University Photograph Collection

About

This collection inludes over 1,000,000 photographic images of the university, its staff, and its students. The earliest materials in this collection were accumulated as part of the Iowa State History Collection in the 1940s and 1950s. This original collection was greatly enlarged by the transfer of the photograph archives of the Photo Services Unit in the 1990s. Over the years, the collection was supplemented with contributions from individual donors, other campus units, and by Special Collections and University Archives staff. The vast majority of images are black and white.

Individual faculty, staff, and administrators can be located by looking through photographs related to the departments in which they worked or those with which they were most often identified with. The exception are the university presidents which are listed individually. At this time there is no index locating individuals in the University Photograph Collection.

Online Access

A small sampling of images have been digitized and are available online at the following locations:

• ISU Library Digital Collections
• Flickr

Organization

The photo collection is organized using the same record group system as the University Archives. Due to the frequent request for images of buildings, each building is listed seperately.

Presidents

Buildings

A cademic, Administrative, and Research Units

Athletics

Student and Faculty Groups, Alumni, and General Topics

Presidents

This series lists the University Presidents that are included in the photograph collection. In addition there are several boxes with images of the president's families and office staff.

Buildings

This series lists all former and current buildings that are included in the photograph collection. For most buildings interior and exterior shots are available. Folders titled "Campus Scenes" and "Aerial Views" typically highlight more than one building in the photograph.

Academic, Administrative, and Research Units

This series lists campus units that are represented in the collection. For each department there may be photographs of faculty and staff, classroom scenes, and administrative activities. In some instances there are examples of laboratory equipment, animals and livestock, and machinery used by the department. The series is listed alphabetically by title.

Athletics

These images contain individual and team photos, scenes from athletic events, and some casual shots of athletes and coaches. Photos from the Office of the Director of Athletics are listed first, followed by the Business manager's office, coaches and trainers, and each sport alphabetically thereafter. 

Student and Faculty Groups, Alumni, and General Topics

This series contains images of faculty and student groups such as VEISHEA and homecoming, governance bodies for both faculty (Faculty Senate) and students (Student Government), alumni and former students including Jack Trice, George Washington Carver, and Carrie Chapman Catt, and general topics such as campus art, campus flooding, and student protests.