Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Today is Move-In Day, and new and returning Jayhawks are arriving on Mount Oread. This week’s post features a verbal description and visual depiction of what this looked like at the beginning of KU’s 1928-1929 academic year, according to the 1929 Jayhawker yearbook.

Happy greetings…hand shaking…taxis whizzing away loaded with newly arrived students…perspiring baggagemen swearing at an avalanche of trunks and suitcases…The sleepy town of Lawrence suddenly awakened to the realization that another nine months session had begun at K.U.

Selected pages from the 1929 Jayhawker yearbook. University Archives.
Call Number: LD 2697 .J3 1929. Click images to enlarge.

Subsequent pages in the yearbook describe the high points of the first week of freshman life at KU. Some events are familiar to modern students, for example participating in fraternity and sorority recruitment and learning about university customs and traditions. Other events – like taking a psychological examination, attending teas, and registering and enrolling for fall classes right before the beginning of the semester – would be foreign.

Selected pages from the 1929 Jayhawker yearbook. University Archives.
Call Number: LD 2697 .J3 1929. Click images to enlarge.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Fall classes start in a little over one week, and students are already starting to return to Mount Oread.

Two students on campus, circa 1940-1949. Note the freshman beanie.
Photo by Duke D’Ambra. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/0 1940s Negatives: Student Activities (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

The students in the photo are standing in front of Old Fraser Hall (located roughly where modern Fraser now stands). Our best guess is that they’re on the east side of the building, near the lilac hedges across from Battenfeld and Watkins Scholarship Halls on Lilac Lane.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Students at Potter Lake, 1981. T. Ontko, photographer.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 0/24/1 Potter Lake 1981 Prints:
Campus: Areas and Objects (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

An aerial view of the KU campus looking west to Engel Road
from 16th and Ohio, 1925. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/24/A 1925 Prints:
University General: Campus: Campus Aerials (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

The above aerial view with buildings labeled. Click image to enlarge.

You can see the two aerial photographs we’ve posted previously, one from 1952 and one from 1942.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Melissa Kleinschmidt
Public Services Student Assistants

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

We’ve had several weeks of hot weather on Mount Oread, and unfortunately cooling off in Potter Lake – like the students in this week’s photo – is no longer an option.

Swimming in Potter Lake, 1926. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/24/1 Potter Lake 1926 Prints: Campus: Areas and Objects (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

This photograph was taken from the Spencer Research Library side of Potter Lake, looking toward where Memorial Stadium (behind the trees on the right) and Carruth-O’Leary Hall (behind the trees on the left) now stand. The footbridge is to the left of the large diving boards on the opposite side of the pond, obscured by the large tree.

To see the diving board from the opposite side, see this Throwback Thursday post from last June.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Melissa Kleinschmidt and Abbey Ulrich
Public Services Student Assistants