From the Archives: Literary Societies with Student Ryan Cameron

Senior English major, Ryan Cameron, has spent the semester working on the Literary Societies archival collection in the HIST290 Archives Practicum.  Ryan describes his work in the following post.  After reading about his experiences, please stop by the library east entrance to view his exhibit!

Ryan Cameron: “Since freshman year, I’ve been trying to get as much undergraduate experience in library and archival science as possible here at Monmouth College.  So when Professor Daw came to me with the opportunity to turn what I was doing in my HIST-290 archives class into a display here in the library, I jumped at it!

Getting to work through the Literary Society’s boxes to begin with was great fun—as an English Major, I assumed that these societies would be something like book clubs, but as it turns out, the four Monmouth College literary societies—Philadelphian, Eccritean, Amateurs des Belles Lettres, and Aletheorian—were more oratorical in nature, giving speeches written both by members of the groups and by great speakers, authors, and thinkers of the times.  In fact, Monmouth College’s four literary societies were among the most famous, and from the beginning of the College’s existence until the early 1900’s, became what the college was most known for.

The experience of putting this display together has been great—I had to work through the planning stages, often by taking pictures of the display cabinet and creating mock-ups of the shelving to see where and how things would fit together thematically.  Ultimately, once I was in front of the case placing things on shelves, it was all a lot easier than I thought it was going to be, but I think the planning stages were some of the most beneficial to me as a student of the archives.

Getting to see my work displayed every day makes me feel like I’ll have a real heads-up on my graduate school classes.  But most of all, it feels great to be able to bring to light something that once was such a prominent part of Monmouth College’s history that has somehow fallen so by the wayside.”