Collection highlights, news about acquisitions, events and exhibits, and behind-the-scenes looks at the work and services of Rare Books & Special Collections (RBSC) at Notre Dame.
The exhibition Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924 is now open and will run through the end of January 2025.
Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting Greg Bond at gbond2@nd.edu.
The current spotlight exhibits are Wollstonecraft: Revolution & Textual Evidence (September–December 2024) and A Fourteenth-Century Chanson de Geste Fragment (September–December 2024).
RBSC will be closed during the University of Notre Dame’s Christmas and New Year’s Celebrations, December 21, 2024 – January 1, 2025.
The exhibition Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924 is now open and will run through the end of January 2025.
Curators Gregory Bond and Elizabeth Hogan will host exhibit open houses on select Friday afternoons before Notre Dame home football games, including on November 8 and November 15. The drop-in open houses will run from 3:00–4:30pm and will feature brief remarks by the curators at 3:15pm.
Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting Greg Bond at gbond2@nd.edu.
The current spotlight exhibits are Wollstonecraft: Revolution & Textual Evidence (September – December 2024) and A Fourteenth-Century Chanson de Geste Fragment (September – November 2024).
RBSC will be closed during the University of Notre Dame’s Thanksgiving Break, November 28 – 29.
The exhibition Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924 is now open and will run through the end of January 2025.
Curators Gregory Bond and Elizabeth Hogan will host exhibit open houses on select Friday afternoons before Notre Dame home football games, including on October 11, November 8, and November 15. The drop-in open houses will run from 3:00–4:30pm and will feature brief remarks by the curators at 3:30pm in October and 3:15pm in November.
Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting Greg Bond at gbond2@nd.edu.
The October spotlight exhibits are Wollstonecraft: Revolution & Textual Evidence (September–December 2024) and A Fourteenth-Century Chanson de Geste Fragment (September–November 2024).
RBSC will be open regular hours (9:30am–4:30pm) during the University of Notre Dame’s Fall Break, October 19 – 27.
Rare Books and Special Collections welcomes students, faculty, staff, researchers, and visitors back to campus for Fall ’24! We want to let you know about a variety of things to watch for in the coming semester.
Fall 2024 Exhibition: Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924
“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.
Curators will host exhibit open houses on select Friday afternoons before Notre Dame home football games, including on September 6, September 27, and October 11. The drop-in open houses will run from 3:00–4:30 and will feature brief remarks by the curators at 3:30.
Other curator-led tours open to the public will be announced soon. Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting Greg Bond at gbond2@nd.edu.
This exhibition is 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).
Stop in regularly to see our Collections Spotlights
Currently on Display: Making Books Count: Early Modern Books in the History of Mathematics
Discover how books shaped science and our understanding of nature. The history of mathematics guides our understanding of astronomy, as revealed in works by Galileo, Copernicus, and others. Through ancient texts tracing the evolution of mathematical thought, visitors can explore the dialogue between mathematics and nature.
The last public spotlight tour is scheduled for August 28 at 1:30 pm.
This dual case spotlight is curated by Caterina Agostini (Indiana University Bloomington, Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine). She previously served as a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values and the Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship. She is Co-PI in the Harriot Papers project.
Opening Soon: September Spotlights
RBSC spotlight exhibits will switch over for the fall during September. Two new exhibits will feature recently acquired editions of books by Mary Wollstonecraft and two manuscript fragments of French poetry. Stay tuned for more information!
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 business hours.
Special Collections’ Classes & Workshops
Throughout the semester, curators will lead instructional 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 materials 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.
Events
These programs are free and open to the public.
Thursday, October 3 at 5:00pm | The Fall 2024 Italian Research Seminar and Lectures will begin with a lecture by Giovanna Corazza (Università Ca’ Foscari), “Dante’s Chorographies: From the Territory to the Comedy.”
National Women’s Football League CollectionA Revised Martyrology for 16th Century German CatholicsWomen in Irish Prisons: Autographs of Prisoners in 1923Influencing Opinion by Mapping the Early American Civil WarSome of the recent acquisitions highlighted on the blog in the past year.
Anticipated Closures
Rare Books and Special Collections is regularly open 9:30am to 4:30pm, Monday through Friday. The department will be closed for the following holidays and events:
September 2, for Labor Day (Monday) September 13, for Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., Presidential Inauguration Events (Friday, afternoon only) November 28-29, for Thanksgiving (Thursday and Friday)
Our last day open before the campus closure for Christmas Celebration will be December 20 (the Friday of final exams week).
This week Special Collections highlights an online exhibition created by Notre Dame students in their fall 2022 class, Stories of Power and Diversity: Inside Museums, Archives and Collecting. The exhibition, Hidden Depths: Resurfacing the Overlooked and Underrepresented, brings together materials from the University of Notre Dame’s campus repositories–Rare Books and Special Collections, the Snite Museum of Art, and University Archives–selected and interpreted by the students.
The items displayed here vary in format, time period, medium, style, and content–abstract painting, sculpture, installation art, photographs, and collections of historic documents–and are created by people of diverse backgrounds and experiences. Their selection reflects the themes of the class, which were to explore the history of collecting in Europe and North America and some of the field’s major questions, including, what has been left out? Where are there gaps and silences in collections and archives?
Eight students applied a curatorial gaze to these materials, to examine how they do and do not intersect with themes of diversity. While these curators recognize the diverse identities of the creators of these objects, the showcases comprising this exhibition point viewers to hidden depths. They ask that we consider how identities are nuanced through regional conditions, educational background, economic forces, and personal trauma. And just as importantly, the curators of the show consider how identity and diversity are not always directly linked in one’s art or expression. They also demand that consumers of these pieces of art and historical sources work to apprehend the complexities behind their creation. By extension, they suggest that we take a careful second look in other contexts, beyond the online gallery or the museum.
