When Dr. David Kieran approached the students of his Public History Design and Exhibition course at Washington & Jefferson College with the opportunity to create Dynamic Decades: W&J and the City of Washington in the Midst of Social Change, he wrote to them, “Your job is to frame the problem, get the knowledge, and build the solution. To put it more bluntly: we don’t know how this is going to end, and that is both the excitement and the challenge. If you find this both exciting and daunting, good. It is both of those things.”

While Samantha Casile, a student ambassador for the project, admits initially feeling lost reading Dr. Kieran’s words, she says she was excited. “I know how to write papers, but to create an exhibit felt completely different. Despite the fear, I was excited to dive into public history because I had a fascination with it, even though I had a lack of knowledge and experience.”

As institutions prioritize making their exhibitions more diverse and inclusive, they face a difficult task: how to present the hard truth that racism is a part of that history. Dr. Kieran’s students spent 9 months researching the history of race relations and the pursuit of racial justice at Washington & Jefferson College and in the community of Washington, PA. “To create the narrative, I had the mindset of ‘start chipping away at the archives,’” Casile said. “In the end, we wanted to display the truth being an equally painful and uplifting story because that is the history of the continuous battle for racial equality.”

Ariel from Gaylord Archival polishing an acrylic display case vitrine

Student Samantha Casile preparing a display in an AXS™ Showcase

Crafting such a narrative required sensitivity. Donors that contributed to the founding of the university in the late 18^th century were enslavers. Accounts of racial exclusion in academic and Greek life, records of minstrel shows as student entertainment, and a Ku Klux Klan convention in a nearby town were just some of the troubling moments in the community’s past. “We had constant conversations about how to respect the histories held by our community members, to protect their emotional and social well-being,” said Casile.

“Early on, the students who designed this exhibit decided that they would neither tell the story of unremitting oppression nor an account of uninterrupted progress because that is not what history is,” said Dr. Kieran.

In turn, their research uncovered moments of redemption that students and members of the community could be proud of. The college admitted its first black students as early as 1830, including Martin Delany, an abolitionist, journalist, physician and soldier. Faculty created courses focusing on the African American experience, and students established the Black Student Union. “We had students who were very active in the civil rights movement,” said Casile. “And we had students who were very open about condemning the racist acts of fellow students.”

The first African American federal judge in Southwestern Pennsylvania, Judge Allen Simmons, came from Washington County. Cole Leathers, a student from Dr. Kiernan’s class, secured a loan of Judge Simmons’ robe and gavel from the Heinz History Center with the contingency that it must be displayed in a museum-quality case. Gaylord Archival was honored to be trusted by Washington & Jefferson College and the Heinz History Center to install our new, patent-pending AXS™ Showcases for these important cultural artifacts and to witness the culmination of the students’ excellent work firsthand.

Conservators from the Heinz History Center installing Judge Simmons' robe in an AXS™ Showcase

A student cleans a display case with athletics-related artifacts

Gaylord Archival assisted Dr. Kieran and his students with the installation of Dynamic Decades, providing two table leg cases to the exhibition as well. The GA team helped deliver and install the cases, making sure one of the AXS cases was ready for the conservators who brought and prepared Judge Simmons’ robe for display. The students and library staff were shown how to properly care for the acrylic vitrines and panels of the cases and how to access the objects on display. Other items in the exhibition included a Washington County Slave Register from 1781, the syllabus of the first African American literature course at Washington & Jefferson, a pin and a program from a campus Literary Society, and a doorknob from the Gone with the Wind movie set.

The final component of the exhibition was executed in collaboration with the Communication Information Studies capstone course: a companion website to supplement the information on display in the library, as well as make the exhibition accessible to those off campus. While this project originally was conceptualized in the fall of 2019, prior to the pandemic, the virtual exhibit was always part of the plan, but it became even more critical after the effects of living with COVID-19 took hold. “I saw it as necessary because of my experience interning in local schools and seeing how technology is becoming the center of education,” said Casile. “By having a virtual aspect, we can educate our entire community.”

Laying out the exhibition space

The completed Dynamic Decades exhibition

Dr. Kieran speaks to students and visitors at the exhibition opening