Category: Modern European Cultures

Reading Sport Call, the Official Organ of the Workers’ Sports League, for Labor Day

by Greg Bond, Sports Archivist and Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection

In honor of Labor Day, Rare Books and Special Collections is pleased to highlight three recently acquired 1937 issues of the scarce monthly publication Sport Call, The Official Organ of The Workers’ Sports League of America. Published during the 1930s, Sport Call’s tagline explained that it was “a periodical devoted to the physical education of the working class,” and it promoted healthful sports and recreation for laborers and workers.

Front page of Sport Call, February 1937.

During the turbulent years of the Great Depression, Sport Call and the Workers’ Sports League of America (WSLA) were active participants in national and international socialist movements. Headquartered in New York City, the League—through its official journal—offered a decidedly pro-labor view of sports and athletics that critiqued, what it saw as, capitalist exploitation of laborers and athletes. Sport Call also fervently opposed the rising tide of fascist politics during the 1930s and endorsed sports as a potential unifying and democratizing force.

Sport Call supported, for example, a January 1937 conference organized by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) that aimed to establish a permanent Labor Sports Movement. Speaking to more than 150 delegates, Siegfried Lipschitz, President of the Workers’ Sports League, described the principles of Workers’ Sports International—the parent organization of the WSLA. “The Workers’ Sports International,” he said, “is a pillar of world democracy.”

A Jewish German emigré, lawyer, journalist, and activist, Lipschitz knew first hand the necessity of fighting reactionary politics:  “The International and its affiliated organizations reject dictatorship in all its forms,” he declared. “To them it is an eternal creed that Labor cannot live and flourish,” Lipschitz concluded, “except in an atmosphere of free speech, free press, and the fullest expression of popular sentiments.” (March 1937, p. 3).

Sport Call well understood the connection between sports and politics, and an anti-fascist theme runs throughout these three issues. In February 1937, the journal editorialized strongly against the upcoming heavyweight championship fight between German Max Schmeling and American James Braddock. The editors wrote that they were “vehemently opposed to the spreading of Nazi propaganda in Sports!,” and they elaborated: 

“The fact that Max Schmeling is a Nazi is known everywhere. The fact that Schmeling is a first-class propaganda merchant of Hitler’s is also well known. The opportunity to spread Nazi filth in this country must not be given to Hitler! The Braddock-Schmeling fight must not be staged!”

Similarly, the Workers’ Sports League had advocated for boycotting the 1936 Berlin Olympics in protest of Nazi Germany’s policies. The following year, the League supported and promoted the Third International Workers Olympiad held in Antwerp, Belgium, as an alternative and more egalitarian athletic competition. 

In an editorial titled, “Forward to Antwerp,” the March 1937 issue of Sport Call endorsed the call to action of George Elvin, the General Secretary of the British Workers Sports Association. The purpose of the Workers Olympiad, Elvin said, was to promote: “The unity of the people against war; the determination to continue the fight for clean, healthy, and beneficial sport; the maintenance of liberty and democracy.” 

Venue for the swimming events at the 1937 Third International Workers Olympiad as pictured in Sport Call March 1937, page 2.

More specifically, Elvin elaborated that there will be “none of those regrettable incidents, which mar other sports meetings. Working class leaders will not refuse the hand-clasp of congratulations to victors as Hitler did to Jesse Owens, because he did not approve of the color of his skin.” (March 1937, page 1).

The Workers’ Sports League and Sport Call consistently participated in anti-fascist events around New York and sought to include sports programming in socialist and pro-labor gatherings. In February 1937, Wilhelm Sollmann, a German politician and a former Minister of Labor in Germany’s Weimar government, gave a lecture in New York City titled, “What After Hitler?” As part of the event, members of the Workers’ Sports League put on a sports exhibition.

Athletes at Anti-Nazi Meet: Members of the Workers’ Sports League pose with American flags and a banner reading: “Welcome son of German soil, may freedom be yours” (March 1937, page 5).

Sport Call also favorably covered the Second Annual World Labor Athletic Festival held on July 11, 1937, at New York City’s Randall Park. More than 20,000 “trade unionists and sports fans,” according to the journal, attended and participated in the meet. The cover of the July 1937 issue of Sport Call featured members of the Workers’ Sports League performing “their rhythmic calisthenic drill.”

