Photograph Albums Collection | Oberlin College Archives

The Photograph Albums Collection comprises albums or album contents dating from 1861 to 2000.  Fifteen of these date from the 19^th century, with cartes-de-visite, collotypes, tintypes, cabinet cards, postcards, cyanotypes, and other early prints.  Cyanotypes dominate the contents of albums dating from 1900 to 1910, typically taken by Oberlin students themselves.  From the 1920s to the 1960s several College-produced albums feature quality gelatin silver prints made by the College photographers, father and son Arthur Ludwig Princehorn and Arthur Ewing Princehorn. 

The most common type of album in the collection are those created by students with snapshots of friends in dormitories, athletics, theatrics, and other activities, as well as College buildings and outings to natural areas.  Some notable exceptions are a Civil War album by a former Oberlin Academy student with photographs by nationally known photographers; an album of “volunteers” or missionaries to China from the class of 1886; the album of the Japanese Student Club; the Oberlin Ambulance Unit album; the Oberlin Centennial album; the Oberlin College V-12 Unit album; and an album devoted to the proposed Kulas Organ Center within the 1963 Conservatory building by Yamasaki, which includes architectural drawings.

Another exception to the rule in this collection is a dis-bound album of oversized, black and white photographs taken at Oberlin College by Life Magazine photographer Bill Ray in 1970.  Life published a photo essay, “An Intimate Revolution in Campus Life,” on November 20, 1970 on Oberlin’s new dormitory policy, which permitted students to visit each other at all hours.  The album contains some of the photographs in the essay, and many more that were not; it was presented to the College in gratitude for its participation.  Life also gifted photographs to one and possibly more of the subjects of the essay.  The copyright to these photographs is held by Time Inc., and thus they cannot be copied or reproduced without their permission.  (The published issue is available in RG 21 Oberlin File, Subgroup 5B, Oversize Box 1).