This exhibition offers interpretation, but it also asks questions, and challenges viewers even as it invites them to connect with holdings in the University of Notre Dame’s campus repositories. Information about the student curators and their experiences in this course can be found in the personal statements at the end of each showcase.
Hidden Depths showcases ways in which students engaged with special collections materials over a semester-long project. The result is a display that uncovers, refocuses and takes an imperative second look.
Please note that the corridor outside RBSC is temporarily narrowed to a pedestrian tunnel due to ongoing library renovations, but we generally remain open during our regular hours.
Please join us for the following public event being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:
Daughters of Our Lady: Finding a Place at Notre Dame, an exhibition of materials from the University of Notre Dame Archives curated by Elizabeth Hogan and reflecting on the 50th anniversary of coeducation at Notre Dame, will run through December 16th.
The current spotlight exhibits are Hesburgh Library Special Collections: A Focus on W. B. Yeats (October – December 2022) and The Ladies Flower-Garden of Ornamental Annuals (December 2022 – January 2023).
Due to OIT infrastructure work being done in the Hesburgh Library, Special Collections will be closed on Monday, December 19, 2022.
Rare Books and Special Collections will be closed for Notre Dame’s Christmas and New Year’s Break (December 23, 2022, through January 2, 2023).
We otherwise remain open for our regular hours during Reading Days and Exams, and welcome those looking for a quiet place to study.
Please note that the corridor outside RBSC is temporarily narrowed to a pedestrian tunnel due to ongoing library renovations, but we remain open during regular hours.
Please join us for the following public event being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:
Daughters of Our Lady: Finding a Place at Notre Dame, an exhibition of materials from the University of Notre Dame Archives curated by Elizabeth Hogan and reflecting on the 50th anniversary of coeducation at Notre Dame, will run through the end of the fall semester.
The current spotlight exhibits are Hesburgh Library Special Collections: A Focus on W. B. Yeats (October – December 2022) and “Rosie the Riveters with a Vengeance” and Other Wartime Contributions by American Women (October – November 2022).
RBSC will be closed for the Thanksgiving Holiday, November 24 – 25.
In 2022, the University of Notre Dame celebrates fifty years of being a coeducational institution. Daughters of Our Lady: Finding a Place at Notre Dame joins the year-long celebrations occurring throughout campus. This exhibit presents a selection of correspondence, articles, documents, and other materials from the Notre Dame Archives that record the journey toward coeducation.
The transition to fully include women in all aspects of student life was a long, winding, and sometimes bumpy road. Since the 1910s, women have been studying at and earning degrees from Notre Dame. For the most part, their experiences were exclusive to the Summer School Program, which was established in 1918. However, by the 1960s, it was clear that Notre Dame, like its peers, had to pursue coeducation to remain a relevant, top-tier university.
Notre Dame became coeducational in the fall of 1972, but it would take years for women to be fully integrated into undergraduate life. Women struggled for representation in the classrooms, in student organizations, and on the athletic fields. This exhibit takes a look back at the pioneering women who have helped shape Notre Dame for over one hundred years.
Friday, October 14, 3:00-4:00pm (Stanford Weekend)
Friday, November 4, 3:00-4:00pm (Clemson Weekend)
Friday, November 18, 10:30-11:30am (Boston College Weekend)
Stop by Hesburgh Library’s Rare Books & Special Collections exhibit gallery and explore “Daughters of Our Lady: Finding a Place at Notre Dame.” Exhibit curator, Elizabeth Hogan, will be available to walk you through the exhibit and answer questions. No registration is necessary.
All exhibits hosted in Special Collections are free and open to the public during regular business hours.
Please note: the west concourse of the Hesburgh Library is currently under renovation, however, Rare Books & Special Collections is still accessible.
Please note that the corridor outside RBSC is temporarily narrowed to a pedestrian tunnel due to ongoing library renovations, but we remain open during regular hours.
Please join us for the following public event being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:
Daughters of Our Lady: Finding a Place at Notre Dame, an exhibition of materials from the University of Notre Dame Archives curated by Elizabeth Hogan and reflecting on the 50th anniversary of coeducation at Notre Dame, will run through the end of the fall semester.
The current spotlight exhibits are Three Sisterhoods and Two Servants of God (June – early October 2022) and A Day in a Life of the Warsaw Ghetto in Photographs (August – early October 2022). Later in October we will be installing two new spotlight exhibits: an exhibit featuring our William Butler Yeats Collection and discussing Yeats’ connection with Notre Dame (mid-October – December 2022), and an exhibit highlighting some recent acquisitions relating to women in World War II (mid-October – November 2022).
RBSC will be open regular hours, 9:30am – 4:30pm, during Notre Dame’s Mid-Term Break (October 17 – 21).
Please note that the corridor outside RBSC is temporarily narrowed to a pedestrian tunnel due to ongoing library renovations, but we remain open regular hours.
Please join us for the following public events being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:
Daughters of Our Lady: Finding a Place at Notre Dame, an exhibition of materials from the University of Notre Dame Archives curated by Elizabeth Hogan and reflecting on the 50th anniversary of coeducation at Notre Dame, opened late-August and will run through the fall semester.
The current spotlight exhibits are Three Sisterhoods and Two Servants of God (June – September 2022) and A Day in a Life of the Warsaw Ghetto in Photographs (August – September 2022).
RBSC will be closed Monday, September 5th, for Labor Day.
