Historical & Special Collections curates a major exhibit each year in the Law Library’s Caspersen Room on the fourth floor of Langdell Hall. Smaller exhibits also rotate in and out of the Caspersen Room bookcases and at the Areeda Hall entrance to the Library.
Current Exhibit
New Exhibit Now on Display!
“Rogues, Vagabonds, and sturdie Beggers”: Poor Laws of England and America, 1597-1948
This exhibit explores 350 years of welfare legislation in England and the United States. Beginning with the Elizabethan Poor Laws and ending with the New Deal in the US and the National Assistance Act in the UK, the exhibit is organized around four themes: the Tudor Poor Laws, the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, Poor Laws in the American Context, and Perspectives on Poor Laws. The exhibit highlights a variety of formats and includes broadsides, legal forms, political cartoons, graphics, printed reports, manuscripts, and books. Drawn mostly from materials in Historical & Special Collections, it also features items from Baker Library Special Collections & Archives and Widener Library.
This exhibit was curated by Katie Kerekes and Sarah Wharton, Historical & Special Collections, Harvard Law School Library.
The exhibit is on view in the Caspersen Room, Harvard Law School Library, weekdays from 9am-5pm from August 24, 2026-July 30, 2027.
CURIOSity
Explore both new and migrated online exhibit content via Harvard Library’s CURIOSity platform.
Highlighted Exhibits
Explore CURIOSity exhibits curated by Historical & Special Collections
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![Pulling the wooden law shield out of its case]()
Retiring the Harvard Law School Shield
Learn the history of the Harvard Law School’s first shield, from its complex and troubling origins to its retirement.
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![Grid of 21 headshots of HLS affiliates who became US Supreme Court Justices between 1882 and 2017.]()
Collections | Connections: Stories from the Harvard Law School Library
Celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Harvard Law School by exploring how the Harvard Law School Library preserves the school’s history.
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![A print of a lion and a unicorn with the text,]()
Ruhleben: A British Community in War-Time Germany
Learn about the community built at Ruhleben, Germany’s World War I civilian internment camp.
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![Three-quarter length portrait of Charles Hamilton Houston by C. Gregory Stapko after a painting by Betsy Reyneau.]()
Charles Hamilton Houston and the Harvard Law School
This exhibit explores and celebrates Houston’s connection with Harvard Law School.
Exhibit Addenda (2015-2024)
Exhibit Addenda was a website that featured companion content for Historical & Special Collections’ physical exhibits, as well as online exhibits. It debuted in January 2015 and was retired in April 2024.
Select content from the Exhibit Addenda site was migrated to CURIOSity.
Looking for Historical & Special Collections exhibit content not available on CURIOSity? You can view past versions of the Exhibit Addenda site via Archive-It (a web archiving service built at the Internet Archive). The archived Exhibit Addenda site was collected by the Harvard University Archives, as part of their collection of “A-Sites: Archived Harvard Websites.”
The Exhibit Addenda site is also searchable via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
Questions
Still not finding what you are looking for? Please contact specialc@law.harvard.edu with questions.