Tag: printed ephemera

The Beautiful Game in the Stacks: Reading World Cup History

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

As fans around the world watch the 23rd World Cup this summer hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, RBSC recently browsed the stacks for World Cup history. We are pleased to highlight these sources from the collection documenting the first two World Cup tournaments in 1930 and 1934.

The inaugural World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930, and the host nation ended up winning the championship. After the tournament, the Uruguayan Football Association published an illustrated history of the event, Primer Campeonato Mundial de Football = La Coupe du monde : Montevideo, julio de 1930 (The First World Football Championships – The World Cup: Montevideo, July 1930). This oversized book commemorates and documents the tournament in more than 120 pages and hundreds of photographs.

Printed in both Spanish and French, the book contains plentiful information about the teams, players, and games. This page devoted to the runner-up Argentinian team is typical of the coverage of the participating countries (page 26). The book also includes images and descriptions of every tournament match, like this two-page spread about the United States’ 3-0 opening round victory over Belgium (pages 42-43).

The book gave extensive coverage to the semifinals and the finals, intricately documenting each goal in the championship game. Here we see a description of Uruguay’s third goal by Santos Iriarte in the 68th minute that gave Uruguay the lead for good en route to its 4-2 victory (page 96).

Four years later, Italy, under dictator Benito Mussolini, hosted the second World Cup, and, again the home team came away victorious. In advance of the tournament, the Italian National Tourism Board published this 26-page English-language pamphlet, See Italy and the World’s Football Championship, to entice visitors to come to Italy despite the continuing Great Depression. 

The competition took place in eight different locations, which, as the pamphlet pointed out, “are most attractive, as only Italian cities can be” (page 6). The finals were held in Rome, which the Tourism Board declared, “embraces every attraction in Italy and is unsurpassed by any other city in the world” (page 20).

Mussolini Stadium of Turin (left) and San Siro Stadium of Milan (right).

The booklet featured photographs, descriptions, and simple maps of each of the host cities and stadiums, including the Mussolini Stadium of Turin and the San Siro Stadium of Milan. The championship game, which would see Italy defeat Czechoslovakia 2-1, was held in the Stadium of the National Fascist Party at Rome.

Rome and the Stadium of the National Fascist Party.
Title page of Lo Sport in Regime Fascista featuring Mussolini.

The following year, the Italian Olympic Committee in collaboration with the popular magazine Lo Sport Fascista jointly published Lo sport in regime fascista : 28 ottobre 1922-I 28 ottobre 1935-XIII (Sport in the Fascist Regime: 28 October 1922 I – 28 October 1935 XIII). This book recounted and celebrated Italian athletic achievements across a myriad of sports, including Italy’s recent World Cup title. The book’s frontispiece, which included a large image of Mussolini, demonstrated the close relationship between Italian sports and the ruling Fascist regime.

Calcio—or soccer—was featured in the fifth chapter, and the book revelled in Italy’s 1934 World Cup success. “Only in Fascist Italy could one seriously think about organizing the Second World Cup tournament” the book contended. “Only Italy could have taken on such a massive amount of work and responsibility. And it was a magnificent, beautiful, unforgettable event. Our beautiful sports fields, modern and superbly equipped; endless streams of foreigners who enjoyed our intelligent and truly affectionate hospitality; the battles between great champions, fought in an ideal atmosphere of serenity, discipline, and understanding” (page 40).

Original Italian: “Solo nell’Italia Fascista si poteva seriamente pensare all’organizzazione del II Torneo per la disputa della Coppa del Mondo…. Solo l’Italia poteva accettare un simile cumulo di lavoro e di responsabilità. E fu una cosa grandiosa, bellissima, indimenticabile. I nostri bei campi sportivi, moderni e mirabilmente attrezzati; interminable carovane di stranieri che godettero la nostra intelligente e veramente affettuosa ospitalità; battaglie di grandi campioni combattute in un clima ideale di serenità, di disciplina, di comprensione.”

Commemorative Italian postage stamps printed for the World Cup, or the Campionato del Mondo (page 34).

