Madelon Stockwell Turner Memorial Room
In 1909, Madelon Stockwell Turner, alumnus and
daughter of the first principal of Wesleyan Seminary, Albion's
predecessor, bequested funds to Albion College for a building named
after her mother and father. The result was the Charles Franklin and
Louisa Peabody Stockwell Memorial Library, built in 1938. As part of the
arrangement, the library had to exhibit the furniture from her parlor,
pictured here in the 1970s. The furniture now resides in Special
Collections, rooms 302 and 303 of the Mudd Learning Center, where the
temperature, light and humidity can be better controlled for the
preservation of the furniture and artifacts.
Marvin Vann, '40 Collection
On over seven thousand feet of film and four thousand slides, Marvin
Vann, Albion College Class of 1940, managed to document
the Lacandon way of life just as it was
beginning to feel the impact of globalization. The Lacandon are among
the four million people living today who speak the Mayan language. Lacandon
is one of some thirty Mayan languages. It is closely related to Yucatec
Mayan and Cholan Mayan, the language of the inscriptions of ancient Maya
cities. The film and slides provide a valuable baseline record for
gauging changes in Lacandon culture in response to the recent array of
new opportunities and pressures. The online exhibit provides a look into
some of the images in the collection, while the exhibit on site in the
lobby of the Mudd Learning Center includes artifacts from the
collection.
World War I Memorial
In 1919 the Student
Senate at Albion College proposed a bronze plaque as a “fitting
memorial” to all Albion College students who had served during World War
I. In the words of the Pleiad, “this was not to be an ordinary
bronze tablet but rather a super structure of imposing dimensions having
about 500 names upon it and constructed to last through the ages.”
(December 10, 1919) Such a total required a plaque measuring 4 x 4 ˝
feet, framed in oak, and designed to be portable. This memorial was lost
in 1922 after a fire in Robinson Hall, where it had been displayed. It
was relocated in 2002 when a closet in the Observatory was cleaned out.
It was restored and now stands in the Mudd Learning Center across from
classroom 209/210.
Kurt Vonnegut Blackboard
The blackboard design was created by Kurt Vonnegut, based on
the storylines of famous authors, while on campus to present the
Elkin Isaac Symposium Keynote Lecture for 2002, entitled "How to get a
job like mine."
Past Exhibits
Behind the Scenes at a
Presidential Inauguration Very few but those intimately involved in
the planning process realize how much work goes into planning the
inauguration of a college president. This exhibit provided you with
examples of that planning process, as well as some of its exciting
results in order to celebrate our fifteenth president, Dr. Donna
Randall.

The Changing Face of Campus
This
exhibit illustrated the ever-changing face of the Albion College campus.
It included original documents, ephemera, artifacts, newspaper
clippings, and photographs relating to Robinson Hall, Dickie Hall, and
buildings no longer on campus, including the Bell House, McMillan
Chemical and Epworth Physical Laboratories, and the original Eat Shop,
Gymnasium and Greek houses. A special addition to the exhibit, thanks to
a then-recent discovery under the steps of Baldwin, was a look into the
“Keller,” then and now.