BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2014 As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, two exhibitions at Lehigh University are examining the nation\u2019s history not as a finished story, but as an ongoing and sometimes contradictory one.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfinished Chapter: The First 250 Years of American Liberty\u201d is on display inside Linderman Library, while \u201cThis Land: Reimagining the United States of America on its 250th Anniversary\u201d is being presented by Lehigh University Art Galleries at Zoellner Arts Center. Lehigh\u2019s calendar lists \u201cThis Land\u201d as running through Dec. 4.<\/p>\n
The exhibitions bring together historical documents, photographs, and original works of art to explore how ideas about liberty, identity, and the American experience have evolved over 250 years.<\/p>\n
One part of the exhibition examines the Statue of Liberty and its relationship to generations of immigrants who arrived in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt stands right by Ellis Island, which was one of the main entry points for immigrants to this country,\u201d said Alex Japha, Lehigh University\u2019s Digital Archives and Special Collections Librarian.<\/p>\n
Japha said the history represented by the statue goes beyond the idea of simply arriving in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just about arriving and being welcomed; it was about, you know, really making a life,\u201d Japha said.<\/p>\n
Exploring America through documents and art<\/p>\n
Visitors to the exhibitions can see rare, sepia-toned historical documents connected to the nation\u2019s founding alongside photographs, paintings and other original works of art.<\/p>\n
The material spans different periods and experiences in American history, including immigration, labor, recreation, the natural landscape and changing ideas about American identity.<\/p>\n
At Lehigh University Art Galleries, Mark Wonsidler, curator of exhibitions and collections, pointed to a 1970s work by Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta as one example of how the exhibition uses art to examine American culture.<\/p>\n
Wonsidler said the work \u201cconfronts kind of unrealistic expectations about beauty, celebrity, popularity, those sorts of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
The exhibitions also ask visitors to consider what 250 years of American history can say about the country today.<\/p>\n
Asked what the works collectively reveal about the United States, Wonsidler described the country\u2019s history as an ongoing conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in the middle of a big conversation that is ongoing, and that it\u2019s really necessary to listen to each other as we move through that,\u201d Wonsidler said.<\/p>\n
What becomes history?<\/p>\n
The exhibitions also raise questions about how the historical record is created, what changes endure and how people in the future may understand events taking place today.<\/p>\n
Japha pointed to the renaming of geographic features as an example.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you change the name of a body of water, you know, is that a permanent, lasting change?\u201d Japha said. \u201cIs that something that\u2019s going to be entered into the historical record, or is that kind of just a blip on the timeline of history?\u201d<\/p>\n
The exhibits place those contemporary questions alongside materials spanning different chapters of the American experience \u2014 from documents bearing the names of the nation\u2019s founders to photographs and works examining later generations and different perspectives on American life.<\/p>\n
The exhibitions are part of Lehigh University\u2019s programming surrounding the nation\u2019s 250th anniversary. Both are currently open on campus, with \u201cUnfinished Chapter\u201d at Linderman Library and \u201cThis Land\u201d at Lehigh University Art Galleries in Zoellner Arts Center.<\/p>\n
For the curators, the anniversary represents less an ending than another moment in a history that continues to be written.<\/p>\n
At 250, America\u2019s story remains an unfinished chapter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2014 As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, two exhibitions at Lehigh University are examining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,153,155,154,1391],"class_list":["post-287753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-bethlehem-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}