Exhibits
The Special Collections Department has hosted a number of exhibits. Some materials from these exhibits are online.
Carolyn Bennett-Patterson Exhibit
From the time she was a child in Kosciusko reading about author Robert Louis Stevenson's travels through the mountains of France, Carolyn Bennett Patterson wanted to write. Years later, as the first woman editor at National Geographic Magazine, she would retrace Stevenson's steps.
On April 12, 1999, Patterson traveled to Mississippi State to donate papers that span her 37-year career at the Washington publication. Her collection is housed in Mitchell Memorial Library Special Collections Department.
GladRags: Sketches, Swatches and Costume Designs by Myrna Colley-Lee
GladRags was a physical exhibit held November 2, 2006 – January 28, 2007 in Mitchell Memorial Library's John Grisham Room. The exhibition consisted of nearly 100 works by Colley-Lee, a leading costume designer, set designer, and art director for television and film. Displayed items included working sketches and fabric swatches, production photographs and finished costumes that represent a portfolio spanning three decades. The artwork, much of which was hand-drawn by Colley-Lee, provides the director and the production team an insight into the overall concept the designer has in mind for the entire production.
Glimpses of the Past: Mississippi State Baseball
The first sports team of any variety formed at Mississippi State University, then Mississippi A. & M. College, was a baseball team, organized in 1885, five years after the college opened in 1880. The photographs in this exhibit are of MSU baseball teams from the late 1890s through the early 1920s. The young men that played on these teams sometimes had to make do without a coach, yet they persisted, and all together they laid the groundwork for a premier baseball program.
Henry Emil Hoffmeister, Photographer, 1855-1951
Henry Emil Hoffmeister came to Mississippi in 1895, after twenty years as a professional photographer in Omaha and Fremont, Nebraska. His sixty-year career brought him from Hanover, Germany, through New York and Nebraska, and finally to Starkville, Mississippi. His legacy lives in the photographic records of numerous families in Lowndes, Noxubee, Clay, and Oktibbeha counties.
Howard Langfitt WLBT "Farm Family of the Week" Exhibit
In 1990, Howard Langfitt donated his collection consisting of 342 television scripts and about 16,600 negative images from the television program "RFD Televisit." The program ran from 1954 to 1961, and featured farming families from Mississippi and parts of Louisiana. Langfitt was the host of the show as well as its scriptwriter. This exhibit contains nearly 7000 photonegatives from the "RFD Televisit" program.
Mississippi State University: The A&M Years
This exhibit is a photographic essay of life from 1880-1932 on the campus of Mississippi State University. The University was founded as Mississippi A&M College in 1878 and campus operations began in 1880. In 1932 the name was changed to Mississippi State College, and in 1958 to Mississippi State University.
Mississippi State University Historical Buildings
This exhibit is a photographic essay of historic buildings on the campus of Mississippi State University. The buildings pictured herein were constructed during the early years of the university and represent various architectural styles of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Several of the buildings are still standing and still functional. Interiors have been remodeled, but exteriors look much as the same as when they were constructed. Other buildings have been demolished to make room for larger, more structurally sound edifices. The older buildings that remain serve as a connection to the past when a small A&M College was born that has since grown into a major university, the largest in the state of Mississippi.
