Browse Exhibits (6 total)

West Point and The Civil War

WPM_TottenPortrait.jpg

In response to the prevailing issues of systemic racism in America, the USMA Library collaborated with the West Point Museum to develop this exhibit, “West Point and The Civil War.” Using material in our Archives and Special Collections and from the West Point Museum collections, the exhibit provides a West Point perspective on the year leading up to the outbreak of the war, selected elements of the war itself, and the first year of reconstruction.

In some ways the Civil War was West Point's war, with graduates of the Academy so prominent among the senior commanders of both sides, including those loyal to the Union and country and those who rose in arms against the Union. The War sometimes pitted brother against brother, with the cost of slavery and the morality of human bondage in the balance.

The exhibit spans the years 1860 through 1865 and is presented in sections, beginning with a Prelude to War - 1860-1861: Division at West Point. We hope that the exhibit will serve to educate, and that the material we have selected will encourage discussion and engagement for West Point cadets, faculty and staff, and the general public. The treatment of the Civil War presented here via items from the West Point collections is deliberately selective. This exhibit does not seek to recount the entire war, nor does it treat every major event of the conflict. Rather, it seeks to represent the range of documentary and artifactual evidence within West Point's collections to cast light upon the institution's connection to this expansive conflict.

West Point provides a unique perspective on the Civil War as most of the senior commanding officers on both sides were U.S. Military Academy graduates. Although scholarly judgement is overwhelming that slavery was the cause of the war, many in society today still wish to believe it is a matter for debate. The perspectives on slavery evident in the letters, diary entries, and memoirs of West Point graduates certainly indicate that the continued bondage or freedom of the slaves was at the root cause of the war.

Cadet Letters Home: Physics

download.png

Virtual Exhibit of material from the Library's Archives and Special Collections pertaining to the cadet experience in the field of Physics.

"The mission of the Department of Physics and Nuclear Engineering is to educate and inspire cadets through physics and nuclear engineering course work, research, and support to the West Point Leader Development System so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country; and prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to the Nation as an officer in the United States Army."

The department website can be found at: https://www.westpoint.edu/academics/academic-departments/physics-and-nuclear-engineering.

Building West Point: Images of a Changing Landscape

Malinowski_KeyImage.jpg

This virtual exhibition highlights construction photos from 1870 onward in the collections of the USMA Library Archives and Special Collections and the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering. Photos range from 1870 to the present.

"The mission of the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering is to enhance the intellectual, character, and military development of all cadets within the context of a core course in physical geography, a three course engineering sequence, four distinct majors, and a diverse offering of elective courses and to support the continued development of faculty and staff."

The department website can be found at: https://www.westpoint.edu/academics/academic-departments/geography-and-environmental-engineering

USMA Library Class Rings Collection

RingCase.jpg

This digital exhibition features rings from the Class of 1837 - Class of 2012 with information about the officers they belonged to.

The early rings were used as seals, so the engravings were reversed. Class rings were purchased at private expense and were individually designed and made by hand. In 1879, cufflinks in the form of shoulder boards were selected. There were a few other exceptions, including two bracelets and a brooch, otherwise, rings were the norm. In most cases, the rings included an engraved seal or signet with the class motto and personal initials. In 1897, the design changed from individually designed engraved seals to purely ornamental stones selected by the owners. By 1898, the increasing size of graduating classes necessitated the change to using only the Academy motto, "Duty - Honor - Country," to be placed on the ring and in 1917 it became customary to place a class crest on one side of the ring shank and the crest of the Academy on the other side.

Magnificent Miniatures Exhibition: Tiny Art Show Program

Tiny Art Show Picture.jpg

Welcome to Magnificent Miniatures

With over 40 images, this online exhibition showcases many of the original artwork created by cadets from the United States Military Academy in the fall of 2022 as part of the USMA Library’s Tiny Art Show Program. Cadets produced distinctive artwork on 4” x 4” canvases using acrylic paint and other materials. These small canvases were then used to create the Library’s major exhibit: Magnificent Miniatures. This highly successful program and exhibition drew many visitors to the Library and was covered by The Pointer View. The two categories in the Tiny Art Show Program were: Inspired by West Point and General Art Show. One winner from each category was chosen as cadets, faculty, staff, and library visitors voted for their two favorites.

