On Valentine’s Day, between 4 and 6 p.m., nearly 240 students crowded around tables in the Special Collections Reading Room on Neilson’s third floor, decorated with origami of pink and red paper, for the event, Special Connections in Special Collections. Each table held a variety of items on the themes of Valentine’s Day, romance and love. Pulled from the Special Collections Archives were scrapbooks, photographs, magazines and letters. Inappropriate items were labeled with a small red chili pepper, while romantic items were marked with a small heart.
The items displayed were chosen by the 20 student workers in Special Collections, guided by Iris Afantchao, a Post-Baccalaureate Fellow and member of the class of 2020, who provided categories for student workers to use to look for items, including love, companionship and sex. Afantchao emphasized that they were looking to get a wide variety of opinions and experiences represented in the exhibit, because “after all, that’s what love is.”
“When I was looking for items to display, I kept an eye out for representations of all types of love: romantic, familial, friendship, sexual and self-love. I, and all the special collections staff, were aiming to represent as many different people as possible, including love between POC and queer love,” Alexa Shnur ’25 said, a special collection student worker.
“We wanted to let people see the history of all types of love, and have people see themselves in the display,” she added. One of the items that Shnur selected for the exhibit that emphasized this was the “Love Makes a Family” Calendar, published by the Family Diversity Projects in 1999. This calendar features images from all types of families, including queer families, multiracial families and families including people with mental illness or disability. “It was incredibly heartwarming,” said Shnur. “I loved that we were able to display something that represented beautiful families of all different makeups. It’s so important to see diverse representations of familial love and to see queer and POC futures represented.”
Another item that Shnur emphasized is a collection of 20th century lesbian pulp fiction books, collected by Sally Taft Duplaix, who attended Smith during the 1950s. Bena Williams ’22, who chose the books to display, said that they had “a special place in her heart” and added that she was glad to be able to show the collection to a bigger and widely receptive audience at Smith. Like many of the items at the exhibit, the books displayed comprised only a small number of the total held in the archives. Shnur also added that she was excited that the books were a part of the display because copies are few and far between and quite expensive. “I’ve personally enjoyed having the opportunity to read them in the reading room, so I’m happy others now know they have that option,” Shnur said. The books, with titles such as, “Women’s Barracks,” “Loving Her,” “The Third Street,” and the amazingly blunt “I Prefer Girls,” were also featured on some stickers designed by Afantchao that students could take as they left the exhibit.
While the exhibit contained material from Smith, highlighting joy that can be found in love, sex and friendship, it didn’t shy away from sharing some of the negative things that have occurred here as well. “In 1956, while a sophomore at Smith College, Sally Taft Duplaix was removed from school and institutionalized after she was discovered having sex with her roommate. … Duplaix went on to collect literature that documented lesbian experiences, which she gave to the Mortimer Rare Book collection in 2016,” read the description of her collection.
Whiteboards outside the reading room provided a spot for students to note items or themes that stood out to them and demonstrated some of the most popular materials. One of these, excitement for which was noted on the whiteboard by “chuckett” surrounded by a heart, was a photo of Mary Ellen Chase and Eleanor Duckett, who were professors of English and Classics, respectively. The caption described them as “life-long partners” and added that they were honored for their service to the college with a house named after each of them. Many students were excited by the revelation that the namesakes of the adjoining houses were a couple.
Shannon Supple, the Rare Books Librarian, added that Special Collections also has more materials about the two, including letters from them to the Smith President at the time. She said that she and other workers felt that the photo would be best to display for this exhibit, but encouraged students to stop by to see other materials, like letters from Chase and Duckett, that didn’t make it into the exhibit.
Another popular item was a logbook from the Green Street Lesbian Boarding House, which existed during the 1970s and 80s. The log book documented the house goings-on from 1980 to 1982 and included a list of residents at the time. Notes ranged from reminders to pick up belongings from the hallways to a list of “the seven gastronomical wonders” with alfalfa sprouts and rugelach ending the increasingly long list to reminders to watch the basketball game some residents were playing in. “I liked how so many of the conversations in the logbook reflected current ones that still happen today in the Smith house communities,” said Minha Virk ’25, who said that the logbook was her favorite item.
This is the second Special Connections in the Special Collections held, with the first being held in February of 2020. Supple said she got the idea after a student in her Book Studies class asked if she could bring her girlfriend to Special Collections. “The answer was an emphatic yes!” Supple said. “And it made me think about how historical and cultural materials like ours can spark joy. Why not make a romantic option possible? Since Feb. 14th was right around the corner, we jumped into creating the first Special Connections in Special Collections event.” For Afantchao, going to this event was one of the last things that they got to attend in person before the start of the pandemic. So when returning to Special Collections as a fellow, she said she wanted to make this event as exciting and memorable for current students as that first one was for her.
Both Supple and Afantchao emphasized that students are always welcome in Special Collections, whether for academic purposes or just for their own curiosity. The reading room is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sally’s experience was documented in “The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle (2015)” – institutionalization is an umbrella for “psychoanalysis treatments, stays in private mental hospitals, shock therapy, heavy medication and even threat of lobotomy. We have a long way to go but never forget how far we’ve come <3