On the wall of Taylor Hall Library hung John Boydell’s print “William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians,” which commemorates the founding of the Pennsylvania colony and Penn’s agreement with the Lenape people who inhabited the region. This print depicts buildings under construction in the background, physically representing the settler colonialism that Penn initiated. Placed in conversation with photographs of Greek and Roman ruins and casts of Classical art, the print affirmed the white supremacist underpinnings of Bryn Mawr’s curriculum. Like other objects on display in Taylor Hall, it worked to normalize these values in the community, creating an environment in which students were encouraged to believe in their superiority as educated white women.
William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians, when he founded the Province of Pennsylvania in North America 1681, 1775
Hand-colored engraving (after the painting by Benjamin West [American, 1738 – 1820])
18.875 x 24.375 in. (47.943 x 61.913 cm)
Bryn Mawr College Special Collections, 2019.4.123