New Database of Newspapers Added to Our Collection

The Academy Library has just added a new database to its collections.  “America’s Historical Newspapers, 1690 – 2000”  is a NewsBank, Inc. database that includes primary source articles covering topics in government, politics, social issues, culture, literature, discoveries, inventions and more from hundreds of primary sources. Includes news and eyewitness accounts of events, issues and daily life in the colonies or during the Revolutionary War, westward expansion, the Civil War, Reconstruction, industrialization, the Progressive Era, World War I, and other eras. Also included are illustrations, advertisements, classifieds, birth and marriage announcements, obituaries, stories about historic people and other articles exactly as they appeared in print. Let us know what you think!

A New Exhibit for Fall

We have a new exhibit up in the Library’s display area in Rockefeller Hall (we had previously mentioned it here in the blog as a possible show for last spring, but better late than never, no?).  The show’s title is “Gone but not Forgotten: Exploring Exeter’s Missing Past.” Made up mostly of scanned archival images, the show focuses on Academy halls, homes, and interior spaces that either no longer exist, or have been radically transformed over the years. Below are four images from the exhibit; we may post more in the weeks to come:

The old gymnasium which was used from 1886 until 1918.

A classroom in the third Academy Building, which was lost to fire in 1914.

Abbot Hall (built 1855), the Academy’s first permanent dormitory, still exists, but it originally had a dining hall on a bottom floor.

An interior view of the now lost chemical lab building, circa 1890.

A Short Slideshow from the Archives

Using a new slideshow feature that WordPress recently introduced, we thought we would share some images of the Third Academy Building from the Archives. Before it was lost to fire in 1914, it occupied the same space as today’s Academy Building, but was built from far more flammable materials. While not much survived the conflagration, we have images to remind us how lovely it was.

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