Memories with the flip of a page. Images of move-in, dining halls, dances, and Homecoming. The faces of faculty, classmates, roommates, friends, and partners. Yearbooks have long served as miniature time capsules, transporting readers back to a specific year in the life of a campus and reviewing the thoughts, attitudes, and culture of its communities. At the Dr. Jo Ann Rayfield Archives at Illinois State University, yearbooks are one of the most requested research items in the repository. Thanks to digitization efforts over the last twelve years, researchers can access all of Illinois State University’s yearbooks online from the comfort of their homes through the Internet Archive.
The Index, the yearbook for Illinois State University, ran from 1892 to 1972 and documented many significant moments in the University’s history. From World War I and World War II to the first official Homecoming celebration and the University’s first name change, The Index documented University and student life as it happened on campus. While genealogists find the yearbooks helpful in charting family trees, researchers often find important clues to the changing face of campus in the journal’s pages. The Index often reported the demolition of treasured buildings and the opening of welcomed new spaces. Concerts, parties, and even the occasional Quad nap are all featured in The Index.
While The Index ceased publication in 1972, two smaller publications took its place. The New Student Record, a journal for freshman and transfer students, and the Graduate Record, a journal for seniors and graduate students, launched in 1975. While they were not the comprehensive journal of its predecessor, these publications still documented life on Illinois State University’s campus. However, both journals were published inconsistently and ended in the early 1990s.
Since 2018, the Rayfield Archives has worked with its partners in Milner Library to make the yearbooks for University High School and the Thomas Metcalf School available. Found alongside The Index, The Clarion (yearbook for University High School), and the Thomas Metcalf School Yearbook are available for selected years for online research. The Clarion first began printing in 1929 and continues to this day. The online Thomas Metcalf School Yearbook covers the years 1975-2004. Thanks to countless scans, photographs, and data creation by Milner Library’s team of specialists, 117 yearbooks are now freely accessible online.
The online ISU, University High School, and Thomas Metcalf School yearbooks are popular with researchers at home and abroad. As of June 2022, all the yearbooks have been downloaded over 943,000 times. Researchers from Germany make up the largest user group, followed by researchers from Kansas and Illinois. Why Germany? Illinois State Normal University was the birthplace of the American form of pedagogy known as Herbartianism, a learning philosophy founded originally in Germany.
From education researchers to genealogists, alums looking for lost friends, or a student researching campus history, the online ISU yearbooks remain one of the most requested research tools at the Rayfield Archives. Want to see more online university history research tools? Visit our Online Collections page to view catalogs, governance, The Vidette Digital Archives, and more! You can also visit the Rayfield Archives homepage to explore links to our finding aids, research guides, and other archives resources.
