Exhibits: Searchroom and Traveling

Searchroom Exhibits

Archives Roots: The Collaborative Research of Alex Haley and Phebe Robinson Jacobsen

Embracing the mantle of researching his family's history, Alex Haley found himself visiting numerous historical institutions, including the Hall of Records located in Annapolis, Maryland. There, he was fortunate to meet a kind, generous and experienced archivist whose passion was also genealogy, especially where it concerned persons of African descent: Phebe Robinson Jacobsen. When Jacobsen collaborated with Haley on the research for Haley’s epic novel, Roots: The Saga of an American Family, they could not have predicted the fundamental awakening of interest in African American history and, indeed, all families’ histories, that would come on the heels of the book’s popularity.

This exhibition celebrates the collegial relationship between Haley and Jacobsen that was at the heart of a quiet revolution–a revolution still reverberating today in the popularity of learning about our “roots.”

Traveling Exhibits

Stories of Flight from Maryland
Currently on display at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum and the Kennard African American Cultural Heritage Center & Museum

The Stories of Flight from Maryland exhibit was created and designed between 2010 and 2011 in part to meet matching requirements of a U.S. Department of Education Office of Post Secondary Education Grant to study the Underground Railroad in five counties of Maryland's Eastern Shore, including Dorchester, Caroline, Queen Anne's, Talbot and Kent. View Stories of Flight Exhibit Online

To schedule this exhibit for your location please contact Emily Oland Squires.

Additional Exhibits

Strike for Freedom: Slavery, Civil War and the Frederick Douglass family in the Walter O. & Linda Evans Collection

Colonial Encounters in the Chesapeake
Currently on display at the Senate Miller Building
Location: 3rd floor
This exhibit explores the Natural World of Native American, Europeans and Africans, from 1585 to 1800.
Online Exhibit: Colonial Encounters in the Chesapeake

Additional exhibits in the Miller building are located on the first floor and highlight Maryland history. Exhibits feature our collection materials.

Exhibits at the State House
100 State Cir, Annapolis, MD 21401
These exhibits commemorate important milestones in the state's and the nation's history. View State House Visitor Information to plan your visit or view information about the exhibits online by visiting the following links. George Washington's resignation as commander in chief of the Continental Army on December 23, 1783, the ratification of the Treaty of Paris on January 14, 1784, and Maryland's role in the creation and ratification of the U.S. Constitution, especially the Annapolis Convention in 1785.