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University at Albany Announces Major Addition to National Death Penalty Archive, April 17

The Angolite is a magazine published and edited by inmates of the Louisiana State Penitentiary. (Photo, courtesy of University Libraries)

ALBANY, N.Y. (April 15, 2015) -- The University at Albany School of Criminal Justice and the University Libraries will announce the addition of the Eugene G. Wanger and Marilyn M. Wanger Death Penalty Collection to the National Death Penalty Archive on Friday, April 17, in the Standish Room, on the third floor of the University at Albany Science Library, main campus, 1400 Washington Ave. The program begins at 2 p.m. Informal tours of more than 100 exhibits in the National Death Penalty Archive will begin at 1:30 p.m.

The History of the Death Penalty: Connecting the Past, Present, and Future will feature remarks by nationally prominent death-penalty scholars and activists, and is free and open to the public. Among the speakers are: Eugene G. Wanger on the collection; Henderson Hill, executive director of The Eighth Amendment Project, on Race, History, and Capital Punishment; and Constance Putnam, Ph.D., independent scholar and co-author of In Spite of Innocence, on Massachusetts, the Shadow of Sacco-Vanzetti, and Federal Attempts to Circumvent State Law.

The National Death Penalty Archive is adjacent to the Standish Room and is housed in the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives. The Wanger collection is among the largest privately owned collections in the country, and includes books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, photographs, and memorabilia that help memorialize hundreds of years of the history of capital punishment in the United States and elsewhere. The collection has been compiled over several decades by Eugene (Gil) Wanger who, as a delegate to the Michigan Constitutional Convention of 1961-1962, wrote the provision in the Michigan Constitution which prohibits punishment by death.

Registration information and a full schedule of events are available. Sponsors include the Office of the Vice President for Research, University Auxiliary Services, University Libraries, and the School of Criminal Justice.

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