Early Campus Security Officer

A cache of photographs from the 1960s and 1970s recently was discovered in the Allen building and brought to the archives. Among the many interesting images was this 1967 portrait shot of Robert Coleman, a campus security officer as they were known then. This is the earliest known such photo of one of our officers.

Before the PC, before the typewriter...

They wrote everything by hand, everything. Minutes of meetings, correspondance, student registration records, all of it was written out by hand in ledgers and binders. For example here is a page from the 1869 registration book. These massive volumes are leather bound and about 11x17" on a side. Notice that in addition to people's names and so forth, they listed their "religious persuasion!" (Click on the image to view in a larger size.)

The first typewritten records appear in the 1890s and it wasn't till some years later that records were generally all typewritten. Many years later of course PCs and word processing came along, but that's another story!