Physical Exhibits in Special Collections

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Rare Books and Special Collections regularly displays materials from its holdings in our Exhibit Room (102 Hesburgh Library, at the west end of the 1st floor concourse) and on our Web site.

All exhibits are free and open to the public during our regular hours.

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Current Exhibition

Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924

August 2024 - January 2025

“Notre Dame football is a new crusade:
it kills prejudice and stimulates faith.”

— Rev. John F. O’Hara, C.S.C., Prefect of Religion,
Religious Bulletin, November 17, 1924

In the fall of 1924, the University of Notre Dame found great success on the football field and confronted a dangerous and divisive political moment. The undefeated Fighting Irish football team, cemented forever in national memory by Grantland Rice’s legendary “Four Horsemen” column, beat the best opponents from all regions of the country and won the Rose Bowl to claim a consensus national championship. Off the field, Notre Dame battled a reactionary nativist political environment that, in its most extreme manifestation, birthed the second version of the Ku Klux Klan. Sympathizers of this “100% Americanism” movement celebrated white, male, Protestant citizenship and attacked other groups—including Catholics and immigrants—who challenged this restrictive understanding of American identity.

In the national spotlight, Notre Dame leaders unabashedly embraced their Catholic identity. They consciously leveraged the unprecedented visibility and acclaim of the football team to promote—within the very real political constraints of the era—a more inclusive and welcoming standard of citizenship. Attracting a broad and diverse fan base, the 1924 national champion Fighting Irish discredited nativist politics and helped stake the claim of Notre Dame—and Catholics and immigrants—to full citizenship and undisputed Americanness.

This exhibition is curated by Gregory Bond (Curator of the Joyce Sports Research Collection, Rare Books and Special Collections) and Elizabeth Hogan (Senior Archivist for Photographs and Graphic Materials, University Archives).

Related Events

Meet the Curators

Curators Gregory Bond and Elizabeth Hogan will host exhibit open houses on select Friday afternoons before Notre Dame home football games, including on September 6, September 27, October 11, November 8, and November 15. The drop-in open houses will run from 3:00–4:30 and will feature brief remarks by the curators at 3:15.

Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting Greg Bond at gbond2@nd.edu.

This and other exhibits within the library are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.

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Spotlight Exhibits

September-December 2024 | Wollstonecraft: Revolution & Textual Evidence

Against Edmund Burke’s contention that the French Revolution was a “monstrous tragi-comic scene,” Mary Wollstonecraft hastily composed a defense in the pamphlet A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790). Her work quickly went into second edition, where she tinkered with her language and rhetorical strategy. Several years later, the same editorial mindset is evident in Wollstonecraft’s original and revised A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, where she brings women’s rights into the larger discussion of civil rights. The Hesburgh Libraries recently acquired multiple early editions of Wollstonecraft’s work, which bear witness to her thought process as she works out and reworks her early feminist philosophy.

This spotlight is curated by Daniel Johnson (English; Digital Humanities; and FTT Librarian).

 
September-November 2024 | A Fourteenth-Century Chanson de Geste Fragment

Two newly discovered fragments of Adenet le Roi's Berte as grans piès (Bertha of the Big Foot) attest to the medieval French poem’s circulation in the Northeast. The manuscript leaves were formerly used in bookbinding and reveal a completely new attestation to this popular chanson de geste that focuses on Charlemagne's mother, Berte.

This spotlight exhibit is curated by David T. Gura, PhD (Curator of Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts, Early Modern and Modern European Manuscripts).

 
For information about previous spotlight exhibits, please refer to the History of Spotlight Exhibits page.

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Upcoming Exhibitions

Suggest an Exhibit

Many of the exhibits presented by the Department of Special Collections are produced in collaboration with members of the Notre Dame teaching and research faculty and are scheduled to coincide with significant academic conferences at the University. If you have a suggestion for a future exhibit and/or would like to assist in producing one, please contact Special Collections at 631-0290 or by e-mail.