The Newton Center | About Earle W. Newton

The Earle W. Newton Center for British and American Studies provides resources for faculty, students and the public and honors the enduring ties between two great nations. The center is an important resource for the college and plays a cultural and community educational role, enriching the entire South and its many visitors.

The Newton Center was founded in 2001 through the inspiration of Earle W. Newton, Ph.D., a retired museum director, publisher and educator, whose generous donation of art, antiquarian books, maps and reference materials forms the core of the center's academic and research resources. The center houses notable British resources from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The Newton gift also includes property in Vermont and an early Georgian townhouse in Horncastle, England.

Great Britain and the United States share linked histories and rich artistic, cultural, political and religious legacies, which continue to exert a powerful influence on creativity and intellect. The goal of the Newton Center is to promote interdisciplinary and cross-cultural studies from the 17th century to the present, and celebrate the vibrant intellectual and artistic dialogue between the British and American people.

As a product of this historical and cultural exchange, the city of Savannah is a fitting home for the center. Savannah's city plan, designed by city founder Gen. James Edward Oglethorpe, as well as Savannah's architectural treasures and antiques, link the city with its British Colonial heritage. The Newton Center enables students, scholars and visitors to gain a sense of the artists, thinkers and people of the day. Interaction between England and the coastal Southern Colonies is charted in history, but the interdisciplinary study center brings a fresh contextual appreciation of the faces, settings, aesthetics and ideas of the past.

Hosting a full calendar of lectures, interdisciplinary courses, visiting scholars, internship programs, exhibitions and special events and projects, the center serves as a teaching and research resource, while creating new potential for scholarly symposia, period concerts and dramatic performances that explore the history, art and ideas from the 17th through 19th centuries in Great Britain and the United States. Undergraduate and graduate students benefit from the resources of the center through enhancement of academic studies and inspiration for research and creative endeavors.

More than 200 portrait paintings from Great Britain and America, dating from the early 17th century to the mid-19th century, form a valuable visual resource. With an emphasis on artists such as Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, Joseph Wright of Derby, Gilbert Stuart and William Hogarth in the context of their contemporaries and culture, a real and complete sense of the era emerges.