In addition to supporting national and international causes, the Workers’ Sports League also promoted the health benefits of recreation. Sport Call regularly printed health and recreation tips for readers and workers. In February 1937 (page 4), an article encouraged “Exercise in Winter” and featured a picture explaining, “It’s a lot fun and warmer than you think!”

A letter to the editor of the March 1937 issue further discussed the importance of the participatory and egalitarian nature of labor sports organizations:

“The Workers’ Sports League, building upon its program of solidarity with the working class and its aspirations, physical development of the masses rather than individual “stars,” real amateurism rather than quasi-professionalism, equal welcome to all regardless of race and color, and democratic organization control, can be built into a mighty organization—and become itself the “official” sports movement.” (March 1937, page 6)

These Sport Call issues are available to researchers. RBSC welcomes new donations to expand our holdings of this scarce and important title.

Note about Sport Call publication history: This hard-to-find and relatively obscure journal is held by few repositories. It apparently began publication as the German-language Arbeiter-Sport in Amerika (Workers’ Sport in America) in about 1930. The journal changed titles to Proletarian Sports and adopted English in 1934, before changing titles again to Sport Call in about 1936.

RBSC is closed Monday, September 1st, for Labor Day.

Previous Labor Day Posts:

2024: Labor Day 2024 – Perspectives from the Catholic Pamphlet Collection
2023: Souvenirs from the Union Printers National Baseball League Tournament
2020: Labor and Linen — The Prints of William Hincks

Bibliomaniac: The Library of Sir Thomas Phillipps — a spotlight exhibit in Special Collections

by Anne Elise Crafton, PhD, RBSC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Hesburgh Libraries

Sir Thomas Phillipps, 1st Bt, by Alexander George Tod (albumen carte-de-visite, late 1860s-early 1870s)

National Portrait Gallery, London; Photographs Collection, NPG x12731

Few 19th-century antiquarians matched the obsession of English baronet Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872). A self-described “vello-maniac” (lover of parchment), Phillipps spent his life and fortune amassing what became the largest manuscript collection of his time — over 60,000 manuscripts, plus 20,000 printed works. 

Driven by a fear of biblioclasm, Phillipps’ believed he was preserving manuscripts from destruction. This, however, came at a great cost. Life at his estate, Middle Hill, was characterized both by the extreme debts and temper of its master. Phillipps feuded with nearly everyone, including neighbors, tradesmen, tax collectors, scholars, Catholics, curators, his father, wives, daughters, and especially his son-in-law, James Haliwell. Despite near-constant financial ruin, he continued to buy relentlessly, often enlisting his daughters to help catalog and transcribe his acquisitions. 

The summer Spotlight Exhibit (running from May through August), Bibliomania: The Library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, features five items from this impressive collection.

Three of the items in this exhibit are medieval English documents known as “private charters” — that is, records of transactions between private citizens.

According to these documents, Ch_ang_01_12 (above) and Ch_ang_01_13 (below), on October 28, 1264, a man named Thomas conveyed vast tracts of land in Yorkshire to his daughters, Ramette and Berthe.

Despite his vast collection, Phillipps infamously rarely read the items in his library. Indeed, one of the great criticisms levied against the collector was that he simply hoarded manuscripts without the ability or interest to use them. An exception, however, were charters. Driven by a passion for genealogy, Phillipps was known to scour deeds for names and places for use in studies of pedigree, which he published with his own private press.  

Yet, notwithstanding this personal interest, thousands of the deeds in his collection went uncatalogued during his lifetime. Only after his death did his grandson, Thomas FitzRoy Fenwick, receive legal permission to organize the collection for sale, at which point over 26,000 items were finally given their iconic Phillipps numbers. To streamline the process, Fenwick often gave the same number to related items, such as Ch_ang_01_12 and Ch_ang_01_13, both catalogued as Phillipps no. 27,951. 

You can see the hand of Thomas FitzRoy Fenwick on the exterior of Ch_ang_01_09, the third charter in this exhibit. Ch_ang_01_09, which records a 14th century transaction between Robert of Cawthorne to Nicholas and Walter del Brom, is in its original “docketed” form — a pre-modern filing system in which documents were folded and labeled. Above the labels of “Scelmthorpe” (Skelmanthorpe, a nearby town) and “Lanc” (perhaps referencing the Lancaster family, lords of Skelmanthorpe), Fenwick wrote the number “29,202.” See the video below for how this charter unfolds!

