Dare and Do! exhibit showcased women’s history at NC State

The colorful exhibit reflected upon women’s campus accomplishments and their “silences in the archives.”

In 1921—34 years after NC State was founded—Lucille Thompson became the first full-time female student at the university. But women have been an integral part of NC State from day one. From staff positions in the school’s early years to leadership roles today, women have made the university what it is today by overcoming societal norms and breaking through male-dominated boundaries.

Dare and Do! Women’s History at NC State, which recently closed in the Hill Library’s Exhibit Gallery, explored and celebrated the rich history of Wolfpack women. Taking the recent 100th anniversary of Thompson’s enrollment and the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Women’s Center on campus as moments in time to reflect upon, the exhibit gathered stories, profiles, and resonant objects and documents from the Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) University Archives. From the handwritten notes of early staff members to scrapbooks, and from clubs and campus organizations to coverage in campus publications like the Technician, women’s narratives emerged and expanded.

The exhibit opened with an online Campus History Series event. Co-organizers Kelly Arnold, a Master’s student in Public History, and Henry Stover, a senior Art and Design major, joined Virginia Ferris, Lead Librarian for Outreach and Engagement at the SCRC, to discuss visionary women and the communities they have created throughout the university’s history, as well as why many of their achievements are not always reflected in the University Archives.

“One of my biggest takeaways from this exhibit is the community that has been created by women at NC State and the ways that early women students, faculty, and staff paved the way for me to feel comfortable as a woman on this campus,” Arnold said. “While there are certainly steps that we can take forward in terms of equity on campus, we’ve also come a long way from the ‘panty raids’ exalted in the 1960s Technician article featured in the exhibit. This exhibit allowed me to connect into this community both in the past and present.”

“Seeing old photographs of campus reminds me that these women were here, just trying to pass their classes like the rest of us,” Stover said. “It’s really inspiring to realize what these women were able to accomplish despite the barriers they’ve faced, and it makes me very hopeful for the future of Wolfpack women as we continue to strive for equity and provide students with more opportunities.”

The exhibit was organized thematically with an emphasis on the historical arc of women’s accomplishments in each area. Stover particularly liked an exhibit case that focused on student activism on campus. “Most women are recognized for their work after college, which is awesome to aspire to, but this case really showed the power that we as students have to affect our community before graduation,” Stover said.

Dare and Do! also confronted and acknowledged silences in the archives. “This was something that I really advocated for from the start of this exhibit,” Arnold said. “I think it’s important to recognize that there is a politics around what we know about women’s lives in the past and how that influences whose stories we can and do put in the spotlight.”

“Focusing on the silences in the archives reminded me that recording the mundane can be revolutionary,” Stover says. “Seeing photos of students from decades ago doing everyday things like making a phone call, studying, kissing, or walking on campus made me feel so human and connected to these women. For Black, queer, and other women from marginalized communities that were often left out of history, these images of everyday activities were sometimes a better record of the diversity on campus because marginalized excellence wasn’t being recognized and recorded very well.”

“It’s disheartening to know that we’ve lost the stories of some women, especially women who possessed intersectional marginal identities,” Arnold added, “but at the same time it offers us the opportunity to try to preserve people’s stories more equitably in the present.”

The SCRC’s Wolf Tales story collection project, an example of current preservation efforts at the Libraries, also featured in the exhibit.