Public Programs
Current Exhibits:
"Becoming Arizona: The Valentine State"
All lectures are located in Special Collections, 1510 E. University Blvd. Free and open to the public. Parking information at: http://www.library.arizona.edu/about/locations/index.html
“The Latina/o Literary Presence in U.S. Literature: From Cabeza de Baca to the Present" with Professor Charles M. Tatum, UA Department of Spanish & Portuguese
Lecture II: February 14, Tuesday, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
“The Sleeping Giant vs. The Politics of Fear: Arizona's Hispanic Society in the Twenty-First Century” with Professor Tom Sheridan, UA School of Anthropology
Lecture III: Wednesday, March 28, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
“Legacies of the Past: Historic Women of Arizona” with historian and author Jan Cleere
Company Town: Arizona’s Copper Mining Communities During 100 Years of Statehood
“Company Town” features a broad range of unique material selected from Special Collections extensive Southwest and Borderlands holdings, as well as Special Collections mining-related archives. An in-depth selection of photographs, pamphlets, original manuscripts, ephemera, federal and state reports and personal papers illustrates a century of experiences by depicting daily life, health issues, labor disputes and political struggles endemic in Arizona’s mining communities. Highlights include photographs from the turn of the century of mining operations in Bisbee, Morenci, and Ajo, as well as original documents, some as early as the 1880s.
Lecture:
Professor Ochoa O’Leary will deliver a closing lecture recalling those experiences as well as sharing the stories of life and family in Arizona’s mining communities from a female perspective. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held on March 1 from 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. in the UA Science-Engineering Library.
I’m for Stew: The Life and Times of Stewart Lee Udall
Jan. 10 – August 5, 2011 in the gallery at Special Collections, 1510 E. University Blvd
Special Collections at the University Libraries announces its newest exhibition, “I’m for Stew: The Life and Times of Stewart Lee Udall,” on display from Jan. 10 – June 15, 2011 in the gallery at Special Collections, 1510 E. University Blvd. A lecture series will be held throughout the spring in conjunction with the exhibit.
Titled after Udall’s congressional campaign slogan, “I’m for Stew” offers a glimpse into the many causes championed by Stewart Lee Udall. A congressional representative of Arizona, Stewart Udall was also Secretary of the Interior from 1961-1969 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, a champion of civil rights, an avid conservationist, a lawyer, a B24 gunner during WWII and a University of Arizona alumnus. Among notable Arizona politicians, Stewart Lee Udall enjoys a unique and enduring legacy.
Born in St. Johns, Arizona in 1920, Udall is often referred to as Arizona’s native son. Following the Udall family tradition of public service, Stewart was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1954 from Arizona’s 2nd district. Shortly after being re-elected to a fourth term in 1960, President-elect Kennedy appointed Stewart Udall as Secretary of the Interior – the first Arizonan to hold a cabinet level position.
A strong advocate for conservation, during his tenure Udall oversaw numerous environmental initiatives including the founding of 4 national parks, 56 wildlife refuges, 8 national sea and lake shores, and the enactment of environmental legislation including the 1964 Wilderness Act, the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, and the National Trail System Act of 1968. Udall continued to fight for conservation following his retirement from politics in 1969, and he is considered a leading voice in American environmentalism.
“I’m for Stew” features a wide variety of materials ranging from the 1920s-2010, all selected from the Stewart L. Udall, Morris K. Udall and Levi Udall collections held in Special Collections at the University Libraries. Among the items on display are WWII memorabilia and correspondence; campaign scrapbooks; letters, legislation, and reflections from Udall’s political career; correspondence with Rachel Carson, Ansel Adams, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and others; materials relating to the integration of the Washington Redskins NFL team; two of Udall’s books, The Quiet Crisis and To the Inland Empire: Coronado and our Spanish Legacy; and Udall’s University of Arizona diploma.
Photographs from the Stewart L. Udall Parks in Focus Program – a program which takes young people into national and state parks to inspire appreciation for the beauty of national parks through photography – are also displayed in the exhibit. For his commitment to conservation and national parks, the Parks in Focus Program was renamed for Stewart Udall in 2009. The photographs are on loan from the Morris K Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation.
For further information and other Exhibits at the University Libraries see: www.library.arizona.edu/news/entries/view/2563
Lecture I
Reflections on the Life and Legacy of Stewart Lee Udall with Senator Tom Udall
March 24, 6:30 p.m. - 7:30, with reception to follow, Special Collections.
