Student Curated Exhibits Featured in Special Collections

News item published on: 2016-04-11 14:43:48

Universtiy Libraries' Special Collections administers an exhibit program where students curate mini-exhibits featuring materials from the collections. Students learn how to select items to display, install the materials, create label and exhibit text as well as how to publicize the exhibit. Three exhibits by graduate students from the Department of History and the School of Library and Information Science are being featured this semster.

Curated by Library and Information Science master's student Kyle Ethridge, Horror in Children's and Young Adult Literature, examines the role of horror in these genres. Horror has long been used to instruct young readers through fear and has more recently been used to provide safe scares for readers. This exhibit showcases the uses of horror throughout the past three centuries in a variety of formats and media.

Creating a Dry Tomorrow: The Mississippi WCTU and Youth, curated by history PhD candidate Rebecca L. Zimmer, addresses the ways in which the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union attempted to influence young people to abstain from the use of alcohol. The WCTU is an international organization, which promotes temperance through many different departments and venues, one of these being that of youth education. Included in the exhibit is a textbook detailing the dangers of alcohol and tobacco, songbooks published by the WCTU’s press and a minute book from the Hattiesburg union.

Anti-Communism and the Civil Rights Struggle, curated by history M.A. student Olivia Moore, examines segregationist organizations and their use of anti-communist rhetoric to discredit the actions of civil rights activists in the United States. Incorporating materials from the Paul B. Johnson Family Papers, the Citizens’ Council collection and the Kathleen Dahl Freedom Summer Collection, this exhibit highlights how those in power exploited a very real fear of Communism throughout the South.

An opening for the exhibit will be held on April 21 from 4 - 5 p.m. in McCain Library and Archives, room 305. The exhibit will be on display in McCain Library room 305 through January of 2017. If you have questions about the program or the exhibits on display, contact Jennifer Brannock at  or 601.266.4347.