The book celebrated the victorious Italian national team, writing that “great goals, in truth, still await our formidable army of footballers. They will be achieved in the name of Fascism and for the glory of a sport that has truly brought Italy unparalleled satisfaction. The path already traveled and the conquests achieved, give the march of Italian footballers the rhythm and air of the inevitable” (page 40).

Original Italian: “Grandi mète, in verità, ulteriormente attendono il formidabile esercito dei nostri calciatori. Saranno raggiunte, nel nome del fascismo e per la gloria di uno sport che veramente diede all’Italia impareggiabili soddisfazioni. Il cammino percorso, le conquiste fatte, danno alla marcia dei calciatori italiani il ritmo ed il significato dell’ineluttabile.”

The Italian National Team that won the 1934 World Cup (page 35).

World Cup soccer has always been influenced by contemporary politics, and, like the Italian Fascists, national leaders have often sought to co-opt sporting success and athletic achievements for their own partisan reasons.

But, for just as long, many fans, spectators, athletes, and other observers have believed that global sporting events like the World Cup could serve a larger purpose and help to bridge the differences and conflicts between people. In his speech at the welcoming banquet for the delegations at the inaugural 1930 World Cup, for example, Dr. Raoul Jude, President of the Uruguayan Football Association, expressed his hope that the tournament could be a unifying event:

“Welcome, you travelers who arrive from all points of the compass, bringing us the message of solidarity and cordiality from different peoples and races, united nevertheless, above all differences and all of life’s hardships, within the higher fellowship of a lofty purpose aimed at the betterment of all mankind.  

We read the clear message you bring us; and though some parts are not written in a language familiar to us, we instantly grasp their meaning through the frank gestures and the serene, united gaze of those who bear them” (Primer Campeonato Mundial de Football, pages 33-34).

Original Spanish: Bien venidos vosotros, viajeros que llegáis de todos los puntos cardinales trayéndonos el mensaje solidario y cordial de pueblos y razas diferentes, hermanadas no obstante, por encima de todas las diferencias y de todas las miserias de la vida, en la comunidad superior de un alto designio en el sentido del mejoramiento de todos los hombres de la tierra.

Leemos el claro mensaje que nos traéis, y aunque algunos de ellos no están escritos en la lengua que nos es familiar, descubrimos en seguida su sentido en el gesto franco y en la mirada serena y unánime de sus portadores.”

Players from the Uruguayan National Team celebrate the 1930 World Cup title on the pitch after the game (Primer Campeonato Mundial de Football, page 98).

With the 2026 World Cup soon coming to a close, we hope all teams, players, and fans have experienced a taste of La alégria del triunfo—the joy of victory—like the jubilant 1930 Uruguayan team seen here.

Thanks to Ruben Celani, Postdoctoral Research Associate and Italian Studies Curatorial Fellow, and Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Latin American & Iberian Studies Librarian and Curator, for assistance with Italian and Spanish translations.

Declarations of Independence

by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States, Rare Books and Special Collections offers a look at a series of copies of the Declaration of Independence held in our collections. The process of creating the Declaration of Independence has been written about widely and even celebrated on Broadway (1776 [1969; revivals in 1997 and 2022]). But what happened after Congressional delegates agreed on the text and consented to sign the document? How did Congress disseminate the Declaration? 

During the late eighteenth century, news was broadcast through broadsides (posters) and newspapers, as well as orally. The first copies of the Declaration of Independence were designed and printed by John Dunlap, a Philadelphia printer and newspaper publisher. He typeset a large broadside version of the document on the night of July 4th and had printed at least several hundred copies by late morning on July 5th. Today, only 25 copies of Dunlap’s broadside exist. 

It took time for the Declaration of Independence to reach all of the newly united states. RBSC holds a facsimile copy of one such later printing: the July 26, 1776 issue of the Virginia Gazette, which published the Declaration in full. The Virginia Gazette was published in Virginia’s capital, Williamsburg, and the paper published official news and business of the colony, and the state, of Virginia. 