Born to Stewart and Lee Udall in Tucson, Arizona, Tom Udall became New Mexico's 17th United States Senator in 2009 after two decades of public service as U.S. Representative and New Mexico's State Attorney General. You are invited to join Senator Udall as he shares his reflections on the life, work, and legacy of his father, Stewart Lee Udall.
Lecture II
Reflections on the Environment Legacy of Stewart Lee Udall Robert G. Stanton
April 20, 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., Special Collections
Robert G. Stanton, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior and Director of the National Park Service from 1997-2001, will reflect on the impact of Stewart Lee Udall's environmental work and will explore how Udall came to be considered a leading voice in American environmentalism.
Lecture III
Reflections on Stewart Lee Udall: A Panel Discussion about Udall as a Lawyer, Author and Supporter of the Arts
May 3, 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., Special Collections
Among notable Arizona politicians, Stewart Lee Udall enjoys a unique and enduring legacy. You are invited to join a special panel presentation that explores Udall through three lenses: as a lawyer, author, and a supporter of the arts.
Cheryl Knott Malone, Professor, UA School of Information Resources & Library Science, will explore Udall's contributions as an author.
L. Boyd Finch, author, Legacies of Camelot: Stewart and Lee Udall, American Culture, and the Arts, will address Udall's impact on the arts.
Charles Ares, J. Byron McCormick Professor Emeritus and Special Advisor to the UA Rogers College of Law, will share his memories of practicing law with Stewart Lee Udall and Morris Udall.
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Stories & Music of the Revolution; A Commemorative Exhibit on the Centennial of Mexico's Revolution
Date: Sept 9 - Dec 20, 2010 in the gallery at Special Collections, 1510 E. University Blvd.
Through unofficial correspondence among citizens, reminiscences written years after the incidents, photographs, broadsides, sound recordings, government circulars, and wood-block engravings Stories & Music of the Revolution illustrates a sense of individual and collective experiences along the border from 1910 – 1920, the turbulent years of the Revolution.
Stories & Music of the Revolution draws from Special Collections’ expansive Borderlands materials to recreate the Revolution as experienced from two perspectives: those fighting for agrarian, economic, and other societal reforms and those seeking to stabilize the nation or remain in power. The materials on display were selected from a variety of collections including the papers of journalist, playwright, and women’s rights advocate Sophie Treadwell; George Hunt, Arizona’s first governor; and the Arizona, Southwest and Borderlands photograph collection. Sound recordings, corrido lyrics, and sheet music drawn from the University Libraries’ fine arts holdings and personal collections complement the materials selected from Special Collections.
For more information see: Libraries General Calendar of Events
June 1 - August 21, 2010
The University Libraries' special exhibit Josias Joesler: Tucson Architect celebrates the eclectic vision and historical contributions of one of Tucson's most celebrated architects and marks the ongoing efforts of the library to provide electronic access to thousands of Joesler's architectural drawings and plans.
The exhibit, which will be open from June 1 to August 21 in the gallery at Special Collections, 1510 E. University Blvd., will feature original architectural drawings, conceptual plans and photographs of Joesler buildings.
January 11, 2010 - May 21, 2010
Curtain Call: An Exhibition of the UA Vaudeville Collections An exhibition of the world’s largest collection of vaudeville treasures from Special Collections. The exhibit, documenting one of the nation’s most influential entertainment genres, will showcase a variety of items from several collections: The American Vaudeville Museum Collections, the Arthur Frank Wertheim papers and the David Soren Popular Sheet Music Collection. During the run of the exhibit, the UA musical theater student group Encore! will offer a free performance of music from the golden years of vaudeville.
Date: Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Time: 7:00pm
Location: University of Arizona Main Library, East Lobby
Guest Presenters: Encore
Encore! The Fabulous Vaudeville Follies, a free, public program in the University of Arizona Main Library, East Lobby, will feature UA's musical theater majors group performing 50 minutes of vaudevillian show music giving audience members a chance to hear the songs of a bygone, but deeply influential, era in American entertainment.
Current Events and Lectures:
See the Events and Lectures page for further information.
