The pages are delicate\u2014most more than a century old\u2014and must be turned with care, as they\u2019re apt to crumble at the edges. But the more than 1,000 Cornell scrapbooks housed in the University Archives in Kroch Library, dating mainly from the 1880s through the 1920s, remain a vibrant chronicle of student life in an earlier age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Between the covers of volumes with titles like \u201cMy College Days\u201d and \u201cMy Memory Book\u201d is a wide variety of ephemera, including black-and-white photos of friends and campus scenes, filled-in dance cards (complete with attached mini pencils), and countless programs from banquets and promenades\u2014their embossed lettering and colorful tassels serving as remnants of a far more formal era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe scrapbooks provide some of our best representations of a slice of student life,\u201d says University Archivist Evan Earle \u201902, MS \u201914. \u201cThey can vary dramatically in the type of content the student deemed worthy of preservation\u2014from commercial mementos to deeply personal letters and reminiscences of poignant moments of college life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scrapbooks\u2019 pages seem at once carefully curated and delightfully arbitrary. Newspaper clippings and telegrams share spreads with registrar receipts, paper napkins, holiday decorations, ticket stubs to football games and regattas, train tickets and timetables, menus from fancy affairs, invitations to Greek \u201csmokers\u201d and military hops, and much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scrapbooks provide some of our best representations of a slice of student life.<\/p>\nUniversity Archivist Evan Earle \u201902<\/strong>, MS \u201914<\/strong><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n But in addition to mementos of a bygone age, there are items that resonate with modern-day Cornellians, including images of familiar campus buildings and quads, academic documentation (like notices of registration deadlines, lists of assignments, and final exams), and memorabilia of Big Red traditions still observed today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was surprised at the shared Cornell experience across time,\u201d says Maggie Berthold Fearn \u201903, a former textiles and apparel design major in Human Ecology who delved into the scrapbook collection for a course on University history. \u201cIt was hard to believe that students who had lived long ago had experiences that I could relate to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scrapbooks made their way to the Archives through various routes. Some were given or bequeathed by alumni or their families, while others have been donated as parts of larger troves\u2014like the more than 200 items, including scrapbooks and other Big Red ephemera, collected by retired staffer and history buff Mike Whalen \u201969. (They now comprise the Library\u2019s Whalen Collection of Cornelliana<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few have been digitized and can be browsed online, including\u00a0one compiled by Victor Daly 1919<\/a>, a\u00a0World War I veteran who was among the few Black students on the Hill at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One early scrapbook includes a mourning badge worn by an honor guard during funeral exercises for University founder Ezra Cornell, who passed away in December 1874. Another, from 1918, has a newspaper clipping noting the death of A.D. White\u2014pasted next to an admission ticket to a YWCA party at Risley, a receipt from a United War Work Fund Campaign, and a dance card from a masquerade ball. <\/p>\n<\/div> Most ephemera fit neatly on the page, but some scrapbooks include 3D items\u2014like pressed flowers, pins and buttons, even a spoon and a section of a bullhorn\u2014that bulge inside the volumes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While the oldest scrapbooks are not really journals (typically, few things are labeled, and photos are captioned cryptically, if at all), they offer fascinating glimpses into undergrad life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They preserve details that might otherwise be lost to history\u2014such as the unique \u201cclass yell\u201d each Cornell undergrad cohort boasted more than a century ago. (For example: \u201cRickity, Rackity, Rickity, Roar, Cornell, I Yell, Nineteen Four!\u201d\u2014as in 1904.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than one student saved copies of a small bound menu from College Town Sweets, also known as Pop\u2019s; its offerings included sundaes, seasonal drinks (hot beef bouillon cost 15 cents), and milkshakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A University Library \u201cadmission to alcoves\u201d pass from 1886 notes that it entitled the bearer \u201cto consult the shelves in the department specified, and such shelves only<\/em>,\u201d and that \u201cit is absolutely required<\/em> that books must be returned to their proper places.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carol Kammen, who is stepping down in March 2023 after a quarter-century as Tompkins County\u2019s historian, is a retired senior lecturer who taught history on the Hill for more than two decades; among her longstanding courses was a writing seminar on the history of Cornell.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n As part of the class, students (including Fearn) perused the vintage scrapbooks; they also created their own<\/a>\u2014affixing meaningful ephemera and writing entries that put the memorabilia in context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/DSCF4098-B-1024x576.jpg\")
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