Columbia University Archives: Individuals

These collections are only available in person at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) reading room.Visitors are required to register their own Special Collections Research Account before their visit and to validate the account in person with government-issued photo identification or Columbia ID card. Once you have created your Special Collections Research Account, you will be able to request the materials directly from the finding aids: click the check box located on the right for the box(es) you need, and then scroll back to the top of the container list document and click “Submit Request” button in the red-rimmed box at top. This should lead you directly to your Special Collections Research Account to complete the request form. For more information on how to access our collections, check out our Research & Access website.

• The Historical Photograph Collection (HPC) is our largest collection of images and includes portraits of individuals (ca. 34,000 items).

  • To start your search, look for the name of the individual in Series X: Portraits. This series includes studio and informal photographs depicting various individuals associated with Columbia University over the years. Individuals include students, faculty, trustees, honorary degree recipients and lecturers.

  • In addition to individual portraits, a former student can be found in Series VIII: Class Portraits. This series contains mostly large format (oversized), group photographs of Columbia’s graduating classes from across the various schools, including the College, School of Mines and Law. Classes represented are mostly from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Photos included also depict reunion dinners for various classes.

• The Office of Public Affairs Photograph Collection (OPA) is another very large image collection and contains prints and negatives covering the 20^th century and recent image files from the early 21^st century in print, negative, and digital formats.

  • To start your search, look for the name of the individual in Series II: Negatives. These negatives are almost exclusively black and white and all originate from the University Photographer’s office. The negatives in this series consist of portraits, campus events, and athletic contests taken primarily between 1947 and 1998.

• The Historical Biographical Files, a collection compiled by Columbiana curators and University Archives staff, contain general information about individual alumni, faculty, officers and other notable Columbians. A typical file might contain newspaper clippings, press releases, obituaries, and other published documents that provide short descriptions of the individual's accomplishments and activity. Occasionally, files also contain primary documents such as correspondence and documents or clippings containing images of the individual. Original photographs found in this collection have been moved into the Historical Photograph Collection.

As an aid to finding portraits of individuals you may also wish to consult the Excel spreadsheet of "Portraits." This document is not necessarily comprehensive, but it does note the locations of the majority of the portraits found across these various collections.

For more information on how to access our collections, check out our Research & Access website. If you have any questions about how to find materials or how to access materials, please contact uarchives@columbia.edu.

These collections are only available in person at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) reading room.Visitors are required to register their own Special Collections Research Account before their visit and to validate the account in person with government-issued photo identification or Columbia ID card. Once you have created your Special Collections Research Account, you will be able to request the materials directly from the finding aids: click the check box located on the right for the box(es) you need, and then scroll back to the top of the container list document and click “Submit Request” button in the red-rimmed box at top. This should lead you directly to your Special Collections Research Account to complete the request form. For more information on how to access our collections, check out our Research & Access website.

For a individuals at Columbia, mostly from the 1850s to 1900s:

• The Class Photograph Albums Collection, 1856-1902 is a collection of photo albums representing the faculty and graduating classes of Columbia College (now known as Columbia University in the City of New York), and more specifically, the School of Arts (the undergraduate college now known as Columbia College). While the majority of the albums represent Columbia College (1856-1888), there are a few from other schools including: the School of Law, the School of Mines, and the School of Music.

For faculty members circa 1938:

• The Columbia University Faculty Photographs collection, 1938 offers 537 individual portraits of Columbia University faculty members. These are black-and-white images mounted on heavy cardboard with the name of the individual typed underneath the image. Names that begin with L-M-N-O-P and Q are missing from this collection.

For students entering the University 1939-1947:

• The Columbia University Matriculant Photograph contains black-and-white silver gelatin photographs of Columbia University student portraits, the bulk measuring approximately 1.5" x 2.5". Individual students appear with their signature, an initial designating College or School, and the year.  The initials for colleges and schools represented in the collection are: Architecture (A), Business (B), Columbia College (C), Columbia College, Navy Midshipmen's School (C(N)), Engineering (E), Engineering, Navy Midshipmen's School (E(N)), Graduate Faculties (G), Journalism (J), Law (L), Optometry (O), and University Extension (U).

For students of the Graduate School of Journalism from 1950 to 2008:

• The Graduate School of Journalism Facebooks, 1950-2008 is a collection of publications issued by the Graduate School of Journalism. These small volumes list members of the incoming class for a particular year with a photo, address, educational background, employment history and personal interests.

For news makers from the 1950s to the 1990s:

• The Columbia Spectator Photograph collection, 1950-1999 includes a series with photographs and negatives of people who were written about in the pages of student newspaper, the Spectator.

For more recent photographs of students, alums, faculty and administrators from the 1970s to the 2000s:

• The Office of Alumni and Development Photograph Collection 1978-2006 consists of photographs, contact sheets, slides as well as some reproduced illustrations used in campus brochures and the alumni magazine. In particular, look for Series II: Columbia Magazine Photo Files  which contains photographs of alumni, honorary degree recipients, and noted university administrators and donors collected and published by the staff of Columbia magazine between 1978 and 2006.
   
• The Gabriel Cooney Photograph Collection, 1991-1999 consists of photographic prints (8x 10 and 11x14) and negatives (35mm and 2 ¼" square) taken by professional photographer Gabriel Amadeus Cooney for Columbia University. Many of the images were ultimately used in a brochure titled Broadway Local published in 1991 and in a series of brochures for the Campaign for Columbia produced between1996 and 1999. Some prints and negatives are in color, but most are in black and white. Many of these negatives and prints correspond directly to contact sheets and prints found in Series I of the Office of Alumni and Development Photograph Collection (UA#0208).
   
• The Columbia Engineering Photograph collection, 1979-2008 consists of photographs, negatives, and contact sheets of alumni and alumni activities, faculty, students and annual events which were taken to illustrate the School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni magazine Columbia Engineering.

• The Graduate School of Journalism Photographs, 1918-2002 contains black and white photographic prints and negatives, color prints and negatives, slides and transparencies document the activities of the School of Journalism, including students, faculty, administrators, visitors, and events.

For student-athletes, sports teams, coaches, managers, and other friends of Athletics from the 1930s to the 1960s:

• The Intercollegiate Athletics and Physical Education negatives, 1932-1963 contains the negatives, on glass and on film, of the sports teams, student athletes and coaches at Columbia University from the 1930s to the 1960s. In addition, there are photos of campus events (e.g., rallies, commencement), playing fields (e.g., Baker Field, Camp Columbia) and other friends of the Athletics program (e.g., Athletics Association (AA), Varsity "C" Club). It also includes other sports-related groups such as the Band and the cheerleaders. 

For more information on how to access our collections, check out our Research & Access website. If you have any questions about how to find materials or how to access materials, please contact uarchives@columbia.edu.