The same Virginia Gazette issue also reported on where the Declaration of Independence had been read publicly. Between early July and mid-August 1776 the document was printed and proclaimed across the United States, which was news in itself. The first public reading occurred on Monday, July 8th, in Philadelphia and other cities in Pennsylvania, and in New Jersey, using Dunlap’s broadside copy. In most places, the reading took on trappings of a ceremony. The local sheriff would read the Declaration on the steps of the courthouse, the gathered crowd would cheer, bells would ring, and soldiers would fire a salute. Coats of arms and other symbols of the British crown were also removed from buildings and burned. 

By the middle of August 1776 the Declaration of Independence had reached London, where its text was changed by newspaper publishers worried about the document’s seditious content. Publishers excerpted, censored, and suppressed the text. These changes were reprinted in turn by printers and publishers beyond London to Europe, where the Declaration appeared in local newspapers by the end of August. 

Rare Books and Special Collections holds a London printing of the Declaration of Independence. The Gentleman’s Magazine, a widely-read, general interest periodical, published the Declaration in its August issue. The magazine’s editor followed the pattern of some London newspapers, censoring words that criticised the monarch. As a result, “King,” “tyranny,” “Prince” and “tyrant” have been suppressed in this copy.

Some British editors altered the text of the Declaration to soften its criticism of George III. This might explain the marginal annotation in Hesburgh Library’s copy of the Gentleman’s Magazine. The handwritten note moderates Jefferson’s language to make the monarch appear less negligent. In referring to laws for which colonists petitioned the king, the annotator changed “he [the king] has utterly neglected to attend to them” to “he has utterly neglected to assent to them.” Did the editor believe that George III preferred to have denied rather than ignored his subjects?

Copies of the Declaration of Independence also circulated within the United States. As the United States expanded during the first decades of the nineteenth century, citizens needed to be informed about their government and the state of the nation; publishers and booksellers supplied. Hesburgh Libraries holds a number of these early nineteenth-century copies, including this 1811 copy published by Robert Harper, a printer in south central Pennsylvania. He published the nation’s founding documents—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—along with the constitutions of all 17 states. Among the purchasers was a bookseller in Pittsburgh that ordered 500 copies—a huge supply that the seller believed they could sell to newcomers to the frontier city.

Rare Books and Special Collections also holds a copy of the Declaration of Independence that was reprinted by the National Archives in 1952, along with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Published together as The Charters of Freedom and at the height of the Cold War, it celebrates the inauguration of the documents’ shared, permanent exhibition at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. In this publication, the National Archives reproduced the Declaration of Independence in its most formal and famous form: the engrossed copy of the Declaration that was completed and signed on August 2, 1776. An engrossed copy is text written on parchment in a large hand. 

All of these copies are different—in format and sometimes in content. Yet in aggregate they represent Americans’ adherence—for two and a half centuries–to the idea that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” 

Happy Fourth of July!

Bibliography

Sneff, Emily. When the Declaration of Independence Was News. New York: Oxford University Press, 2026.

The National Archives, Charters of Freedom; the Declaration of Independence.

Studying the History of the Gay Games for Pride Month

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

In observance of LGBTQ Pride Month and in conjunction with the upcoming Gay Games XII in Valencia, Spain, Rare Books and Special Collections is pleased to highlight the current ongoing exhibition Cultivating Community: Stories from Special Collections. Cultivating Community features the section, “The Gay Olympic Games: Community Through Sport,” which recounts the dedicated community activism that led to the founding of the Gay Games in San Francisco in 1982. 

“The Gay Olympic Games: Community Through Sport,” tells the early history of the Gay Games with material from the Gay Games Collection (MSSP 10070) a manuscript collection housed in RBSC. As the exhibit explains, organizers originally adopted the name “Gay Olympic Games.” But, weeks before the opening ceremonies, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) filed a lawsuit and received an injunction prohibiting use of the word “Olympic” in association with the event. Organizers hastily rebranded as the “Gay Games,” and the competitions continued as scheduled in the late summer of 1982 in San Francisco.

In addition to materials on display in the exhibit, the Gay Games Collection contains other items documenting this story and recording the dogged persistence of the LGBTQ community and allies in establishing and hosting the Gay Games. A recently acquired copy of the August 1982 Gay Olympics Newsletter, for example, visually demonstrates how organizers of the event responded to the USOC lawsuit. The newsletter editors explained in bold print: “We are not barred, however, from blocking out the world ‘OLYMPIC’ and continuing our efforts. THE GAMES WILL GO ON!!”

