"Illuminations: Revisiting Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition"

"Illuminations: Revisiting Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition," a series of collaborative, on-site and on-line exhibitions produced by the University Libraries and Special Collections illustrating the cultural and historical underpinnings of Buffalo's 1901 Pan-American Exposition, will open with a gala public reception July 12 in the Special Collections and University Archives Reading Room, 420 Capen Hall, North Campus.

Each library will offer on-site and on-line exhibitions focused on its own area of expertise:

• Lockwood Memorial Library will mount exhibitions of varying themes. One will focus on the experiences of Buffalo's ethnic minorities at the Pan-Am; another, "Food, Drink and Eating at the Pan-American Exposition: Images, Memories and Analysis," will address the abundant and diverse food and drink served at the exposition. A third exhibition will focus on the works of more than 650 arts that were shown at the Pan-Am.

• The University Archives, Special Collections and Poetry Collection in Capen Hall will present an exhibition titled, "Land, Lust and Murder: An Expose of Historic Deeds Done Circa 1901."

• The Charles B. Sears Law Library in O'Brian Hall will approach the Pan-Am from a legal perspective, focusing in particular on legal and legislative proceedings surrounding the arrest, trial and execution of presidential assassin Leon Czolgosz.

• The Science and Engineering Library (SEL) in Capen Hall will present exhibits on the presentation of electricity, chemistry and architecture at the Pan-Am.

• The Music Library in Baird Hall will exhibit texts and documents related to the Pan-Am's musical programs.

• A bullet-probing set circa 1901 is just one of the items contemporaneous with the Pan-Am to be shown by the Health Sciences Library in Abbott Hall, South Campus, in its exhibit, "Birth, Death and Everything in Between: Keeping People Healthy at the Pan-American Exposition." It will focus on the enormous task faced by Pan-Am medical director Roswell Park in protecting the exposition visitors from contagious diseases, food contamination and unhygienic facilities.