The Archives contains approximately 300,000 prints, negative, and slides documenting the University’s history from the Civil War on. Major collections include:
Archival Photo Collection:Originally begun by Elmer Louis Kayser (1896-1985), who was a professor of European history at The George Washington University from 1917-67. He was also the University Historian from 1962-85. This collection is very strong for campus scenes, people, buildings, and events from the 1930s to 1980s, although there are some scenes covering the period of the Civil War and late 19th century. The collection is comprised of approximately 1,100 images.
University Relations Photo Collection:This collection contains approximately 35,000 images of events, buildings, people, and campus scenes from the 1940s to 1980s. Subjects include: alumni activities, classroom scenes, commencements, conferences, fraternities and sororities, faculty, homecoming, Law School, Medical School, sports, and student life.
Ron Howard Collection:Ronald Warren Howard (1934-1999) came to GW in 1964 as a counselor in the Admissions Office, and would serve the university for over thirty years.
Mr. Howard was an enthusiastic photographer. He free lanced for the student newspaper the Hatchet, and some of his images appeared in various campus publications as well. His enthusiasm to capture through the lens of a camera the people and events surrounding the university has been a benefit to the preservation of GW’s history. The collection includes approximately 8,000 photos and slides of subjects such as: basketball, buildings, commencements, people (including GW presidents, professors and alumni, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Muhammad Ali, Pearl Bailey, Neil Armstrong, Everett Dirksen, Gerald Ford, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Robert and Ted Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth, Ronald Reagan, Elizabeth Taylor, Earl Warren, Walter Cronkite, Marion Barry, Dick Gephart, and Walter Mondale), and student scenes.
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