Two of our Public History graduate students and Archives student workers, Victoria Penno and Karis Raeburn, recently completed a new semi-permanent exhibit pairing model airplanes with photographs and historical information about the models’ real-life counterparts.
Karis and Victoria with their Model Airplanes Exhibit, Dec. 5, 2013
The exhibit, which can be seen on the fourth floor of the Dunbar Library, includes many planes you have probably heard of—like the C-5 Galaxy, SR-71A Blackbird, and C-130H—and others you may not have, like the YF-16.
The students researched and located original photographs for each airplane included in the exhibit. Most of the photographs used in the exhibit came from the Art Krieger Aviation Collection (MS-225).
Model Airplanes Exhibit, Dec. 5, 2013
Model Airplanes Exhibit, Dec. 5, 2013
Originally, these model airplanes were displayed on top of some of our shelving in the reading room:
Special Collections Reading Room, April 29, 2013
But after our reading room remodel this past summer, the model airplanes no longer had a home. One of our archivists, John Armstrong, thought we ought to give the models a new lease on life, so he asked Karis and Victoria to develop an aviation exhibit using the planes, which they did!