Gay Olympics Newsletter (MSSP10070-01-02)

The Games did, indeed, go on, and the Gay Games Collection in RBSC contains material documenting the first four Gay Games from 1982 through 1994. Gay Games II was also held in San Francisco, and, from the beginning, the Gay Games included and emphasized cultural and artistic activities that celebrated the accomplishments of LGBTQ people. A program for the Procession of the Arts, for example, detailed the “cultural events” associated with Gay Games II.

Front covers of the Procession of the Arts program (MSSP10070-02-03) and the Official Program of Gay Games II (MSSP10070-02-01) from 1986.

Throughout its existence, the Gay Games have been a welcoming, inclusive, and safe space for all athletes, spectators, fans, and allies. This flier from Gay Games III held in Vancouver in 1990 described the “Special Philosophy” of the event:

The Games are open to everyone who supports their philosophy of inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness. “Participation and doing one’s personal best are more important than winning,” said founder [Dr. Tom] Waddell. “Our friendly competitions have worked well to remove age, sex, and racial stereotypes.”

Gay Games III flier (MSSP10070-03-04)

Since their founding, the Gay Games have been a popular participatory and spectator event for LGBTQ people and allies, and promoters of the games have created many different types of items to allow fans to demonstrate their support. For Gay Games I, the Gertrude Stein Philatelic Society produced a collectible cachet—or decorative commemorative envelope—celebrating “The First Gay Olympic Games.” Collectible pins have also proven popular. The colorful pins below advertised San Francisco’s “Gay Games II – Triumph in ‘86” and “Gay Games IV – Unity ‘94” held in New York City in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.

Gay Games I cachet (MSSP10070-01-10)
Gay Games II pin (MSSP10070-02-07) and Gay Games IV pin (MSSP10070-04-06)

The exhibit Cultivating Community will be on display and open to the public during regular RBSC hours through July 17th. Now a major quadrennial international sporting event, Gay Games XII will run in Valencia from June 27th through July 4th.

The Gay Games Collection is available and open to researchers, and RBSC welcomes donations of new material about the history of the Gay Games.

Previous Pride Month Posts:

2025: Reading the Gay Rodeo Ephemera Collection for Pride Month
2024: Reading Gay Sports Magazine in Honor of Pride Month

Upcoming Events: May 2026 and through the summer

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

[TODAY!] Tuesday, April 28 at 4:00pm | “The Ghost Behind Manuel Puig: Discovering the Mario Fenelli Archive” by Martín Villagarcía (Universidad Nacional de La Plata).

There are currently no public events scheduled in May, June, or July.

The Spring 2026 Exhibition | Cultivating Community: Stories from Special Collections

This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.

A Community of Learners in Colonial America and the Early Republic
Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies)

The Gay Olympic Games: Community Through Sport
Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection)

Women Religious in Male Spaces
David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts)

Ireland’s Idealized Community
Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Curator, Irish Studies)

A Community of Solidarity
Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)

Transnational Communities of Resistance during El Salvador’s Civil War
Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)

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

The currently installed spotlight exhibits are Éire Óg / Young Ireland (March–April 2026) and First Impressions: An Introduction to Mesoamerican sellos / Primeras impresiones: Una introducción a los sellos mesoamericanos (January–April 2026).

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

RBSC will be closed Monday, May 25, for Memorial Day and Friday, July 3rd, for the Independence Day long weekend.

Special Collections’ Spring 2026 Exhibition — Cultivating Community: Stories from Special Collections

Our primary exhibition for Spring 2026, Cultivating Community: Stories from Special Collections, is currently open and will continue through June 15, 2026.

This exhibition highlights examples of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning. Showcasing narratives spanning centuries and continents, each story demonstrates that the power of constructing community and cultivating hope transcends time and place.

