Welcome back UTC!! The campus is already bustling and Monday will be semi-organized chaos (which is just how we like it). Yesterday was freshman move-in day and represents the kick-off to Welcome Week for our new and returning students. The Special Collections department would like to extend its own welcome to all students, faculty, and staff-new & returning.
Yesterday a freshman came in to check out our summer exhibit, The Berlin Olympics of 1936 (also available online), and learn about the other materials that we hold and the research possibilities they might hold for him (as a History major). While we have plenty of interest for History majors, we have very diverse collections that speak to a wide array of disciplines (Anthropology, Biology/Environmental Science, Law, Art, Interior Design, Religion, English, Psychology, Education, etc.). We would love to give YOU a tour of the Special Collections or talk to you about integrating primary sources into your curriculum.
To give you a sneak peek at the diversity in the Special Collections, and the interesting materials that find their way here, we just received a collection of gelatin glass plate negatives created in the late 1800s/early 1900s by a Massachusetts artist and teacher. The negatives are of an enormous number of plants, both domestic & exotic, and come with individual, hand-colored photographs made from each negative. As far as we can determine, the artist sold and gave away individual, hand-colored photographs made from the negatives. He also created a book from some of the negatives and Harvard University is the only facility that owns a copy (again, as far as we can determine).
A sampling of the hand-colored photographs:
