Rare 1900 play photo

In going through unprocessed materials the archivist discovered a rare photo of a play done here by the sorority Agonian, in 1900. On the back of the photo are listed the names for most of the girls, left to right: Ina (Wilhemina) Shepphard '01, no name, Sarah Pledger '01, "Sister" Pledger (possibly Rosetta '02), no name, no name, Jennie Mitchell '01 (owner of the photo,) and Florence Green '01. A wonderful find, the  sororities and fraternities of the Normal era were a major part of the student life then.

Rescued Film!

This admirable project was featured not long ago in a post on the Society of American Archivists list. It is an effort to recover old, unprocessed film. A recent project was the recovery of rolls of film shot in WWII and never developed.

Something extra...

Once in a while an archivist finds something extra, a card tucked in a book, a snapshot in with some other things... That happened here recently, when the archivist was looking at a copy of the 1933 yearbook, the Saga, and found some old photos in the back. One is a rare early group photo of a graduating class, that of 1933.

Part of the rarity is that the image is one of the earliest examples of graduates wearing the cap and gown. Up into the WWI era and beyond they are shown wearing suits for the men and gowns for the women, but not the now traditional cap and gown. Also found were snapshots of Hannah Harding '33, the original owner of the book, one of which you see here.

Hannah was from Albion, and was president of Theta Phi, an honor society, and in Magpies, the drama group of the day. We like to think that she would be happy to know that her yearbook has survived, and that her photographs are safe in the college archives.