The exhibition features six distinct collections housed in the Rare Books & Special Collections, and is curated by Hesburgh Libraries faculty members. Click below to learn more about each of the individual exhibits within the exhibition:

Women Religious in Male Spaces

Curated by David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts)

A Community of Learners in Colonial America and the Early Republic

Curated by Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies)

A Community of Solidarity

Curated by Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)

The Gay Olympic Games: Community Through Sport

Curated by Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection)

Ireland’s Idealized Community

Curated by Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Curator, Irish Studies)

Transnational Communities of Resistance during El Salvador’s Civil War

Curated by Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)

Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting rarebook@nd.edu. All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours. This and other exhibits within the library are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.

Easter Cards from the Cuala Press

In honor of Easter, we are sharing two images from the Cuala Press Ephemera Collection (EPH 5002). The Cuala Press was founded in 1908 by Elizabeth Yeats, sister of the poet W. B. Yeats and the artist Jack B. Yeats, who illustrated many of the books and broadsides published by the press. The press was operated in Dublin by Elizabeth and her sister Lily Yeats, and later by George Yeats (William’s wife), through the mid-1940s. In addition to their brother, the Yeats sisters employed various Irish women to create illustrations, including Beatrice Glenavy (Elvery), Elizabeth Corbet Yeats, Pamela Colman Smith, Dorothy Blackham, and Mary Cottenham Yeats.

Happy Easter to you and yours from all of us in Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of Notre Dame.

Left: Easter, text by Susan Langstaff Mitchell, undated (EPH 5002-120)
Right: [On Easter Day], text by Temple Lane, undated (EPH 5002-122)

After being closed April 3 in observance of Good Friday, Rare Books and Special Collections will return to regular hours and is open on Monday, April 6, 2026.

Upcoming Events: April 2026

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

Monday, April 16 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: “Dante’s Performative Poetics” by Francesco Ciabattoni (Georgetown University).

Tuesday, April 28 at 4:00pm | “The Ghost Behind Manuel Puig: Discovering the Mario Fenelli Archive” by Martín Villagarcía (Universidad Nacional de La Plata).

The Spring 2026 Exhibition | Cultivating Community: Stories from Special Collections

This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.

A Community of Learners in Colonial America and the Early Republic
Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies)

The Gay Olympic Games: Community Through Sport
Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection)

Women Religious in Male Spaces
David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts)

Ireland’s Idealized Community
Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Curator, Irish Studies)

A Community of Solidarity
Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)

Transnational Communities of Resistance during El Salvador’s Civil War
Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)

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

The current spotlight exhibits are Éire Óg / Young Ireland (March–April 2026) and First Impressions: An Introduction to Mesoamerican sellos / Primeras impresiones: Una introducción a los sellos mesoamericanos (January–April 2026).

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

Special Collections will be closed on April 3, 2026, for the Notre Dame Easter Holiday. We will resume regular hours on April 6, 2026.

We will also be closed on April 21, 2026, from 11:00am to 2:30pm.

Women’s History Month 2026

We join the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history by celebrating Women’s History Month.

Two Perspectives on African American Women Workers during the Great Depression

by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator

This March, RBSC celebrates Women’s History Month by highlighting two recent acquisitions about African American women and their place in the labor market during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Both sources recognize the double bind of race and gender discrimination experienced by African American women, but their similarities end there. 

African American journalists and Communist Party members Eugene Gordon and Cyril Briggs produced The Position of Negro Women in 1935. It was published in pamphlet form by the Communist Party USA. The authors wasted no time in declaring on the third line, that “The Negro woman worker is double victimized. She suffers both from the general discrimination against women workers and from her identity as a member of a nationality singled out by the ruling class for special plundering, persecution and oppression.” (p. 2)

The authors described the precarious position African American women held in industrial jobs—largely in laundries, and food and clothing production—as well as in every other part of the labor market. They held up domestic service for special opprobrium, noting that day workers—those who didn’t live in—were the most exploited, making as little as $10 a month (for comparison, women factory workers made $14 a week). Gordon and Briggs also included professional workers in their survey, noting grimly that “The Negro professional woman worker finds it almost impossible to secure a job.” (p. 11) School teachers were the exception. Although African American teachers in the North were generally paid the same as their white peers, in southern states African American teachers earned less than half, or worse, than that of their white counterparts. 

