Senior Exhibit Fellow Anne Gross ’25 explores the psychological effects of media in new exhibition

Anne Gross ’25, recipient of the Yale Library Senior Exhibit Fellowship, will present a curator’s talk about her exhibition “SENSATION! Reported Bodies in 19th-Century American Media” on Tues., May 6, at 5 p.m. 

The exhibition will open in the Exhibition Corridor of Sterling Memorial Library on April 28 and will be on view through Sept. 28. An online version of the exhibition is also available.

“Today,” Gross explained, “the word ‘sensational’ means an exaggerated, titillating representation of crime. In the 1800s, ‘sensational’ simply meant creating a strong impact on the senses. When we recover this historical definition, many newspapers appear to be sensational.”

With this exhibition, Gross asks viewers to consider these questions: “How did these old newspapers stimulate their readers’ sense organs? What visual and verbal strategies did they use to grab attention?”

Documents and images include Matthew Brady photographs of the Civil War, newspaper ads for “miracle” remedies, political cartoons from “Harper’s Weekly” and “Puck,” and shocking newspaper accounts of a New Haven murder.

“Intensely personal”

Gross developed an interest in this subject through what she described as an “intensely personal experience of reading the news today and feeling naturally distressed.” She wanted to figure out how the representational tactics of the news media could be partially responsible for this feeling. Her interest led her back to study 19th-century print journalism in the United States, when an increase in newspaper publications coincided with a rise in sensationalist efforts to evoke emotionally impactful experiences—pain, fear, horror, outrage.

Gross, who is from San Francisco, is graduating with a double major in Comparative Literature and Philosophy. The exhibition builds on her senior essay in Comparative Literature, titled “Reading Sensation”—which focuses on human response to visual and textual stimuli in media. Her work curating the exhibition opened up new areas of inquiry.

“I was surprised by how much my idea for the exhibition changed in the process of its actualization,” Gross said. “These old media resisted my hypotheses— each new document surprised me. Attention to their details forced me to revise or reject my preconceptions, a process that always resulted in a more nuanced claim. Reality, I learned, is far more interesting than my imagination.”

The fellowship experience

The Senior Exhibit Fellowship at Yale Library, introduced in 2021, gives a selected rising senior the opportunity to curate an exhibition based on the student’s senior essay. Gross is only the third student to receive the five-week-long funded summer fellowship, which provides financial support for a research residency on campus. It also provides mentoring support from a library advisor, faculty advisor, and the library’s exhibit production staff.

“It’s been thrilling to experience the year-long transformation of a three-hundred-word proposal into a five-case exhibit,” Gross said. “Before this summer, I had never done archival research at Yale. So, from delving into Yale’s special collections, to meeting weekly with experienced professionals, to writing wall texts, to collaborating in the layout and design, this process has been the richest and most challenging experience I’ve had at Yale.”

The exhibition features materials from several of Yale Library’s special collections—including Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Cushing/Whitney Medical Historical Library, and Robert F. Haas Family Arts Library. (Please note that this exhibition includes historical images of and references to sexual assault, lynching, and other acts of violence.)

Gross’s librarian advisor is Michael Printy, librarian for Western European Humanities; Caleb Smith, professor of English and American Studies, is Gross’s faculty sponsor.

Learn more about the Senior Exhibit Fellowship program at Yale Library.

Read more about the 2024 Senior Fellow AJ Laird and Laird’s exhibit, “Whaling Logbooks: Records of a Maritime Industry.”

Read about the 2023 Senior Fellowship Exhibit, curated by Chucho Martinez, “The Study of Things: George Kubler in Latin America.”

—Deborah Cannarella

Images: Photo of Anne Gross ’25 by Grace O’Brien; Dr. J. C. Ayer & Co.“Weather and Medicine Signals for Daily Reference,” 1888. Medical trade card collection, Medical Historical Library, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library; Warren G. Waterman. “Newsboys with Sunday Papers,” 1892. Warren G. Waterman, Class of 1892, Yale College, photograph album documenting life at Yale Manuscripts and Archives, Beinecke Library