The Primary Source - Winter 2025

Letter from the Director

Archives & Special Collections’ team of staff, students, and volunteers works collectively to support a range of services, including reference support, classroom instruction, records management, events and exhibits, and special community-based projects and initiatives. These activities support Western’s mission and strategic goals in research, teaching and learning, and public programming, and they advance the university’s efforts to create a deeper understanding of and engagement with place.

This past year A&SC sponsored numerous instruction sessions reaching faculty and students from various disciplines, as well as researchers from the local community and scholars from around the world. We also sponsored a number of co-curricular activities with campus and community partners, including public programs, research forums, internships, and the James Scott Fellowship supporting doctoral research on topics in Pacific Northwest history.

We once again offered a cross-disciplinary course, the History of the Book, now in its fifth year. This popular class introduces students to major topics in the history of books and printing, with an emphasis on hands-on, primary source learning activities that enhance active learning, group discussion, and reflection.

In addition to research and instruction, we offered a robust schedule of public programming that included “‘Love Letters’: A Film Screening and Conversation with Catharine R. Stimpson, Elizabeth Wood, and Greta Schiller.”  We partnered in this event with CASCADIA International Women’s Film Festival, the Western Foundation, the department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS), and LGBTQ+ Western, to honor Catharine Stimpson’s pioneering work in the study of women, gender, and feminist criticism, and commemorate the significant donation of her archival papers to Western. We also hosted Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau presenter Trevor Bond who gave a talk entitled “Coming Home: How the Nez Perce Tribe Regained Their Cultural Heritage,” exploring issues surrounding collection and curation, and the changing relationships between museums and Native communities. Additionally, we co-sponsored two events with LGBTQ+ Western, including Queering Research: Here and Queer and Archives of Us. Presenters included faculty, students, and staff from LGBTQ+ Western, Woodring, History, and WGSS.

A&SC staff and faculty curated several engaging exhibits including Unbounded: Artists’ Books & Imaginary Scripts, featuring art and artists books created by noted Bellingham artist Jyoti Duwadi (whose work was also featured in a concurrent exhibition at the Western Gallery), as well as Listen to Children: The Jack Prelutsky Antiquarian Children’s Poetry Collection, featuring a large donation of rare books by award-winning author and inaugural U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate Jack Prelutsky.

The activities supported by our division are designed to feature and encourage use of our vast and varied historical collections. In the upcoming year, we invite you to visit our facilities to engage in research, instruction, and public programming opportunities, or consider a financial donation to help support our mission.

Wishing you all the best in the new year,

Elizabeth Joffrion, Director
 

A New Leaf: Building the Rare Book Collection at Western Libraries

By Michael Taylor, Special Collections Librarian

Since 2018, Western Libraries Archives & Special Collections has significantly enhanced its Rare Book Collection, largely through donations. Strengthening the diversity of our collections has been one of our top goals over the past few years, and we have brought in an impressive array of items from many different times and places.

Students and instructors across several departments use these recent acquisitions every quarter, and they are allowing the Western community to participate more fully in the nationwide trend toward hands-on learning with primary sources. A new exhibition in Special Collections features a sampling of these materials.

Islamic manuscript with writing in Arabic and a color illustration of Noah and the ark.

The oldest items on display are from the Middle Ages. Donated in 2018, thirty-two original leaves from medieval books are now among the Rare Book Collection’s most frequently used items. Several are on view along with facsimiles of famous books from the Middle Ages. A related area of collecting featured in the exhibit is Islamic manuscripts. As a window into the art, culture, history, and beliefs of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, they, too, are a significant addition to the Rare Book Collection.

Works related to African American literature and history number among the many new titles. The current exhibit focuses on materials related to the Harlem Renaissance. Visitors are also invited to learn about how books and writing have intersected with the experiences of Native Americans. Highlights include several of the first books published by Indigenous authors in the U. S. and Canada, a text printed in the Cherokee syllabary, and a selection of Indian captivity narratives.

Many of our holdings allow viewers to travel back in time and around the world right at the heart of campus. Thanks to recent acquisitions, one of the eras they can visit is premodern Japan. 

The most colorful section of the exhibit contains a sampling of books that were produced in Japan in the Edo and Meiji periods (1603-1912). Last quarter, students in a course on Japanese history worked with these materials as part of a class project. Several were amazed that they could directly encounter objects from a time and culture so far away.

