Behind the scenes of an Exhibition: Come and Join Us!

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Adam Johnson, Byron, Collection encounters, Delia Derbyshire, dsh, Events, Exhibition, Isabella Banks, John Wesley, Life of Objects, LYC, Public programmes, Visitor Engagement, Walt Whitman

dsh case: glasses

Walt Whitman’s Button

Elizabeth Gaskell’s Scissors

Gemma Henderson, Visitor Engagement Co-ordinator for Public Programmes, writes:

Clare and Karen asked me to write about my involvement in The Life of Objects Exhibition.

Where to start?

Devising and developing a programme of events for an exhibition can often be complex. The programme not only has to be steeped in the content of the exhibition but offer something extra and deeper for the audience to engage with. It can be a bit like internet dating, matching audiences with events and hoping they get along.

Being part of the exhibition working group is essential as it gives you real understanding of the exhibition and what it is trying to say (and who to attract). Working with people across Special Collections is also integral, as they bring their own ideas and expertise. Often it’s their passion that makes the exhibition come alive and that helps me understand how to create a programme that will transmit this passion to an audience.

Our Young Visitors

I have a “toolbox” of event types that I can choose from that we know work well with our audiences, for example our Collection Encounters which give visitors an amazing opportunity to get close to items from the collection. This is a dialogue, so not us telling people about the material (although having simple background knowledge is good) it’s more about creating conversation and building a connection between the items and the people viewing them. They are often exciting and unpredictable and are a unique way to connect our visitors to the Library. However, sometimes I get the opportunity to be daring so for The Life of Objects we’re hoping to have some life drawing classes in the Historic Reading Room. I’m not sure what Mr and Mrs Rylands would think of naked people in the Library!

Gather round

At the start of an exhibition I often have a brainstorming session with the Public Programmes champions from the Visitor Engagement Team. Once we’ve looked at the content hierarchy to understand to message of the exhibition we can then start to think about our audiences and what events we can create that would motivate them to visit and participate in an event. From then on it’s planning, which can range from co-opting curators from Special Collections to give talks to buying ribbon and glue for a family workshop.

Being Creative

It’s always a team effort, so from the inception of an exhibition idea to the curators and archivists who seek out the material to the Visitor Engagement manager who looks after deadlines making sure we have exhibition to open to the Visitor Engagement team who deliver the programme plus a thousand steps in between. It is always enjoyable and gratifying when an event is a success. If visitors come away from the Library with more than they came in with, whether that be some new knowledge or a strange handmade craft object covered in glitter and pom-poms…our job is done!

With the opening date fast approaching everyone is busy getting their element of the project ready.  There’s a real sense of excitement about how the exhibition will be received by the public and what their reaction will be to the objects and stories on display. Details of all the events accompanying Life of Objects are to be found here:  What’s On Guide.

If you would like to see and hear staff discussing Stories Behind the Exhibition why not have a look here:

Stella Halkyard, Joint head of Special Collections and Visual Collections Manager, discussing the Library’s Changing Collections.

Anne Anderton, Collection and Research Support Assistant, discussing Walt Whitman.

Jamie Robinson, Special Collections Photographer, and Clare Baker, Collections Assistant, discussing Li Yuan-Chia.

Share your experience of The Life of Objects: #jrlobjects @TheJohnRylands

All images unless otherwise stated are copyright of the University of Manchester.

 

American Archival Pleasures

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Academic engagement, American Studies, Angelina Grimke, Anti-slavery collections, Archives, Bolton Whitman Fellowship, British Association of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, Buffalo Bill, Photographs, Solomon Northup, Walt Whitman

Last Friday, the John Rylands Library provided the venue for the inaugural reading group of BrANCA – the British Association of Nineteenth-Century Americanists. At an event organised by Dr Michelle Coghlan and funded by The University of Manchester’s English, American Studies and Creative Writing department, delegates gathered to discuss some recent critical texts on the theme of ‘Archival Pleasures’.

Some BrANCA members viewing the collections.
Image courtesy of the School of Arts, Languages & Cultures, University of Manchester

The event included further archival pleasure in the form of a collection-based session enabling delegates to view and discuss some of the Library’s nineteenth-century American holdings. Through a selection of manuscript and printed material, we explored a wide range of topics, including the birth of Primitive Methodism in America, transatlantic literary, political and social networks, the cult of celebrity, the myth of the Wild West, the nineteenth-century tourist experience, and the trade in smuggling London-made clothes into New York (to name but a few!)

Grimke’s pamphlet.
Image courtesy of the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, University of Manchester

The Library has very strong anti-slavery collections, which include a significant amount of material relating to America. We looked at the first British edition of An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South (1837), an abolitionist text by the pioneering activist and women’s rights campaigner Angelina Grimké (1805-79). Born into a plantation-owning family in the American South, Grimké witnessed the appalling treatment of slaves first-hand as a child. At the age of 13, she refused to be confirmed into the Episcopal Church because of its support for slavery. She subsequently moved to the North to pursue a remarkable career of campaigning, lecturing and writing in support of abolition and women’s rights.

A text which will be much more familiar to people today is Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave, which was made into a powerful and critically acclaimed film last year.

Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave (New York: C.M. Saxton, 1859).

Our copy is an American edition dating from 1859. Originally published in 1853, the book became a huge bestseller, being reprinted several times in the nineteenth century before falling into obscurity for over 100 years. The Rylands copy is special because it bears the bookplate of Wicobank Hall – home to Mary Anne Rawson (1801-87), a prominent member of the Sheffield Female Anti-Slavery Society. It also has a written inscription to the Sheffield society from the Rochester Anti-Slavery Association. Delegates at the event confirmed that this was likely to be the association established in Rochester, New York, in 1837 – which would explain why an American edition of the text was chosen as a gift for presentation.

From later in the century, we looked at some material relating to the great American poet, Walt Whitman. Not Whitman’s own archive, which is (as it should be) in America, but the archives generated by a small band of enthusiastic ‘Whitmanites’ based in Bolton, Lancashire. This informal group, known as the Bolton Whitman Fellowship, or Eagle Street College, met at each other’s houses to read and celebrate Whitman’s work at a time when his poetry was not widely known in the UK. In 1887 two leading members of the group (J.W. Wallace and John Johnston) ventured to write directly to Whitman on his birthday. The archive includes a lovingly preserved copy of their letter, in which they expressed how much his poetry meant to them, and – wishing to send ‘some little tangible proof of our love’ – enclosed a cheque for £10.

Members of the Bolton Whitman Fellowship, with some of their Whitman memorabilia

John Johnston – a Bolton GP – was an enthusiastic amateur photographer, and kept a fascinating visual record of the Bolton Whitmanites. They sent Whitman himself many of these photographs, and on his momentous visit from Bolton to meet Whitman at his home in Camden, New Jersey, J.W. Wallace was gratified to see some of these displayed on Whitman’s mantelpiece. The diary of his visit also records Whitman’s first words to him: ‘Well, you’ve come to be disillusioned, have you?’

Magazine cover from the Buffalo Bill Scrapbook

Finally, we looked at the ‘Buffalo Bill Scrapbook’, which has been the subject of a previous blog post by Gareth Lloyd. Collection-based sessions like this always provide good opportunities for the Library’s curators to learn from academic experts, and one delegate drew my attention to the rather wonderful Buffalo Bill Project which those with an interest in our scrapbook will certainly find illuminating.