Although Phillipps often described himself as a “vello-maniac,” he also owned many paper manuscripts. The other two items in this collection — both bound paper codices — tell us even more about the extensive Phillipps collection. 

This French manuscript (MS Fr. c. 2) contains the poem “The Song of Bertrand of Guesclin,” one of the last examples of the Old French epic tradition. This Chanson, copied in 1464, tells the story of Breton noble Bertrand, who rose to fame during the Hundred Years War. Phillipps acquired this copy from the library of Richard Heber (d. 1833). Though unable to afford the 1,700 manuscripts in the collection, Phillipps persuaded the auction house to postpone sale until he could amass the appropriate funds, which he finally did in 1836. The shelfmark affixed to the spine, by Phillipps or his daughters, identifies this manuscript as the 8,194th item in his library.  

Finally, although you might associate the early modern era with the advent of the printing press, people continued to write the majority of their works by hand for centuries. The final item in this collection is one such manuscript. 

In 18th century Europe, vampirism was a hotly debated topic. The concern was so great that in 1739 Pope Clement XII asked Giuseppi Antonio Davanzati to examine the subject. Though skeptical of such creatures, Davanzati’s Dissertazione sopra I Vampiri (MSE/EM 1005-1B) is often credited with introducing the word vampire to the Italian language. 

In his first catalogue of his library, Phillipps claimed to have acquired this copy of the Dissertazione (Phillipps no. 5,485) in 1830, when he purchased 1,560 items from the library of Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford (d. 1827). The manuscript does not appear in the original catalogue of the Guilford sale (Phillipps claims it was included informally), and so we must take him at his word. 

Upon his death, Phillipps’ will mandated that his collection never be separated, nor that any Catholic ever be permitted to view the collection. These wishes proved untenable, and over the next century, his vast library was slowly dispersed. Today, as this exhibit attests, fragments of his hoard reside in institutions worldwide — including the Hesburgh Library.

After earning a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Anne Crafton undertook a postdoctoral fellowship in the Hesburgh Libraries’ Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC), where she spent a year cataloging a diverse collection of previously undocumented materials. The opportunity was made possible through the College of Arts & Letters’ 5+1 postdoctoral fellowship program, which offers a postdoctoral fellowship to any student who finishes and submits their dissertation in five years.

Congratulations to the 2025 Graduates!

Best wishes to the 2025 graduates of the University of Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, and Holy Cross College, from all of us in Rare Books and Special Collections.

We would particularly like to congratulate the following students who worked for Special Collections during their time on campus:

Lucas Bernardez (ND ’25), Bachelor of Business Administration in Business Analytics

Claire Bosch (ND ’25), Bachelor of Arts in History and Theology

Caterina Calderon Gonzalez (ND ’25), Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance, with a Supplementary Major in Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics

José Hurtado (ND ’25), Bachelor of Architecture

Kendall Manning (ND ’25), Bachelor of Arts in English and Political Science

Andres Mena Carroll (ND ’25), Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering

Maeva Morro (ND ’25), Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing

Jorge Ruiz Valdivia (ND ’25), Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance, with a Supplementary Major in Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics

Anna Sofia Sanson Zoufaly (ND ’25), Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering

Both images: MSE/EM 110-1B, Diploma, University of Padua, 1690

RBSC will be closed next Monday, May 26, for Memorial Day.

Upcoming Events: May 2025 and through the summer

Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:

Tuesday, May 13 at 1:30pm | “Potawatomi in Un/Expected Places: Archives, Stories, and the Native American Initiative of Notre Dame” by Zada Ballew.

Last year, Ballew spent nine months at Hesburgh Library researching on behalf of the Native American Initiative (NAI) of Notre Dame. Her goal was to better understand the role that Indigenous peoples have played in the founding and shaping of Notre Dame’s history. What she found surprised her in ways that she didn’t expect. In this talk, she will share some of the most important findings with the people who helped make this work possible.

Presented by the Professional Development Committee (PDC) of Hesburgh Libraries.

