Early Alumni Materials Collection
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Abstract
The Early Alumni Materials Collection contains materials related to the meetings of New York University's early graduating classes. These were typically formal dinner meetings, which were first held during the class' freshman year and continued annually for the rest of the members' lives. The complete history of the collection is not known, though it is believed that the Director of the University Heights Library, Theodore F. Jones, began the collection in 1922 as part of his efforts to document the early history of NYU. The materials provide a rare glimpse into student life and alumni activities during roughly the first century of New York University's history.
Biography of Theodore F. Jones
Though the history of the Early Alumni Materials Collection is unclear, Theodore F. Jones (1885-1968) of the University Heights Library certainly had a hand in collecting some of the materials. Jones was responsible for beginning the collection that would eventually become the New York University Archives, and though documentation exists only of Jones' involvement with three folders of correspondence in the Early Alumni Materials Collection, he may have accumulated the majority of the collection. After completing a Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1910, Jones joined the faculty of New York University. He served as Director of the University Heights Library from 1923-1948 and as a professor of History from 1924-1951. His best-known work was a centennial history of NYU, New York University, 1832-1932, published by the New York University Press in 1933. Upon his retirement in 1951, Jones received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from NYU and the status of professor emeritus. He continued to collect NYU memorabilia for the university for a short period after retiring. Biographical information about creators of individual items can be found on the item level of this collection.
Source: Theodore Jones biographical file, New York University Archives, New York University Libraries.
Arrangement
The Early Alumni Materials Collection is arranged into series according to the genre of the materials. Within each series, the materials are organized chronologically by the date of the graduating class that produced them. This method of chronological organization was retained from the partial processing of the collection that occurred in 1983. However, series have been imposed in order to create a more manageable order in a collection that is otherwise piecemeal. This collection is arranged into 7 series.
The Early Alumni Materials Collection is arranged into series according to the genre of the materials. Within each series, the materials are organized chronologically by the date of the graduating class that produced them. This method of chronological organization was retained from the partial processing of the collection that occurred in 1983. The materials have subsequently been arranged in 7 series to reflect the different formats present in the collection.
Series I: Correspondence
- Correspondence
- Events
- Minutes
- Publications
- Class catalogs and directories
- Scrapbooks and memory books
- Memorabilia
Scope and Content
The bulk of the collection relates to the meetings of NYU's early graduating classes. These were typically formal dinner meetings, which began in the members' freshman years and continued annually until all but one member of the class had passed away. The Class of 1843 Minute Book documents this fact particularly well: it includes the complete minutes of each meeting from 1843 until 1914, when Lewis B. Reed noted that he had become the sole surviving member of the class. The Class of 1894 minute books are similarly detailed. Portions of minutes from other classes' meetings are also included in Series III of the collection.
Series I includes scattered correspondence among members of various graduating classes, as well as between University Heights Library Director Theodore F. Jones and alumni who owned photographs of their graduating classes. Jones wished to add the photographs to the NYU library's collections. It is not known whether these photographs were ever a part of the Early Alumni Materials Collection, though they are not included in the 1983 inventory.
Series II includes menus from class dinners that were held at restaurants and clubs throughout the city between 1854 and 1977. They provide a small cross-section of the evolution of New York City food culture over one and a quarter centuries. Series IV includes a handful of publications created by and about members of graduating classes.
Biographical information about individual alumni from various classes comprises a large component of the collection. The class catalogs, directories, and record books in Series V list alumni names, addresses, occupations, and other identifying characteristics, including achievements pre- and post-graduation. The scrapbooks in Series VI include more detailed biographical information about alumni, particularly when they were created by a single alumnus, as in the Memories of P.L. Schenck scrapbook and the Augustus Hewlett Skillen scrapbook. Other scrapbooks document class activities as a whole, as in the Class of 1890 scrapbooks, or consist simply of the signatures of the members of the graduating class, as in the three autograph books dating from 1843-1853. Biographical information about individual alumni can also be found among the memorabilia in Series VII, along with information about student life at NYU in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Subjects
Conditions Governing Access
Repository permission is required for access. Please contact New York University Archives, (212) 998-2641, university-archives@nyu.edu.
Use Restrictions
Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by the creator are maintained by New York University. Permission to publish or reproduce materials in this collection must be secured from New York University Archives, (212) 998-2646, university-archives@nyu.edu.
Preferred Citation
Identificantion of item, date (if known); Early Alumni Materials Collection; MC 237; box number, folder number; New York University Archives
Custodial History
The Early Alumni Materials Collection likely did not have a single creator or even a singular purpose for its creation. Rather, it seems to have accumulated gradually under a succession of custodians who both actively solicited and happened to be given materials and ephemera related to the annual meetings of nineteenth and early twentieth century graduating classes of New York University. The earliest materials in the collection date from 1843, and the most recent date from 1987 (though they refer to the Class of 1937).
Theodore F. Jones, library director at the University Heights campus in the early 20th century, began accumulating materials for a "New York University Collection" in 1922. This collection was meant both to provide the library with documentation of the early history of NYU, and to support Jones' work on a centennial history of the university (New York University, 1832-1932, published by the New York University Press in 1933). Only the correspondence in Folders 1-3 of Box 1 can be definitively attributed to Jones, however, and some later materials in the collection are attributed to other custodians.
According to correspondence found in the collection's administrative file, items relating to the Class of 1894 were donated to NYU by the Estate of John V. Irwin in 1979. These items were discovered at 64 West 3rd Street and transferred to to the University Archives in 1994.
The collection was present in more or less its current form in the University Archives as early as 1983, when it was titled the "Class Collection" and partially processed. However, other information about its provenance has been lost. It seems to have been through multiple cycles of accumulation and dispersal throughout its lifetime. Pieces of correspondence within the collection refer to materials that are no longer included in it, and some ephemera included in the collection when it was processed in 2013 were not included in the 1983 inventory. However, while the collection is somewhat of a fractured whole, the materials within it are still quite illuminating sources of information about the organization and activities of early graduating classes of NYU.
Source: Theodore F. Jones, The New York University Collection (New York: New York University, 1938).
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Some materials in the collection are in poor condition due to their age. Where possible, copies of the materials have been created to enable researchers to access the information within them. Certain scrapbooks have been transferred to the Barbara Goldsmith Conservation and Preservation Department for treatment and are not accessible to researchers until they have been treated.