Our goal with Library programs and exhibits such as Magnificent Miniatures is to provide a place for cadets, faculty, and staff to engage with knowledge, ideas, and one another. This speaks directly to our mission statement. To enhance this type of engagement, we created a curated online guide that explores Miniature Art and its long history; this guide also highlights relevant resources from our own collection. 

You will see from these images that our cadets achieved a high level of technical competence, demonstrated a sensitivity to artistic style, gave abstract ideas a visual form, and for many, expressed a keen insight into the experience of being a cadet at West Point. Digitizing this artwork allows viewers to engage with this original art in a thought-provoking manner. In this way, both our cadets and the viewers of this artwork become part of the scholarly conversation.  

By creating this digital exhibit, we seek to preserve and make this original artwork accessible to all. We hope you enjoy these outstanding small canvases! 

Foundations: Black Experiences of West Point

PAO Image Exhibit.jpeg

Foundations: Black Experiences of West Point is an exhibit curated by cadets, faculty, and staff affiliated with the United States Military Academy Department of History’s Black History Project and the United States Military Academy Library. Drawing on a diverse array of textual records, physical artifacts, images, and interviews, Foundations traces the many and varied experiences of Black soldiers, free and enslaved laborers, cadets, and faculty from the American Revolution to the present day. In doing so, this exhibit aims to foster a deeper and more complete understanding of West Point’s history and the diverse people who built and shaped the institution we know today. 

Foundations is both the title and the central theme of this exhibit. Black soldiers established the foundation of West Point in integrated units that built, garrisoned, and maintained the vitally important fortifications at West Point during the Revolution. Black cadets and faculty are foundational to the United States Military Academy at West Point today. The complex history of the intervening years is one of deliberate exclusion and a long, contested, and ultimately successful effort to build sufficient access, acceptance, opportunity, and community to reintegrate West Point from its foundations up. 

That struggle is both an intensely human story and the impersonal history of an institution. It has heroes and villains alike, and far more people who fell somewhere between those two poles. It is a story that defies a singular, representative archetype. Accordingly, Foundations emphasizes experiences more than biographies to better contextualize the range of Black experiences of West Point. This allows for a better understanding of how those myriad experiences intersected with and shaped West Point as both a place and an institution. 

Foundations is organized thematically while also holding to a chronological progression to the greatest extent possible. It opens with Black soldiers serving at West Point throughout the Revolution, focusing on the nature and impact of their service. Some of those soldiers were free, and some were enslaved. That fact connects to the next section of the exhibit, which examines Black labor at West Point in the nineteenth century. Long before the admission of the first Black cadet in 1870, the United States Military Academy depended upon Black labor. Black servants—free and enslaved—handymen, barbers, cooks, groundskeepers, and stewards were not uncommon at West Point throughout the nineteenth century. Less common were Black cadets. The trials and tribulations of those involved in the first attempt to integrate West Point from 1870-1889 are the subject of the exhibit’s third section. After Charles Young became the Academy’s third Black graduate in 1889, political support for integrating West Point evaporated, and the effort went into a state of suspended animation.  

Integration resumed in the 20th century. The exhibit’s next section examines integration at West Point in the 20th century, beginning with the Buffalo Soldier cavalry detachment stationed at West Point early in the century and continuing to illustrate the experiences of those who reintegrated the Corps of Cadets and integrated the faculty from 1932 through the end of the century. The last section presents a display of photographs emblematic of Black cadets’ experiences within the Corps of Cadets today. Finally, the exhibit concludes with an opportunity for visitors to engage with a series of interviews from the vast collections of the West Point Department of History’s Center for Oral History that connect to various artifacts and themes presented throughout the exhibit. 

Taken in full, Foundations presents a complex history that will both disappoint and inspire those who visit and engage with it. Both responses are worthy of consideration and reflection, helping us all to be the leaders of character we aspire to be. 

⋆ ★ ⋆