Thursday, May 15 at 3:00pm | Hesburgh Libraries’ 2024-2025 Rare Books and Special Collections Postdoctoral Fellow Anne Elise Crafton (MI PhD ‘24) will discuss the major research and collections project they completed during their postdoc year. Crafton catalogued over 270 previously undescribed medieval and early modern documents in the Hesburgh Libraries’ collection. They will discuss the challenges and discoveries which emerged from the project and reflect on the intensive work of making the hitherto unknown documents accessible for scholars, students, and faculty at Notre Dame and beyond.

There are currently no events scheduled to be hosted in June or July.

The exhibition Tragedies of War: Images of WWII in Print Visual Culture runs through the summer and closes in late July. Learn more about the exhibit in this video, and plan your visit this summer.

The current spotlight exhibit is Building a Campus Boycott to Support Midwestern Farmworkers (January – May 2025). In May, we will install spotlights highlighting Medieval charters (May – August 2025) and Medieval homiletics (May – July 2025) from our collections.

Rare Books and Special Collections is open
regular hours during the summer.

RBSC will be closed Monday, May 26, for Memorial Day and Friday, July 4th, for Independence Day.

An 18th Century Copper Collective and Britain’s Triangular Trade

by Anne Elise Crafton, PhD, RBSC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Hesburgh Libraries

Although I am trained primarily as a scholar of the medieval world, much of my time as the 2024-2025 Rare Books and Special Collections Postdoctoral Research Fellow has been preoccupied by the early modern documents within the Hesburgh Library’s collection. Among this material is the White Rock Copper Works Shares Collection, which consists of several “assignments of shares”—documents which recorded the transfer of shares or capital—for an eighteenth-century copper cooperative in Bristol and Swansea, UK. Under various names—including the Thomas Coster and Co. (1736/7-1739), the Joseph Percivall and Copper Co. (1739-1764), and the John Freeman and Copper Co. (1764-)—the merchant cooperative operated the White Rock Copper Works, a copper smelting firm in Pentrechwyth (near Swansea). On the surface, the items in this collection simply record the finances of a copper collective during the first 45 years of its existence. When appropriately contextualized, however, this collection testifies to the ubiquity of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in contemporary British markets.

The nineteen items in this collection document the notable growth of the copper cooperative from its creation under Thomas Coster in 1737 until 1781, at which point the controlling interest was held by John Freeman Sr. The financial success of the copper cooperative cannot be understated. In its first year of operation a single share in the cooperative was worth £297 (£56,563 today), but by 1781 a single share was worth £2000 (£266,208, or $345,055 today)!

Assignment of Shares, Thomas Power to Joseph Percivall and Copper Co., 1746-03-08 (MSE/EM 3700-2)

As physical objects, these items are both imposing and underwhelming. They are quite large—most of the parchment documents are approximately 680 x 825 mm (around 2 ¼ x 2 ⅔ ft)—but textually simple. Each document lists the parties involved individually and multiple times (including each member of the copper cooperative at the time of sale), the exact nature of the sale, and the binding nature of the sale in exhaustive and dull legal language.

MSE/EM 3700-2, beginning of document with list the parties involved in the collective

Nowhere in this exhaustive language, however, is there any mention of the primary force behind the collective’s financial success: the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

In the eighteenth century, Bristol was “the slave capital” of Britain’s triangular trade. The port, which in 1755 had 237 slave traders, sent thousands of ships full of manufactured goods to Africa, which brought enslaved Africans (purchased with said goods) to the Americas and returned to the city with the products of slave labor. Every Bristol industry profited from this trade, but the copper industry especially so. Copper products—many of which were produced by the copper collective and the White Rock Copper Works—were favored in nearly every theater of the global slave trade. Copper rods were used to purchase enslaved Africans in West Africa, copper products were used to refine sugar in West Indies plantations, slave and merchant ships had copper-plated bottoms to withstand tropical waves, and copper luxury goods were sold around the world to fund Britain’s colonial control. In other words, it is no coincidence that a copper cooperative in Bristol would see such financial success.