Past Events and Lectures:
September 14, 2009 - December 8, 2009
WRITINGS OUT OF TIME: The University of Arizona's Cuneiform Collection
With its focus on "The Roots of Literacy in the Ancient Near East", the exhibit and a fall lecture series will illuminate some of the world's first methods of writing. The displays of cuneiform tablets - primarily records of business transactions - are from half a dozen sites in Southern Iraq. The tablets date from 2100 - 1800 BCE and are unquestionably the oldest archive of literary materials in the State of Arizona. Lecturers will include faculty from The University of Arizona and scholars from around the country
June 30, 2009 - August 28, 2009
ARTIC SPIRIT Inuit Art from the Albrecht Collection at the Heard Musuem
The Inuit Art from the Albrecht Collection displays the Canadian Inuit culture’s rich artistic history. The Inuits, or Eskimos, are a society of natives who live mainly in Siberia, Alaska, Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. Though many consider these various groups to be homogenous, Arctic Spirit showcases the artistic styles that are distinctly of the Canadian Inuit.
The Albrecht Collection contains over 4,000 works of and 2,000 books on Native art.
Date: Friday, August 21, 2009
Time: 2:00pm
Location: Special Collections
Guest Lecturer: Dr. Daniel Albrecht
As part of the exhibit, Special Collections will host a reception where Dr. Daniel Albrecht will speak of the collection and perspective of Inuit art and culture.
February 27, 2009 - May 29, 2009
Fifty Years of Publishing Excellence: The University of Arizona Press, 1959-2009
As part of the exhibit, Special Collections will host a reception and booksigning celebrating the publication of Heidi Osselaer's Winning Their Place: Arizona Women in Politics, 1883-1950.
Date: Thursday, April 2, 2009
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Special Collections
Guest Lecturer: Heidi Osselaer
Special Collections will host a reception and booksigning celebrating the publication of Heide Osselaer's Winning their Place: Arizona Women in Politics, 1883-1950
Dr. Osselaer will talk about the history and the impact of Arizona women political pionners. Learn how women like Isabella Greenway, Nellie Trent Bush, Lorna Lockwood, and Frances Willard Munds set the stage for future women to crash through political glass ceilings!
Date: February 24, 2009
Time: 6:30 - 7:45 pmLocation: Main Library, Special Collections
Guest lecture: Professor Thomas WillardA Story of Two Worlds: An English Doctor and His German Publisher
Some of the most famous illustrations of the scientific imagination in early modern Europe can be found in the copperplate engraving for Dr. Robert Fludd's encyclopedic guide to the macrocosm and the microcosm: the "great world" of nature and the "little world" of man. Fludd's Metaphysical, physical, and technical history of both worlds, that is, great and little (Utriusque cosmi maioris scillicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia) was published in three folio volumes in 1617, 1618, and 1619. The great astronomer Johannes Kepler challenged Fludd's view and their debate raised issues that engaged a Nobel-Prize-winning physicist in the twentieth century.
Date: February 17, 2009
Time: 6:30 - 7:45 pmLocation: Main Library, Special Collections
Guest lecture: Professor Therese MartinRoyal Patronage and illuminated Manuscripts in Medieval Spain: Fernando and Sancha's Beatus Commentary on the Apocalypse and Alfonso X's Cantigas de Santa Maria
Dr. Martin addresses the role of royal patronage in the production of unusual and densely illuminated manuscripts made in the medieval kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. She presents case studies of two very different books: the Beatus Commentary on the Apocalypse written by the scribe Facundo for King Fernando I and Queen Sancha of León in 1047, and the Cantigas de Santa María, produced by the workshop at the court scriptorium in Toledo ca. 1260-1270 for King Alfonso X of Castilla, who is also sometimes considered its author.
Date: February 10, 2009
Time: 2:30 - 3:45 pm (early program)Location: Main Library, Special Collections
Guest lecture: Professor Albrecht ClassenEveryday life in the Margins of the Medieval Book: The Luttrell Psalter
Dr. Classen introduces one of the most spectacular late-medieval English manuscripts, the Luttrell Psalter, which stands out so much because of its fabulous illustration program. Its illuminations depict a wide range of ordinary aspects pertinent to life on an estate, including labor, animals, people, fruit, etc. But there are also countless grotesque features and other fascinating but enigmatic images.
Date: February 3, 2009
Time: 6:30 - 7:45 pmLocation: Main Library, Special Collections
Guest lecture: Professor Paul MillimanThe Old Testament Gets Medieval: Saint Louis & the Morgan Crusader Bible
Dr. Milliman analyzes thirteenth-century views on holy war and kingship through an examination of the life of King Louis IX of France and the Old Testament miniatures in the Morgan Crusader Bible.
