Special Collections & Archives at Wesleyan University
A place for news and information about rare books, manuscripts and university archives.
Leith Johnson Pictured above is the earliest known photograph of the Wesleyan campus, a view of South College taken in 1865. In front is what is believed to be part of the graduation ceremonies held 150 years ago for the Class of 1865. Our best wishes to the Class of 2015!
A Spatial History of Wesleyan University combines geographical and quantitative analysis with archival and oral history research to interpret the past in place. It is the product of the Spring 2015 course in Digital History at Wesleyan taught by Visiting Assistant Professor of History Amrys O. Williams, part of the university’s Digital and Computational Knowledge … Read more
One hundred and fifty years ago, William North Rice, class of 1865, wrote the above in his diary on the day that President Abraham Lincoln died. Rice would devote his life in service to Wesleyan, becoming the university’s first professor of geology and serving three times as acting president. Below is the diary opened … Read more
We’re not exactly sure what’s going on here–a concert? a play? spirit photography?–but these members of the class of 1872 look like they’re having some fun. They’re standing in front of the old gymnasium, which once stood on a site on present-day Andrus field behind the Chapel. Left to right, Silas William Kent, Samuel Greenleaf … Read more
Is Russell House haunted? Video producer Ben Travers investigated, aided in part with resources from Special Collections & Archives. Happy Halloween! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsGCAPgCcBo
When sophomore Arch Doty moved into room 23 of Clark Hall in September, 1939, he brought with him a radio transmitter he had built at home the previous summer. Using a turntable, 78 rpm records, a microphone, the transmitter, and an antenna wire hanging out of Arch’s window, student-run radio at Wesleyan hit the airwaves. … Read more
In the 1920s, Wesleyan students could use this helpful card to communicate quickly and easily with family and friends using 140 characters or less.
If you were a female high school senior in 1969, you might have encountered this flyer. In 1970, Wesleyan once again admitted women as freshmen (Wesleyan was a coeducational institution from 1872 to 1912), and 2014 marks the 40th anniversary of their graduation. You can read much more about the return to coeducation in … Read more
We recently received this postcard as a donation from Steve Humphrey ’63 by way of Philip Rockwell ’65 MALS ’73. It’s a postcard showing the old Delta Kappa Epsilon house, which was torn down in 1928 to make way for the present DKE house that was constructed on the same site. What makes this really … Read more
Regular readers of Pick of the Week (which has been on vacation for a while) will remember a post from October 2012 written by Abbey Francis about a Wesleyan sweater that belonged to Calvin Kuhl ’27. Mr. Kuhl was quite active while he was a student, and Abbey found him pictured wearing the sweater in … Read more
