Over the years, the Archives and Rare Books Library (ARB) has acquired numerous photographs of UC’s campus, university events, student activities, and academic departments.  ARB’s largest collection of photographs related to the University of Cincinnati, though, is the University of Cincinnati photographs collection.  The first materials in this collection came to ARB in 1977 and the photographs were organized in what archivists and librarians often call “subject files.”  This means that photos were grouped together according to subject matter.  Over the years, Public Relations and ARB staff added to the collection, and over the years, due to heavy use, photographs got misfiled into the wrong subject files.  Making the collection even more confusing, the collection was never fully inventoried nor was a finding aid created. 

In the Fall of 2024, ARB student worker, Sophia Sheppard , began working on this project.  We could have approached this collection in several different ways, but since there was little information indicating where individual photographs came from, we decided to keep these photographs together as they were and to organize it and describe it as best we could.  Sophia took the files out of the filing cabinets in which they had been stored, moved them into archival boxes, refiled misfiled photographs and created an online finding aid.  It was a daunting undertaking since many photographs were not labeled, and Sophia had to do some research to get photographs into the right places.

The online finding aid has been available since 2025, and the collection is largely complete, but we continue to add material as we process it.  We recently added two additional boxes of oversize photographs to the finding aid.  The collection is organized alphabetically into files by subject matter and the photographs date as far back as the 1890s and as recent as the early 2000s.  The collection covers a wide variety of topics related to the University of Cincinnati and its students, faculty, and staff.

In this collection, researchers can find photographs of various athletic events and athletic eams from the early 20^th century through the early 21^st century.  There are photos of campus buildings, including buildings that no longer exist.  The photographs cover all of UC’s campus’s including the main campus, medical campus, Clermont College and UC Blue Ash, and include aerial shots that demonstrate the growth of UC.   There are photos of students and faculty in classrooms, laboratories and workshops.  The collection also includes photographs of some of UC’s predecessor schools such as the Cincinnati College of Music. 

Are you interested in coming into the Archives and Rare Books Library to browse through this collection?  Do you have questions about the photographs in this collection or other photographs that may be found in the Archives and Rare Books Library?  If so, please contact the Archives and Rare Books Library at archives@ucmail.uc.edu.