Collection details 

Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) maintains an extensive number of audiovisual collections, roughly twenty-six thousand items in total, including film, magnetic, grooved recording, optical, and digital formats.

Iowa State University and its entities produced the majority of these items, highlighting topics such as agriculture, science, technology, home economics, and campus events.

Collection highlights 

  • WOI Radio and Television records, 1911-2012 (RS 05/06): WOI-AM went on the air on April 28, 1922, with regular market news broadcasts. During the next 25 years, the scope of station programming expanded to encompass all areas of Iowa State's activities, including agricultural programming, programs for homemakers, lectures, forums, and classical music. On July 1, 1949, WOI-FM became one of the first FM stations in Iowa when it started broadcasting. In 2004, WOI Radio became part of Iowa Public Radio. WOI-TV went on the air in February 1950 and, for several years, was the first station in central Iowa to offer a regular schedule of programming. It was the first television station owned and operated by an institution of higher learning and was noteworthy for its early experiments in Kinescope recording techniques. WOI-TV was sold to Capital Communications Company, Inc. in 1994.
  • Iowa State University. Telecommunicative Arts, 1950-1990 (RS 13/13/04): The Telecommunicative Arts Program, which began at Iowa State University in the early 1950s, was designed for students interested in studying radio, television, and film production. This collection includes information on courses offered in this discipline, students’ projects and papers, the development of the program, and pictures and scrapbooks with news clippings that illustrate the history of the Telecommunicative Arts Program.
  • Campus Memories and Memorabilia (RS 00/17): This collection contains audio recordings of oral history interviews, radio broadcasts, and recorded speeches by various members of Iowa State University.
  • Garst Family papers, circa 1860s-2012 (MS-0579): The Garst Family papers include films and videos of activities on the Garst Farm.
  • Hobart Beresford papers, 1927-1977 (RS 09/07/13): The collection contains materials related to tractors and other agricultural machinery, including the storing and transporting of agricultural products by different companies. The photographic prints and slides mostly cover agricultural events, celebrations, cultivation and harvesting, machinery, and livestock. The collection also includes audio tapes of interviews done with J.B. Davidson (Head, Department of Agricultural Engineering, 1905-1915; 1919-1946). There is also a series of films regarding agricultural engineering at Iowa State and the University of Idaho. These films are unprocessed.
  • John D. "Jack" Shelley papers, 1944-2011 (RS 13/13/55): The materials from Shelley’s time as a war correspondent in World War II comprise the majority of this collection. It includes biographical information and personal memorabilia from his travels as a war correspondent, radio broadcast scripts, war documents, cablegrams, news releases and clippings, personal accounts and reports of events witnessed, family correspondence, photographs, and audiovisual recordings on a reel-to-reel, cassette tape, and VHS videotape. 
  • National Farmers Organization records, 1955-2001 (MS-0481): The National Farmers Organization (NFO) was founded in 1955 to combat low prices farmers received from food processors. The NFO argued that farmers made up nine percent of the nation's population but only earned four percent of its income. The original headquarters of the NFO was located in Corning, Iowa. The early history of the NFO was marked by radicalism. Farmers organized withholding actions to increase prices, then staged boycotts and protests that included the slaughter of livestock and property damage. The violent aspects of the organization's activities receded by 1979 when its focus turned to collective bargaining for better prices. The NFO, which now has its headquarters in Ames, Iowa, is organized on county, Congressional district, state, and national levels. The films in the collection demonstrate many of the organization's activities. 
  • Philip Homer Elwood papers, 1907-1969 (RS 26/05/11): This collection contains materials from Elwood's time as a professor and Head of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Iowa State. The films document his travels, including summer travel schools with students from Ames through South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, and New Mexico, with stops at National Parks such as Yellowstone, Glacier, and Yosemite.
  • Rath Packing Company records, 1890-1985 (MS-0562): The Rath Packing Company (Rath) of Waterloo (Iowa) opened for business on November 24, 1891, on the Cedar River. Initially, the company concentrated on hogs, but by 1908 the company was also slaughtering beef and lamb. The films in the collection are mainly company and product advertisements. 
  • Verda Louise Williams papers, 1975-2001 (RS 05/02): Williams was a Communication Specialist in Iowa State University's Extension Communication Services (1981-1997), working with WOI-TV as a filmmaker and producer. The videotapes in Williams' collection include the master of the program "Black Des Moines: Voices Seldom Heard," research tapes for the program, interviews, stills, historical events, and footage used to compile the program. 

Access

All moving image and audio materials must be digitized for access as direct viewing is not permissible due to preservation concerns. 

Selected materials have been digitized and are available freely online via YouTube and Aviary. 

For materials not yet digitized, viewing/listening-only access may be provided free of charge for a limited time, or learn more about requesting a reproduction for use.