Behind the Artifact: The Melville Compass

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The Osborne Collection of Herman Melville Materials on loan to Special Collections and Archives contains approximately 65 items related to noted author Herman Melville. The collection includes documents, published materials, art prints, and other items covering Melville and seven generations of his family. Item number one, located in box one of the collections, is Melville’s pocket compass. Melville set sail in 1839 on the first of his many voyages, which continued through 1844 and inspired many of his later works. The compass serves as a physical reminder of his time at sea and the works they inspired.

Southwestern is Texas’s first university, founded in 1840 and situated on a 700-acre campus located in historic Georgetown. As the leading undergraduate liberal arts university in Texas, Southwestern University engages students in a distinctive inquiry-based learning environment that celebrates faculty-student research collaborations in one of the world’s most dynamic cultural and tech-savvy destinations. With a student–faculty ratio of 11:1 and an average class size of 18, Southwestern undergraduates learn in an engaged environment that emphasizes high-impact experiences ranging from community service to study abroad.

Competing in 20 sports in NCAA Division III and a member of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference and the American Southwest Conference, the Pirates have won championships in football, baseball, softball, volleyball, women’s basketball, men’s and women’s golf, and men’s swimming and diving.