Passports: Lives in Transit
April 30 – August 18, 2018, Edison and Newman Room

This exhibition conceives of passports as the ruins of a modern dream now in terminal crisis – the dream of a globalized world. Drawing on the collections of Harvard Library, Passports: Lives in Transit addresses this major contemporary issue through the lens of passports, visa applications, and other documents associated with noteworthy nineteenth- and twentieth-century travelers, émigrés and refugees. Also on view, items of personal significance to a Harvard student telling a story of Latino immigration to the U.S., as well as a site-specific multimedia art installation of used passports purchased on e-commerce sites, further underscore the exhibition’s engagement with current geopolitics and activism.
This exhibition was co-curated by Rodrigo del Rio and Lucas Mertehikian, both doctoral students in Harvard University’s Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. Co-sponsored by Houghton Library and Harvard University’s Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.
Landmarks: Maps as Literary Illustration
Jan 16 – April 14, 2018, Edison and Newman Room

Rethinking Enlightenment: Forgotten Women Writers of Eighteenth Century France
January 5 – April 28, 2018, Amy Lowell Room

From the Fellows: Undergraduate Exploration at Houghton Library
January 23 – April 28, 2018, Chaucer Case

Altered States: Sex, Drugs, and Transcendence in the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library
September 5 – December 16, Edison and Newman Room

The Russian Revolution: Actors and Witnesses in Harvard Library Collections
September 6 – December 21, Amy Lowell Room

William Henry Fox Talbot and the Birth of Photography: Salted Paper Prints from the Harrison D. Horblit Collection
September 8 – October 14, Keats Room

