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Re: Exhibiting controversial materials



My predecessor here (ca. 1985) put on a small exhibit of Walt Whitman
material. One of the items exhibited was a 1913 illustrated edition of
Leaves of Grass, featuring a drawing of two nude young men. This apparently
caused so much consternation that the archives' display case was permanently
banished from its location near the library's circulation desk to the
archives itself.

It's odd that artistic nudity that was acceptable in 1913 was deemed
offensive in 1985. Tempora mutantur.

Thomas J. Wood
Archivist
Archives/Special Collections LIB 144
University of Illinois at Springfield
P.O. Box 19243
Springfield IL 62794-9243
217-206-6520 | wood@uis.edu | http://www.uis.edu/~lib-arch


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