September 15, 2008 - January 9, 2009
A version of the exhibit is also available online at:
Páginas de la historia de México: Excerpts from the Morales de Escárcega Collection
This exhibit will feature pieces from the Morales de Escárcega Collection. This collection was acquired from the Escárcega family in early fall of 2007. This major assemblage of documents uniquely chronicles the history of Mexico.
Date: November 20, 2008
Time: 6:30 - 8 pmLocation: Main Library, Special Collections
Guest lecture: Professor Michael Brescia“An Understanding of Mexican History through the Morales de Escárcega Collection," by Professor Michael Brescia.
Brescia examines how the Morales de Escárcega Collection illuminates the major periods of Mexico's past, from the colonial era to modern times. In his lecture, he will suggest potential research avenues that students can pursue based on the collection.
Date: November 6, 2008
Time: 2:30 - 4pmLocation: Main Library, Special Collections
Guest lecture: Professor Stacie Widdefield“Take Another Look! Resources for the Study of Mexican Visual Culture in the Morales de Escárcega Collection” will be presented by Professor Stacie Widdefield.
The Morales de Escárcega Collection is rich in textual resources of obvious importance to scholars in the social sciences and humanities in particular. These range from official documents produced by Colonial period scribes to mass-produced pamphlets and books from the twentieth century. And within this collection of materials on Mexican history there is also much to offer scholars focusing on visual culture. This includes, for example, the technical manual Secretos Raros de Artes y Oficios: obra útil a toda clase de personas of 1833. Also among the treasures in the collection are several important texts illustrated with lithographs, such as the periodical La Guirnalda. Semanario de historia, geografia, literatura y variedades of 1844 in which are published a series of portraits of Archbishops of Mexico as well as a depiction of a recently erected statue of Antonio López de Santa Anna. This presentation will highlight the collection’s resources for the study of Mexican visual culture.
Date: October 9, 2008
Time: 6:30 - 8 pmLocation: Main Library, Special Collections
Guest lecture: Professor Martha Few“Limpieza de Sangre: Race, Religion and Purity of Blood in Colonial Mexico,” will be offered by Professor Martha Few.
Dr. Martha Few will provide an overview of key issues and contrasts of purity of blood laws in Iberian Spain and colonial Mexico. She will use a 1767 manuscript from the Morales de Escárcega Collection to illustrate and provide further discussion on how this practice worked for the requestors mentioned in this particular document.
Grand Opening Lecture
Date: October 2, 2008
Time: 6:30 - 8 pmLocation: Main Library, Room A313/314
Guest lecture: Professor William “Bill” Beezley“The Morales de Escárcega Family Library, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” will be presented by Professor William “Bill” Beezley.
The Morales de Escárcega Family and library odyssey from Tlaxcala, to Puebla, to Mexico City, and the books to Tucson provides a chronicle of national history and intellectual evolution. This talk briefly discusses the family adventure, and evaluates the books, pamphlets, and photographs, and how if they are taken together they offer a mosaic of Mexican culture and experience.
July 10, 2008 - September 5, 2008
Remembering an Empire: The Empire Ranch of Southern Arizona
Date: September 2, 2008 see podcast of lecture
Time: 2:30 pmLocation: Special Collections, Reading Room
Guest lecture: Alison Bunting, “Arizona’s Empire Ranch: A Prominent Past and Promising Future”Alison Bunting, President of the Empire Ranch Foundation, will lecture in Special Collections. Since moving to Sonoita, Arizona she has become an active member of the Empire Ranch Foundation (a Bureau of Land Management partner organization) which is headquartered in Sonoita.
Online Exhibits:
Páginas de la historia de México: Excerpts from the Morales de Escárcega Collection
Excerpts from the Raul H. Castro Collection
Facsimiles of Illuminated Manuscripts in Special Collections
Fred Harvey Collection: Traveling the Rails in Grand Style
Mesoamerican Codices: a Facsimile Exhibit
Miss Estelle Lutrell: an exhibit about UA Library History
Morris K. Udall: A Lifetime of Service to Arizona and the United States
Southwestern Wonderland: Tourism Pamphlets from the 1920s and 1930s
Stewart Lee Udall: Advocate for the Planet Earth
Other Online Resources:
The following web exhibits were created from Special Collections’ holdings, but are not maintained or updated by the University of Arizona Libraries. Accessing these sites will take you outside the Library’s web site.
The Leona G. and David A. Bloom Southwest Jewish Archives