writing, illustration, and design of the book. The book includes poems on friendship and travel by Christophe Fricker and is illustrated by Timothy J. Senior. The poems and images explore what it means to be home, and how hard it is to write down memories of precious moments shared with the people you love.

Start: February 2009 | End: April 2009 | IAS Office Exhibit Space

Popular Medicine

Chinese Paintings from the Kingdom of Min

Paintings from the collection of Professor Paul Wang

 Hanes Dream, Sarah's Gift, Our Treasure

This exhibit explores the history of the gardens and its programs. The online exhibit includes images, videos, and archives.

 Reconciling All Things

The theme of the exhibit is drawn from a new book, “A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing,” by Chris Rice and Emmanuel Katongole, co-directors of the Duke Center for Reconciliation. Artists interpreted the theme broadly to include issues of Christian unity, social justice, creation care, and inter-religious dialogue. There will be a reception March 30, 2009. For more information see: http://www.divinity.duke.edu/programs/dita/exhibit

March 20- May 1, 2009 |

 The Presidential Image:An exhibit in honor of the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln

This exhibit by the Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library shows how media threw the spotlight on Abraham Lincoln and helped form public opinion about his campaigns and major events in his presidency.  Campaign and presidential portraits, caricatures from Southern sympathizers, images of the great emancipator, and Lincoln as martyr and American icon all have a part in this exhibit.

Start: |

Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library