More than 6,400 historic images of Washington University in St. Louis’ buildings, events and people are now available to view thanks to the efforts of WashU Libraries.
The newly digitized photos run from the university’s founding in 1853 to 2007 and include valuable metadata, some of it pulled from handwritten notes scribbled on the backs of the original photographs.
University archivist Sonya Rooney said the photos capture the university’s growth in size and stature. The collection includes, for example, a 1900 image of the Danforth Campus, originally known as the Hilltop Campus; a 1963 photo of the Bears football team and a 1993 photo of Chancellor William H. Danforth with the Dalai Lama as well as photos of WashU students, faculty and the signature grotesques peering from many an ediface.
“There are so many images that are surprising, interesting or unique,” Rooney said.
Mitch Sumner, head of digital preservation, processing and reformatting, agreed, comparing the digitization process to a crash course in WashU history.
“It’s one thing to read a book, but to have this pictorial history of all of the buildings that have been built and replaced, the students who have come and gone, the faculty, the celebrations, is really interesting,” Sumner said.
WashU Libraries started the digitization process two years ago, both to serve university divisions and departments that frequently use historic images in their communications and to protect these fragile assets.
“These photographs can degrade and start fading over time,” Rooney explained. “Now that so many of the images are digitized, we won’t have to go to originals and risk damaging the photos.”
The images currently available in the collection represent about one-tenth of all of the photos in the Washington University Photographic Services Collection. WashU Libraries will continue to digitize the remaining images. The WashU community may search and download images for free for university uses; other uses will require permission.
