Tomorrow at noon David Nolen will talk about the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library and Museum opened last November at Mississippi State University.
The 21,000-sq.-ft. addition to the Mitchell Memorial Library contains a state-of-the-art facility chronicling Grant’s life and his significance in American history.
The museum’s artifacts and interactive media allow visitors to engage with the context of the times and discover intimate details of Grant’s personal life and beliefs. The Grant Presidential Collection contains photographs, correspondence, scrapbooks, memorabilia, and research notes.
In addition to the primary resources, there are 4,000 published monographs on various aspects of Grant’s life and times at the library, making it the world’s largest single collection of Grant papers and additional items.
The facility also contains a gallery dedicated to the Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana. It displays, on a rotating basis, more than 100 of the 17,000 artifacts and 12,000 books included in the Williams Collection, which the former Rhode Island Supreme Court Chief Justice and his wife, Virginia, amassed over several decades.
The Grant Library is managed by the Ulysses S. Grant Association and MSU under the direction of John F. Marszalek, Grant Association managing editor and executive director, and Frances N. Coleman, MSU dean of libraries. The Grant Association, the Papers of Ulysses S. Grant editorial project, and its collections have been at Mississippi State University since 2009. With the support of the USGA and Mississippi State University, the USGPL seeks to preserve the history of and present the life of President Ulysses S. Grant to scholars, students, and the general public.
The program will take place in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium at the Two Mississippi Museums—the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum—located at 222 North Street, Jackson, MS 39201. There is no charge to attend.
David S. Nolen is an associate professor at Mississippi State University and the assistant editor and reference librarian of the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library and Congressional and Political Research Center. He earned his MLIS degree from the University of Alabama and holds an MA in Spanish from the University of Florida and a BA in Spanish and Latin American studies from the University of Alabama.
This program replaces University of Mississippi assistant professor Brian Foster’s “‘That’s for the White Folks’: Race, Culture, and (Un)Making Place in the Rural South,” which was originally scheduled for this date. Due to a family emergency Foster’s program will be rescheduled for later.