MSE/EM 3700-2, detail of Isaac Hobhouse’s name

Through the data made available by the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery and the collaborative database Bristol and Transatlantic Slavery, I was able to identify several partners in the copper cooperative named in this collection as active participants in the triangular trade. For instance, the document, “Assignment of Shares, Thomas Power to Joseph Percivall and Copper Co., 1746-03-08 (MSE/EM 3700-2)” (seen above) lists an Isaac Hobhouse (d. 1763) as a member of the Bristol copper cooperative. Like many of his fellows, his occupation is listed innocently as “merchant.” More accurately, though, Hobhouse’s primary occupation was “slave trader”, with 68 recorded voyages on the Transatlantic Slave Trade between 1722 and 1747.

Assignment of Shares, Sibylla Dymock to John Freeman and Copper Co., 1772-01-24 (MSE/EM 3700-8); full document and detail of Samuel Munckley’s name

Another member of the cooperative, Samuel Munckley (1720-1801) (highlighted above in MSE/EM 3700-8), is listed on twelve documents. Like Hobhouse, the designation of “merchant” obscures Munckley’s role as a slave trader and profiteer in the West Indies. Munckley’s own ships were used to bring enslaved peoples from Africa to the West Indies, where many were sold as laborers on sugar plantations—an industry in which Munckley was also heavily invested. (See also “Bristol and Transatlantic Slavery”, which has compiled dozens of Munckley’s papers and correspondence as they relate to the slave trade.)

As I have said: nowhere in the White Rock Copper Works Shares is the slave trade explicitly mentioned. The collection is, at first glance, innocuous to the point of boredom. Yet this does not negate the fact that the wealth described in this collection was gained through an industry which itself relied on the trade of enslaved peoples. For this reason, when creating the finding aid for this collection, I deliberately included the names of each individual listed on the documents (parties involved, partners in the cooperative, and witnesses). No matter the degree to which these historical figures actively participated in the Bristol slave trade, each individual named in this collection profited from the enslavement of others and for this reason, their legacy—as a part of this archive—must be made explicit.

MSE/EM 3700-8, detail of Sibylla Dymock’s signature

Several of the documents in this collection name women as economic actors—whether as sellers of shares, buyers, or witnesses. Although most of these transactions concern widows selling shares formerly owned by their deceased husbands back to the copper cooperative (like the above Sibylla Dymock of MSE/EM 3700-8, who sold her husband’s share back to the cooperative in 1772), their presence in these documents necessarily complicates our reading. Simultaneously, these documents testify to the names and economic force of women whose lives, in many cases, have otherwise gone undocumented and, they also tangibly record the ways in which these women profited from the slave trade and colluded with prominent slave traders.

Works Cited:

“John Freeman and Copper Co.” Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History.

“Isaac Hobhouse.” Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery.

“Joseph Percivall and Copper Co.” Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History.

“Samuel Munckley.” Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery.

“Suppliers to the trade.” Discovering Bristol: Bristol and Transatlantic Slavery.

“White Rock Copper Works.” Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History.

Upcoming Events: April 2025

Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:

Thursday, April 3 at 4:00pm | Medieval Institute Working Group “The Materiality of Medieval Texts” Lecture: “Workmanly and Truly Made: Everyday Writing and the Materiality of Literature” by Daniel Wakelin (University of Oxford).

Thursday, April 10 at 3:30pm | Exhibit Tour – Tragedies of War: Images of WWII in Print Visual Culture.

Thursday, April 10 at 4:30pm | Exhibit Lecture: “The Fascist Lair: the Battle of Berlin” by Robert M. Citino (retired Samuel Zemurray Stone Senior Historian at the National WWII Museum).

Thursday, April 22 at 3:30pm | Exhibit Tour – Tragedies of War: Images of WWII in Print Visual Culture.

Thursday, April 22 at 4:30pm | Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Program commemorating the victims of Holocaust and featuring a live performance of “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” by Lori Laitman, performed by Anne Slovin (Soprano, University of Notre Dame) and Jason Gresl (Clarinet, Saint Mary’s College).

The Spring 2025 Exhibition — Tragedies of War: Images of World War II in Print Visual Culture — is now open and runs through the end of July. Based predominantly on recently acquired Rare Books and Special Collections European holdings, the exhibition commemorates the end of the Second World War (1939-1945) and will explore a diverse assortment of themes including Fascist Racial Ideology, the Holocaust, Children in War, Resistance, Liberation, and Memories of War.

