Explore and discover inspiring collections of art, literature, culture, and history
A Menagerie of Animal Tales presents an exciting array of recent and historical editions of classic stories for children. The exhibition addresses a fundamental question: why are children’s books filled with animal figures? As you will see, animals express aspects of children’s emotional lives,…
The U-M Library collections contain not only manuscripts, journals, and electronic resources but a variety of objects and visual collections. Our very first purchase in 1838 was John James Audubon’s Birds of America. Many of our visual collections are digitized and on virtual display through digital…
Through South and Southeast Asia, the Ramayana prevails as the mightiest literary force. It serves as a religious text, a guide for morality, and a story beloved by children and adults. Due to the Ramayana's immense popularity in diverse geographic regions, there are many different versions. Our…
A dramatic surge in images of clothing appeared in European books, journals, and prints from the 1780s through the 1870s. As a dedicated fashion press emerged by 1800, so did expectations about what people chose to wear: trends depicted in widely-circulated fashion plates began to dictate the pace…
The dry climate of the Egyptian desert offers an ideal environment for the preservation of ancient artifacts. As the sands of Egypt have preserved numerous Coptic manuscripts, the transmission of the literary heritage of Egyptian Christians can be documented fairly well from its beginning in the 4th…
Throughout the nineteenth century, Americans from all across the country used scrapbooks as a tool to tell the stories of their lives. They clipped ticket stubs for shows they enjoyed, portraits and photos of loved ones or pressed flowers from the garden. Often created in groups at scrapping…
In this exhibit, the term "marks" refers to physical elements that have been added to manuscripts and early printed books throughout time, that is, from the instance when they were being made until they arrived to our shelves. Mostly, these marks were not intended by the authors, scribes and…
What accounts for the persistent power and enchantment of fantastical figures like Cinderella, Alice, Aladdin, and Peter Pan? How have tales about such characters been reworked and reimagined over the years to make them fresh for new audiences in new cultural contexts? Our English 313 class invites…
As the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death, 2017 presents an opportunity to explore the historical milieu in which her characters lived. The 1790s-1810s was a tumultuous time period in Britain, encompassing the French revolution and subsequent Napoleonic Wars, the fight to abolish the slave…
Welcome to Creating a Campus: A Cartographic Celebration of U-M’s Bicentennial. In honor of the University of Michigan’s 200th birthday in 2017, this exhibit presents the story of the evolution of the campus, from before its establishment in Ann Arbor to 1963. Drawing on maps, plans, photos and…
Pagination