Many resources have been acquired to support History of the Book (LIBR 325), a course taught in Special Collections each year. Among them are books that shed light on the history of censorship. They include early lists of prohibited works, books with passages that censors crossed out, and examples of how people got around book banning in the USSR.

Also on display are materials related to book history and disability. For some disabled people, the written word presents obstacles that affect non-disabled people less or not at all. The items in this part of the exhibit highlight the story of how those obstacles were overcome in the past, and of how books, writing, and careers in the printing and publishing industry gradually became available to people with visual and hearing impairments.

Wood block color illustration of a Japanese woman in kimono with fan.
Illustration in shades of black and gray depicting a human silhouette looking into the sky and standing in front of a rainbow in a nature setting.

A section on natural history features important milestones in the study of nature, ranging from a Renaissance edition of Pliny’s Natural History of the World to the first modern field guides, published by Thomas Bewick around the turn of the nineteenth century.

Rounding out the exhibition is a section on texts that have been collected to support the study of the history of Christianity. Knowledge of religious history can deepen understanding of other topics, including politics, art, literature, and music, and it is one of the reasons Special Collections has been acquiring historical religious publications.

A New Leaf: Building the Rare Book Collection at Western Libraries is on display in Special Collections on the sixth floor of Wilson through September 5, 2025. For more information or to schedule class/group visits, contact Michael Taylor, Special Collections Librarian, at taylo213@wwu.edu or (360) 650-3097.

LGBTQ+ History Month Event

By Kyler Price, Western student and Education & Advocacy Co-Coordinator for LGBTQ+ Western

LGBTQ+ Western had the pleasure of partnering with Archives & Special Collections for LGBTQ+ History Month, a campus-wide acknowledgement of the fight for the rights of queer people in America. The student-led History Month Committee began meeting back in July, and unanimously voted for an October event showcasing queer history both on and off campus.

Selection of covers in many colors from various issues of the Labyrinth literary magazine.

“Archives of Us” came to life through the coordination of multiple departments, including University Archives, Special Collections, the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, and the Northwest Branch of the Washington State Archives. Under the initial guidance and expertise of Katie Stacy, Ruth Steele, Tony Kurtz, and Alison Costanza, committee members worked to determine what felt most relevant to students today. 

The State Archives staff located marriage records signed after state recognition of same-sex marriage, and documents detailing the formation of Sean Humphrey House. The addition of the Frank L. Waynewood Underground and Alternative Comix Collection from Special Collections was a hit, with several students showing interest in Western's Queer Comics course. Labyrinth magazines from University Archives were quietly read and discussed; would it be possible to form a similar publication today? Through CPNWS collections the attendees also learned of Dr. David Mason, a dedicated professor whose gay studies class in the early-1970s was the first to be taught at Western, and one of the first available on any campus.

Former student Robert Ashworth, whose collection was also displayed at the event, attended and provided valuable first-hand knowledge and context for these materials. Robert is incredibly generous with his knowledge and his story, and his handwritten notes and personal correspondence show the resilience of himself and students like him. Much of the Ashworth collection highlights the work of the Union of Sexual Minorities Center during the 1970s and 1980s.

“Archives of Us” helped demonstrate that there have always been queer students at Western, and attendees shared how valuable it was to see that our history has roots so far into the past. It was incredible to see how our own campus community will be similarly recognized in the future, and that our impact, much like Robert's, continues through the archives at Western.

Black and white photographs of former Fairhaven College professor, David Mason.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our volunteers and student employees for all they do in support of Archives & Special Collections. We would also like to thank the many individuals, families, and organizations who have made generous monetary gifts and contributions of collection materials.

Image information:

  1. Illuminated Islamic manuscript depicting Noah's ark, available at Special Collections.
  2. Woodblock print from Ukiyoe kessaku shu, a book depicting women of "the floating world" during Japan's Edo Period (1603-1867), available at Special Collections.
  3. Illustration by Aaron Douglas in God's Trombones by James Weldon Johnson, a book of poetry from the Harlem Renaissance, available at Special Collections.
  4. Various issues of The Labyrinth literary magazine, available at University Archives. Photo courtesy of Kyler Price.
  5. Photographs of former Fairhaven College professor David Mason, available at the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies. Photo courtesy of Kyler Price.