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Secrets in the Stacks

You may not have heard of him yet, but William Willis was one of the world’s original extreme sportsmen, a man driven by a relentless passion for personal challenge and an inexhaustible capacity for facing adversity. From carrying out an improbable rescue in the jungles of French Guiana to embarking upon multiple crossings of the Pacific on rafts of his own design, Willis’s escapades were worthy of the best adventure films and books. Willis was a tireless innovator, a truly unique and wildly eccentric adventurer, poet, and philosopher who would not be slowed by age or seemingly insurmountable odds.

Please join us in the Library at noon on Wednesday, July 6th, as we take a look at the Museum’s collection of William Willis’s papers—the photographs and correspondence provide a fascinating glimpse into the life and mind of a man for whom no price was too high to pay for the most dramatic seafaring adventures of the spirit.

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