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Daily Northwestern Photographs

 Collection
Identifier: 75/31/26

  • Staff Only
  • No requestable containers

Scope and Contents

This collection of photographs received from The Daily Northwestern spans the years 1975 to 1996, with the bulk of the photographs falling between the late 1980s and 1994. The photographs reflect a wide range of subjects and styles, and were taken for many different purposes. The collection provides a broad overview of life at Northwestern University, including University and local news, and educational, social, and athletic events. The series includes many images of nationally-known speakers as well as individual and group photographs of faculty and students. The photographs have been arranged into four broad categories: Events, People, Athletics (the largest group), and General Files. This division supplies a basic structure for the photographs, which were taken across twenty-one years and were not consistently dated, nor do they consistently have captions or descriptions. An addition to the collection contains additional photographs, arranged into two groups those identified by subject, and those identified by the name of the photographer.

The photographs in the Events section are mostly well-dated and marked. These photographs document events which occurred continuously, like local news and construction, and events which occurred regularly, such as registration. Several of the subjects are broad, like "Local News & Politics," and some are very specific, like "Dance Marathon." Also included are photographs taken to illustrate topics about which the newspaper wrote regularly, such as local restaurants and musical performances. People is the second-largest section, and contains mostly photographs of individuals or couples who are important to the university, the city or the country, including politicians, athletes, actors and activists. The section is divided into: Portraits; Speakers & Guest Lecturers; Individuals; Northwestern Faculty, and Students. Portraits are photographs taken of individuals in a portrait style, where the subjects could not be described more specifically than by name. A separate folder in the Speakers group holds photographs of speakers at the residential colleges' Fireside events. Additionally, there are files dedicated to individuals of importance, including politicians, activists, actors, and University presidents. Most notable among these are former Presidents Bush, Carter, Clinton, Ford and Reagan; alumnus Representative Richard Gephardt; activists Abbie Hoffman, Gloria Steinem and Coretta Scott King; and Kurt Vonnegut and Elie Wiesel. Several folders in the Northwestern faculty and students group contain unidentified student photographs.

The majority of the Athletics photographs (the largest group in this collection) show men's baseball, men's basketball and football, with a significant number also of women's basketball, women's field hockey, women's softball and women's volleyball. The Athletics photographs, more than any other subdivision within the collection, tended to be poorly captioned; a large portion were undated, and within the undated category, nearly half had no caption. However, many of these undated, non-captioned photographs had the name of the photographer written on them.

The final section, the General Photograph Files date from 1975 until 1996, with several folders at the end of undated material. These files consist of photographs which could not be accurately categorized as belonging in any of the other files or sections of the collection. Most of them have thorough captions. The three final folders contain photographs of bicycles and of various objects (shoes, bottles, etc.) that were most likely taken to illustrate articles on many topics throughout the years. Many are dated, although not identified as to the article topic.

Dates

  • 1975-1996

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is stored at a remote campus location and requires two business days advance notice for retrieval. Please contact the McCormick Library at specialcollections@northwestern.edu or 847-491-3635 for more information or to schedule an appointment to view the collection.

Conditions Governing Use

Photographs used for publication should be credited as follows: "Daily Northwestern, Courtesy Northwestern University Archives."

Extent

12.00 Boxes

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

This collection of photographs received from The Daily Northwestern spans the years 1975 to 1996, with the bulk of the photographs falling between the late 1980s and 1994. The photographs reflect a wide range of subjects and styles, and were taken for many different purposes. The collection provides a broad overview of life at Northwestern University, under the broad categories of events, people, athletics, and general materials. The collection includes many images of nationally-known speakers as well as individual and group photographs of faculty and students.

Arrangement

The The Daily Northwestern have been arranged into four broad categories: Events (arranged alphabetically by subject); people (portraits, arranged alphabetically; speakers & guest lecturers; lndividuals; Northwestern faculty, and students (arranged alphabetically); athletics (arranged alphabetically by sport, and within the sport by gender); and general files (arranged by date, plus folders for undated photographs). Many of the individual sports were divided into three subcategories: dated, undated with photographer identified, and undated, photographer unknown.

The photographs in the addition to the collection (Boxes 10-12) have been arranged into two categories: those identified by subject, and those identified by the name of the photographer. Both categories are arranged alphabetically.

Method of Acquisition

The Daily Northwestern photographs were transferred to the University Archives by Stacia Campbell of the Student Publishing Company on May 18, 2005, as Accession #05-37. Additions to the Daily Northwestern photographs were transferred to the University Archives as Accession #08-93 on July 18, 2008 by Stacia Campbell of the Student Publishing Company.

Accruals and Additions

Additions to the Daily Northwestern photographic collection were transferred to the University Archives as Accession #08-93 on July 18, 2008 by Stacia Campbell of the Student Publishing Company.

Separated Materials

Approximately two record cartons of extraneous materials were discarded. The majority of the materials were photographs not taken by The Daily Northwestern staff, including publicity photographs, film stills and photographs cut out of other publications.

Processing Information

Zoë Streicker-Howard, August 2005.

Title
Guide to the Daily Northwestern Photographs
Author
Zoë Streicker-Howard, Annette Bochenek
Date
01/08/2005
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
eng

Library Details

Part of the Northwestern University Archives Repository

Contact:
Deering Library, Level 3
1970 Campus Dr.
Evanston IL 60208-2300 US
847-491-3635