Nestled in clear cases around the McCabe Library atrium, passports and maps, among various other travel documents, are on display. “Crossings — Migration Then and Now,” a current exhibit at McCabe Library, calls attention to human movements throughout American history.
Several of the documents on display come from Swarthmore’s Friends Historical Library, which houses key artifacts from Quaker history. Among the pieces drawn from the Friends collection is the 1881 passport of Quaker physician Walter Mendelson, which offers a striking contrast to modern travel documents. In lieu of the portrait photograph featured on contemporary passports, the document provides a detailed physical description of the doctor, including how Mendelson was “5 feet 9 inches” and had a “straight” nose and chin.
For much of recent history, the exhibit explains, travellers required state-sponsored letters of safe conduct to cross into foreign territories. This began to change in the early 20th century: as WWI redefined national boundaries and rapidly improving transportation technology fuelled a worldwide travel boom, states took an interest in regulating and streamlining the travel process. In the 1920s, the League of Nations established universal standards for passports in keeping with these efforts.
To demonstrate the way that travel documents evolved over time, the exhibition houses several other passports of Swarthmore community members. There are the documents belonging to Janet Speakman, a registered nurse who grew up in Swarthmore and later worked in Russia with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in 1932. Two of her passports are on display — one from 1926 and one from 1937. Compared with Mendelson’s, Speakman’s passports reflect further progress in the creation of modern identification documents: for example, the photograph in the booklet heavily resembles identification pictures that people all over the world must take today.
Another member of the AFSC, Louis W. Schneider, carried a grosgrain ribbon with him along with his passport and itinerary. The plaque explains that the ribbon was “signed by attendees of meetings throughout Europe during his AFSC work.” It functions as a physical representation of Schneider’s travels as well as a piece of artwork, as it serves to be a map of all the connections he made during his service trips.
“Crossings” also contains more contemporary objects that at first glance resemble passports but are actually pieces of artwork that critique contemporary human migration. One of them is Beata Wehr’s 2008 piece “Paszport.” While the book is the size of a passport and has stamped pages, Wehr designed it to be a commentary on her personal immigration experience from Poland.
One of the forms of human migration that is highlighted in “Crossings” is migration by sea. “Mare Nostrum,” a 2022 bilingual English-Arabic book by Islam Aly spotlights migrants’ attempts to cross the Mediterranean Sea in boats operated by traffickers in order to seek a better life. The book is in deep blue and decorated with gold elements. One page contains a testimonial from one person, writing, “Waiting in the warehouse to continue the journey is like a test of survival,” attributed to Mostafa.
Golnar Adili’s 2021 puzzle book “She Feels Your Absence” is another contemporary work on display. It is a mixed media piece that includes letters, printed materials, and photographs that belonged to Adili’s father. These items date back to 1979, when her family returned to Iran from the United States, and span to when her father was forced to flee Iran for activism in 1981.
“Crossings” will be on display at McCabe until Dec. 6, 2026.