Curated by Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Rare Books & Special Collections), Jean McManus (Catholic Studies Librarian, University Archives) and Julia Schneider (German Language and Literature and Italian Studies Librarian, Hesburgh Libraries).

The current spotlight exhibit is Building a Campus Boycott to Support Midwestern Farmworkers (January–April 2025). In 1980, the University of Notre Dame became the first major university to boycott Campbell Soup products in support of Midwestern farmworkers represented by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (Toledo, OH). In a few short months, a small and dedicated cohort of students tapped into a growing movement and convinced the campus to act in solidarity.

Curated by Emiliano Aguilar (Assistant Professor of History, University of Notre Dame, and Faculty Fellow, Institute for Latino Studies).

Rare Books and Special Collections will be closed April 18 in observance of Good Friday.

We will resume regular hours on Monday, April 21.

Tragedies of War: Images of World War II in Print Visual Culture — RBSC 2025 Spring and Summer Exhibition

Rare Books and Special Collections’ spring and summer exhibition, Tragedies of War: Images of World War II in Print Visual Culture, is open and will run through July 31st.

This exhibition commemorates the end of the Second World War (1939-1945). It showcases over forty works on paper, including posters, maps, propaganda ephemera, illustrated books, photographs, and first-hand accounts. Based predominantly on recently acquired Rare Books & Special Collections European holdings, the exhibition explores a diverse assortment of themes ranging from Fascist Racial Ideology, the Holocaust, Children in War, Resistance, Liberation, and Memories of War.

By examining these topics through images created by both ordinary people for personal use and for state-sponsored propaganda purposes, the exhibition presents a visual narrative of the war’s profound impact on individuals and societies, offering deeper insight into how war was experienced and remembered.

Please mark your calendars to join us for:

Monday, March 31, 2025 – 4:30 pm  

Curator-led tour will be offered at 3:30 pm

[CANCELLED] Martina Cucchiara (Professor of History, Bluffton University) will present her lecture, “Fervent Faith, Relentless Persecution: The Daily Life of Erna Becker-Kohen, a Catholic of Jewish Descent in Nazi Germany.” 

Thursday, April 10, 2025 – 4:30 pm 

Curator-led tour will be offered at 3:30 pm

Robert M. Citino (American military historian and the Samuel Zemurray Stone Senior Historian at the National WWII Museum) will present his lecture “The Fascist Lair: the Battle of Berlin.”

Tuesday, April 22, 2025 – 4:30 pm 

Curator-led tour will be offered at 3:30 pm

Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Program commemorating the victims of Holocaust and featuring a live performance of “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” by Lori Laitman, performed by Anne Slovin (Soprano, University of Notre Dame)  and Jason Gresl  (Clarinet, Saint Mary’s College). This piece features musical settings of texts by children living in the Theresienstadt ghetto.

Following the performance, a discussion on the spiritual resistance of the arts during the Shoah will be led by Philip B. Bohlman (Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor in Jewish History, Music and Humanities, University of Chicago) and Nicolette van den Bogerd (Postdoctoral scholar in Jewish Studies, Indiana University).  

The exhibition is open in the Rare Books & Special Collections exhibit room, Hesburgh Library, Monday-Friday 9:30am-5:00pm. All events will take place in the main Reading Room.

Curator-led tours and all events are free and no reservations are required.

Exhibition tours may also be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting rarebook@nd.edu.

Upcoming Events: March 2025

Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:

Thursday, March 6 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: M.A. Student Presentations (University of Notre Dame) — This semester’s speakers are: Samantha Civitarese and Carolina Minguzzi.

Friday, March 28 at 5:00pm | Faith in Action: Solidarity with Regional Migrant Farmworkers — view the RBSC Spotlight Exhibit, “Building a Campus Boycott to Support Midwestern Farmworkers,” and join a robust conversation afterward with curator Dr. Emiliano Aguilar (Assistant Professor in the Department of History). After viewing the exhibit, visitors will gather in room 125 for refreshments and discussion.

Monday, March 31 at 3:30pm | Exhibit Tour – Tragedies of War: Images of WWII in Print Visual Culture.

