Because you probably don’t. While the archives is home to a whole array of historical and cultural materials, as well as the missives, meeting minutes, and miscellany that document the entire history of the University from 1888 to the present day, we also have an extensive collection of photos, most taken by University photographers.
And boy do we have a lot of them. Photos, that is, not photographers.
Three full filing cabinets, another cabinet as tall as I am and three times as wide for the stuff that’s too big to put anywhere else, a few drawers full of photos that were rolled up 50 years ago and are (almost) too delicate to unroll, and that’s not even counting pictures of people and events published in newspapers and other printed materials kept in their own boxes and folders for a hundred different things, people, and places.
We’ve got portraits of every faculty member ever, aerial photos of campus spanning from the 1920s to present day, pictures of students studying, lounging, and living from the whole of the history of the University, campus events, sports, drama, and music, and on top of it all is the considerable documentation of the construction of nearly all the buildings on campus. If you ever wanted proof that the Thompson Hall clock tower did not (as some claim) spontaneously appear overnight during an unseasonable thunderstorm in 1973, we’ve got the court admissible evidence right here.
So if you’re ever in the mood for it, check out the Archives & Special collections during our open hours (Wednesdays 1 to 7 pm and Thursdays 9 to 11:30 am), and make your own fantastic, photographic discoveries about the history of the University.
By Zebediah Howell