Henry David Thoreau at 200
May 22 - September 2, Lowell Room
As scholars, teachers, politicians, and pundits debate what America is and means by reimagining or rewriting the America in which we live, it is worth recalling the America actually lived in and written about by the country’s first generation born after the American Revolution. The bicentenary of Henry David Thoreau, who was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on July 12, 1817 and died there on May 6, 1862, provides such an occasion.
A contemporary of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Walt Whitman, and Frederick Douglass, Thoreau did not always share in the prominence they enjoyed. Although his story invariably opens with reference to Emerson, Emerson’s belief that American exceptionalism was synonymous with capitalism made for a stark distinction between the two, a distinction Thoreau underscored in 1853, writing, “I am a mystic—a transcendentalist—& a natural philosopher.” The dominant Thoreau who has emerged among recent generations of readers is an environmentalist who argued for the restoration of the landscape with which humankind was originally blessed, a humanitarian who read capitalism as the supreme threat to individualism and equal rights under the law, and a political thinker who critiqued the popular concept of exceptionalism as promoting destructive impulses such as the virtual eradication of Native American culture and the extension of slavery into the American West.
Henry David Thoreau at 200 invites you to examine the life and thought of the author of “Civil Disobedience” and Walden. Highlights of the exhibition include:
- First editions of his major works
- Drawings of Thoreau by his close friend, Daniel Ricketson
- Thoreau’s own copy of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature
- One of his Harvard College examination papers
- Manuscripts of “Reform and the Reformers” and “Walking”
- The recently discovered notes on his search for Margaret Fuller after her shipwreck.
The exhibition was curated by Ronald A. Bosco, Distinguished Research Professor of English and American Literature, University at Albany, SUNY, and contributes to the Thoreau Bicentennial, a year-long celebration of Thoreau’s 200th birthday taking place around the world.
John Lithgow: Actor as Artist
April 25 – September 7, 2017, Chaucer Case
John Lithgow enrolled at Harvard in 1963, intent on becoming a painter. Even as a professional actor, he has never lost interest in the visual arts. To honor Lithgow as this year’s recipient of the Harvard Arts Medal, Houghton Library presents an exhibition of the actor’s drawings, featuring designs for student productions at the Loeb Drama Center and caricatures depicting his career on Broadway and in television, including memorable performances in M. Butterfly, the hit sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, and Netflix’s The Crown.
Open House 75: Houghton Library Staff Select
May 8 – August 19, 2017, Edison & Newman Room
Houghton Library staff celebrate the library’s 75th anniversary with an open house-inspired showcase of its outstanding collections.
Fifty archivists, conservators, curators, librarians, specialists, and student workers who make up “Team Houghton” share memorable items encountered during careers at the library that range from four months to over forty years. Gained through providing access to over 600,000 printed books and six miles of manuscript and archival materials that comprise the Houghton collection, the staff’s encyclopedic knowledge of the library comes to the fore in this exhibition.
A microcosm of Houghton in breadth and depth, highlights from Open House 75 range from a Renaissance letter written by Michelangelo and a missive stained by Hemingway’s sweat, to a moving instance of gay fandom and women writers on domesticity and revolution. Among the notable “firsts” represented are the diary of the first American meteorologist and an Edison lightbulb that illuminated America’s first electrified theater. Cultural treasures from Liberia and Japan are presented alongside everyday objects such as a Roman coin and a Panama hat; taken together, these and other objects in the exhibition suggest the rich variety of human experience housed within Houghton’s walls.
Visit Open House 75 at Houghton or online to discover the library through the eyes of the people who know it best.
Francis Barber: A Jamaican in Dr. Johnson’s Circle
April 20 – August 19, 2017, Hyde Oval Room
Born enslaved in British Jamaica, Francis Barber (ca. 1742-1801) grew up, gained his freedom, an education, employment, and married while living in the London household of Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the celebrated lexicographer and man of letters. Johnson’s fervent opposition to slavery is recorded in his polemical writings, but found its most radical expression in his naming Barber as his principal heir.
The Donald & Mary Hyde Collection of Dr. Johnson at Houghton Library is home to most of the surviving letters documenting Johnson and Barber’s long-lasting and close relationship, an unusual one for the period. Through a dozen objects, including Barber and Johnson’s letters, portraits, and early biographies of Johnson, this exhibition charts the remarkable trajectory of Barber’s life from slavery to autonomy in eighteenth-century Britain.
On view during weekly public tours of Houghton on Fridays at 2pm, and by appointment (email houghtonlibrary_events@harvard.edu)
Houghton and the Presidents
March 6 – July 3, 2017, Keats Room
On January 20th, 2017, Donald J. Trump became the 45th President of the United States of America. Presidential inaugurations are a time to ponder this country’s republican institutions, especially the presidency and its rich history. Houghton, with its large collections of presidential material, provides such an opportunity. The library holds items connected to the presidency that span the entire arc of American history, allowing patrons and visitors to explore the lives, times, and deeds of the men who have held the highest office in the land.
This exhibition presents a thematic approach to the presidency, covering large swathes of American history to explain that multifaceted office. Beginning with Washington’s 1789 proclamation of Thanksgiving, Houghton and the Presidents also celebrates items connected to Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They range from reproductions of official documents like Charles Sumner’s copy of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to more personal documents, such as a photograph of Theodore Roosevelt as a sophomore at Harvard.
Above all, the exhibition seeks to provide a holistic picture of the American presidency. It explores morality and pragmatism; domestic and foreign policy; the public and the private; life and death; praise and criticism. The items amassed here all stem from different moments of American history, but they still inform the current state of affairs of the country. No American president was perfect, but every man who held that office felt that he was doing his best to protect the welfare of the American people. That has been and must continue to be the guiding principle of the presidency.
Curated by Houghton 75th Anniversary Fellow Arthur Schott Lopes ’19. See here for information on Houghton Undergraduate Fellowships.
The exhibition is on view during weekly public tours of Houghton on Fridays at 2pm, and by appointment (email houghtonlibrary_events@harvard.edu).
Collecting at Houghton Now
January 17 – May 18, 2017, Amy Lowell Gallery
Houghton Library opened its doors for research 75 years ago. Built to house 125,000 rare books accumulated over the centuries by Harvard, within its first year Houghton acquired more than 8,000 printed books in addition to manuscripts and autograph letters.
Since 1942, Houghton’s founding collections have been greatly augmented by a curatorial team whose responsibilities are now divided by period or theme. Today’s curators balance consolidating Houghton’s areas of traditional strength, and forging new directions to better serve the library’s mission to support teaching and research.
Multiple factors influence curatorial choices in building Houghton’s holdings, including changing curricular demands and an increasingly diverse student body; new and emerging trends in scholarship; once-in-a-lifetime acquisition opportunities and available funds; collaborations with faculty and other Harvard libraries, and the generosity of donors.
This exhibition introduces you to Houghton’s curators, showcases some of their recent acquisitions, and reveals their plans for the future of the collections.
HIST 75H: A Masterclass on Houghton Library
January 10 – April 22, 2017, Edison & Newman Room
Harvard faculty celebrate Houghton Library’s 75th anniversary with a masterclass on its outstanding collections.
Nearly 50 academics in fields ranging from astronomy to government reveal Houghton treasures of personal and professional significance. From a wanted poster for Lincoln’s assassins to Charlotte Brontë’s childhood handmade miniature books, the assembled objects represent formative encounters from their student days and careers at Harvard, and the inspiration behind countless publications, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller.
Each year, Harvard faculty lead hundreds of class sessions at Houghton, introducing generations of students to the learning and research potential of the university’s rich and varied special collections. Their ever-evolving perspectives constantly invigorate collections in the library’s care.
Houghton Library invites you to take part in this masterclass with Harvard's world-renowned teachers and scholars by choosing your own track through this exhibition. We hope they inspire you to have your own encounters with the collections in the reading room, seminar rooms and online.
Fuel for the Fire of Learning: Houghton Library Opens its Doors
January 4 – April 22, 2017, Chaucer Case
On February 28, 1942 Arthur Amory Houghton, Jr., Harvard alumnus, vice-president of Corning Glass Works, and president of the Steuben Glass Co., offered a solemn challenge at the dedication of the library he founded to house Harvard’s special collections against the backdrop of World War II: “Upon us has fallen the responsibility of safeguarding education in its broadest and most liberal sense.”
This exhibition revisits the opening of Houghton Library, the first purpose-built special collections library at an American university, through six contemporary publications, art and photographs that document the momentous occasion. Seventy-five years on, Houghton Library remains steadfast in providing faculty, students, and researchers, as Mr. Houghton hoped it would, with “fuel for the fire of learning.”