CANCELLED: Monday, March 31 at 4:30pm | Exhibit Lecture: “Fervent Faith, Relentless Persecution: The Daily Life of Erna Becker-Kohen, a Catholic of Jewish Descent in Nazi Germany” by Martina Cucchiara (Bluffton University). This event has been canceled. We apologize for the inconvenience. We will have the exhibit tour still.

The Spring 2025 Exhibition — Tragedies of War: Images of World War II in Print Visual Culture — will open shortly and runs through the end of July 2025. Based predominantly on recently acquired Rare Books and Special Collections European holdings, the exhibition commemorates the end of the Second World War (1939-1945) and will explore a diverse assortment of themes including Fascist Racial Ideology, the Holocaust, Children in War, Resistance, Liberation, and Memories of War.

Curated by Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Rare Books & Special Collections), Jean McManus (Catholic Studies Librarian, University Archives) and Julia Schneider (German Language and Literature and Italian Studies Librarian, Hesburgh Libraries).

The current spotlight exhibit is Building a Campus Boycott to Support Midwestern Farmworkers (January–April 2025). In 1980, the University of Notre Dame became the first major university to boycott Campbell Soup products in support of Midwestern farmworkers represented by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (Toledo, OH). In a few short months, a small and dedicated cohort of students tapped into a growing movement and convinced the campus to act in solidarity.

Curated by Emiliano Aguilar (Assistant Professor of History, University of Notre Dame, and Faculty Fellow, Institute for Latino Studies).

Special Collections is open regular hours during Notre Dame’s Spring Break (March 10-14).

Upcoming Events: February 2025

Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:

Thursday, February 27 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: “‘Anticolonialism(s) as antiracism(s)?’ Italian Radicals Facing ‘Race’ and the Colonial Question at the Turn of the Twentieth Century” by Silvana Patriarca (Fordham University).

The Spring 2025 Exhibition — Tragedies of War: Images of World War II in Print Visual Culture — will open in February and run through the end of July 2025. Based predominantly on recently acquired Rare Books and Special Collections European holdings, the exhibition commemorates the end of the Second World War (1939-1945) and will explore a diverse assortment of themes including Nazi racial ideology, the Holocaust, Children in War, Resistance, Liberation, and Memories of War. Curated by Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Rare Books & Special Collections), Jean McManus (Catholic Studies Librarian, University Archives) and Julia Schneider (German Language and Literature and Italian Studies Librarian, Hesburgh Libraries).

(The Fall 2024 Exhibition, Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924, ends January 30. Come see the exhibition while you still can!)

The current spotlight exhibit is Building a Campus Boycott to Support Midwestern Farmworkers (January–April 2025). In 1980, the University of Notre Dame became the first major university to boycott Campbell Soup products in support of Midwestern farmworkers represented by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (Toledo, OH). In a few short months, a small and dedicated cohort of students tapped into a growing movement and convinced the campus to act in solidarity. Curated by Emiliano Aguilar (Assistant Professor of History, University of Notre Dame, and Faculty Fellow, Institute for Latino Studies).

Welcome Back! Spring 2025 in Special Collections

Rare Books and Special Collections welcomes students, faculty, staff, researchers, and visitors back to campus for Spring ’25! Here are a variety of things to watch for in Special Collections during the coming semester.

Special Collections Welcomed Two New Curators in the Fall 2024 Semester

Matthew Knight and Payton Phillips Quintanilla bring subject matter expertise in Irish Studies and Latin American and Iberian Studies.

In addition to stewarding the Hesburgh Libraries’ Irish Studies collections in both general and specialized collections, Knight works with other University faculty members to foster the use of these materials broadly across campus within the larger field of Irish Studies teaching and instruction.

The new Irish Studies Librarian and Curator brings deep expertise in the field of Irish Studies, teaching, and librarianship, including in special collections. He previously served as an Associate Librarian at the University of South Florida and holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Celtic Languages and Literatures from Harvard University in addition to an M.A. in Library Science from the University of South Florida.

Phillips Quintanilla is responsible for stewarding the Libraries’ Latin American and Iberian Studies collections in both general and specialized collections. She works within the Libraries and across campus to foster the use of the collections broadly within the fields of Latin American Studies and Iberian Studies teaching and instruction. She also supports Latino Studies students and faculty in collaboration with Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator of North Americana.