Gordon and Briggs called for African American and white worker unity through the Communist Party, for workers to rally together to fight discrimination, unemployment, and hunger. 

Three years later, Jean Collier Brown, Public Information Assistant of the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, published The Negro Woman Worker. Brown’s was the first report by the department (headed by Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve in a cabinet) to establish basic facts about where African American women were employed in the labor market, numbers employed, employment opportunities, hours, wages, and working conditions. Although not comprehensive, the report offers significant detail about wage discrimination and terrible working conditions of African American women workers. 

Like Gordon and Briggs, Brown began by noting that “Though women in general have been discriminated against and exploited through limitation of their opportunities for employment, through long hours, low wages, and harmful working conditions, such hardships have fallen upon Negro women with double harshness.” (p. 1) From there, the report moved systematically through the major parts of the labor market in which African American women worked: domestic and personal service, agriculture, manufacturing and mechanical industries, and white-collar workers. 

While Gordon and Briggs’ pamphlet aimed to organize workers and rally them to the Communist Party, Brown suggested a multi-pronged approach of social and labor legislation, better education and training opportunities, and trade union organization to address the critical status of African American women workers. Both reports brought much needed attention—for the first time but in quite different ways—to the crisis facing African American women workers during the Great Depression. 

Post Script:

Jean Collier Brown later left the Department of Labor and by 1943 worked as an organizer for the United Domestic Workers Union of the CIO, Baltimore branch, a union of African American domestic laborers.

Other Women’s History Month posts on the RBSC blog:

2025: The First Women’s Political Party
2024: Second-Wave Feminist Articles from an Underground Newspaper
2023: Women for Peace and Disarmament
2022: The Feminine “Math-tique”
2021: Writing to Rehabilitate in the House of Detention for Women in New York City
2020: Mary Taussig Hall and Social Reform
2017: A Woman’s Sardonic Eye

Upcoming Events: March 2026

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

Monday, March 5 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: M.A. Student Presentations (University of Notre Dame) — This semester’s speakers are: Giorgia Buscema and Madeline Grossman.

The Spring 2026 Exhibition | Cultivating Community: Stories from Special Collections

This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.

A Community of Learners in Colonial America and the Early Republic
Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies)

The Gay Olympic Games: Community Through Sport
Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection)

Women Religious in Male Spaces
David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts)

Ireland’s Idealized Community
Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Curator, Irish Studies)

A Community of Solidarity
Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)

Transnational Communities of Resistance during El Salvador’s Civil War
Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)

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

The current spotlight exhibits are Pennant Race: Souvenir Fan Pennants of the Negro Baseball Leagues (January–February 2026) and First Impressions: An Introduction to Mesoamerican sellos / Primeras impresiones: Una introducción a los sellos mesoamericanos (January–April 2026).

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

Special Collections will be open regular hours during Notre Dame’s Spring Break (March 9 – 13, 2026).

Upcoming Events: February 2026

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

Monday, February 16 at 4:00–6:00pm | WORKSHOP – Envisioning Dante, c. 1472-c. 1630: Seeing and Reading the Early Printed Page

Join Professor Guyda Armstrong (University of Manchester) and Dr Giles Bergel (University of Oxford) for an interactive workshop showcasing new digital methods for studying early modern printing. This session will introduce the research questions and first findings of Envisioning Dante c. 1472-1630: Seeing and Reading the Early Printed Page, funded by the UK government (c. £1 million; 2022-25). Participants will be given practical, hands-on demonstrations of the techniques and new digital tools developed by the project for analyzing and comparing early printed books.

The Spring 2026 Exhibition | Cultivating Community: Stories from Special Collections

This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.

Curated by Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies), Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection), David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts), Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Irish Studies Librarian and Curator), Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Rare Books & Special Collections), and Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Librarian and Curator for Latin American and Iberian Studies).

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

The current spotlight exhibits are Pennant Race: Souvenir Fan Pennants of the Negro Baseball Leagues (January–February 2026) and First Impressions: An Introduction to Mesoamerican sellos / Primeras impresiones: Una introducción a los sellos mesoamericanos (January–April 2026).

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

Special Collections will be closed all day on
Tuesday, February 17, 2026.