Unfolding: Early American Accounts from Liberty Hall

Kean University Galleries and Collections is pleased to announce an archival exhibition at the Liberty Hall Academic Center Gallery, Unfolding: Early American Accounts from Liberty Hall, on view September 8, 2026 through December 4, 2026. The opening reception will be held on October 22, 2026, from 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm in the Liberty Hall Academic Center Gallery. The Liberty Hall Academic Center Gallery, in the Liberty Hall Academic Center, is open to the public Monday through Friday 10AM-4PM and Saturday 10AM-3PM. 

On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence, we are reminded of the role that paper played in shaping our early democracy. Unfolding considers how paper functioned in the eighteenth-century, transferring knowledge and conveying social obligations; and the paper record itself, as we interrogate archival silences in search of untold stories. As historian Tiya Miles notes, “Even in their most organized form, archived records are mere scraps of accounts of previous happenings, 'rags of realities' that we painstakingly stitch together in order to picture past societies.”  

These stories emerge from paper records held by Kean Galleries and Collections and the adjacent Liberty Hall Museum, home to William Livingston—New Jersey’s first elected governor and a signer of the U.S. Constitution—and the Kean family into the twentieth century. Paper records detailing the lives of the Kean family have been donated to Kean University and will feature archives from the John Kean Sr. and John Kean Jr. Collection at Liberty Hall Museum. This exhibition also borrows from the Kean Special Collections and Archives’ New Jersey Collection of maps, atlases, and manuscripts representing five centuries of state history. Together these accounts provide a glimpse into the lives of local politically and economically influential families and their social networks. 

The social lives of early Americans relied on the timely delivery of messages contained in letters. Letters concealed sensitive information shared through unsecured channels, and “locking” them involved folds, tucks, slits, and use of adhesives like wax, so that the paper becomes its own envelope. Paper correspondence reveals embroidery patterns, poetry, deeply personal feelings on topics both mundane and extraordinary, and details of sickness, loneliness, household purchases, and fashion, injecting life into the veins of historical figures. In addition to a writer’s educational background and social status, surviving archival materials tell us whose accounts don’t survive. Account books and ledgers form a bulk of surviving archival material, underscoring the importance of paper in the transfer and accounting of financial obligations in early America. While we can track the Kean family’s location, business interests, debts, accounts of historical events, and other personal details, we lack much in the archival record beyond the first names of the African American men, women, and children enslaved at Liberty Hall. 

Liberty Hall Museum will stage a new exhibition of its own opening this fall, William Livingston: Ink, Influence, and Independence, about its first occupant, New Jersey governor and member of the first Continental Congress William Livingston. This joint celebration between the two organizations will feature special events throughout the fall.