Phillips Quintanilla brings deep expertise in the field of Latin American and Iberian Studies and teaching, as well as experience in the cultural heritage sector — particularly in areas of provenance and the stewardship of special collections. Before joining the Hesburgh Libraries faculty, she worked as a Research Specialist in the Pre-Hispanic Art Provenance Initiative at the Getty Research Institute. The new librarian and curator holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures with a specialization in transatlantic early modern literatures and cultures, as well as an M.A. in Spanish from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a Master of Professional Writing from the University of Southern California, and a B.A. in Urban and Environmental Policy from Occidental College.

Read the full press release on the Hesburgh Library website.

Fall 2024 Exhibition — Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924

Continuing through the end of January.

“Notre Dame football is a new crusade:
it kills prejudice and stimulates faith.”

— Rev. John F. O’Hara, C.S.C., Prefect of Religion,
Religious Bulletin, November 17, 1924

In the fall of 1924, the University of Notre Dame found great success on the football field and confronted a dangerous and divisive political moment. The undefeated Fighting Irish football team, cemented forever in national memory by Grantland Rice’s legendary “Four Horsemen” column, beat the best opponents from all regions of the country and won the Rose Bowl to claim a consensus national championship. Off the field, Notre Dame battled a reactionary nativist political environment that, in its most extreme manifestation, birthed the second version of the Ku Klux Klan. Sympathizers of this “100% Americanism” movement celebrated white, male, Protestant citizenship and attacked other groups—including Catholics and immigrants—who challenged this restrictive understanding of American identity.

In the national spotlight, Notre Dame leaders unabashedly embraced their Catholic identity. They consciously leveraged the unprecedented visibility and acclaim of the football team to promote—within the very real political constraints of the era—a more inclusive and welcoming standard of citizenship. Attracting a broad and diverse fan base, the 1924 national champion Fighting Irish discredited nativist politics and helped stake the claim of Notre Dame—and Catholics and immigrants—to full citizenship and undisputed Americanness.

Curated by Gregory Bond (Curator of the Joyce Sports Research Collection, Rare Books and Special Collections) and Elizabeth Hogan (Senior Archivist for Photographs and Graphic Materials, University Archives).

Spring 2025 Exhibition — Tragedies of War: Images of World War II in Print Visual Culture

Opening mid-February.

Based predominantly on recently acquired Rare Books and Special Collections European holdings, the exhibition commemorates the end of the Second World War (1939-1945) and explores a diverse assortment of themes including Nazi racial ideology, the Holocaust, Children in War, Resistance, Liberation, and Memories of War. By examining these topics through images created for personal use by ordinary people and for state-sponsored propaganda purposes, the exhibit presents a visual narrative of the war’s profound impact on individuals and societies, offering deeper insight into how war was experienced and remembered.

Curated by Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Rare Books & Special Collections), Jean McManus (Catholic Studies Librarian, University Archives) and Julia Schneider (German Language and Literature and Italian Studies Librarian, Hesburgh Libraries).

Spring Spotlight: Building a Campus Boycott to Support Midwestern Farmworkers

Opening end of January.

In 1980, the University of Notre Dame became the first major university to boycott Campbell Soup products in support of Midwestern farmworkers represented by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (Toledo, OH). In a few short months, a small and dedicated cohort of students tapped into a growing movement and convinced the campus to act in solidarity.

Curated by Emiliano Aguilar (Assistant Professor of History, University of Notre Dame, and Faculty Fellow, Institute for Latino Studies).

These and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.

All exhibits are free and open to the public during regular hours.

Special Collections’ Classes & Workshops

Throughout the semester, curators will teach sessions related to our holdings to undergraduate and graduate students from Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, and Holy Cross College. Curators may also be available to show special collections to visiting classes, from preschool through adults. If you would like to arrange a group visit and class with a curator, please contact Special Collections.

Upcoming Events

Thursday, January 16 at 5:00pm | The Spring 2025 Italian Research Seminar and Lectures will begin with a lecture by 4th-year Ph.D. student in Italian Rookshar Myram (University of Notre Dame) titled: “Forging Effigies in the Commedia: Deification as Artistry.”

Learn more about this and other Events in Italian Studies.

Recent Acquisitions

Special Collections acquires new material throughout the year. Watch this blog for information about recent acquisitions.

Some of the recent acquisitions highlighted on the blog.