Contact University Archives
Classroom & Beyond
Faculty from many disciplines use the Archives to enhance their students' classroom experience by introducing them to primary sources, original materials, and unique research opportunities. Below are a few examples:
- American Culture Studies: On Location traveling seminar, summer 2013University Archives worked with Professor Linda Lindsey to support “On Location: Asian and Native Hawaiian Experiences of Americanization.” Her graduate and undergraduate students visited University Archives to learn background history before traveling to California and Hawaii. After returning to St. Louis, students wrote in-depth papers. Professor Lindsey indicated that the archival information had a very positive effect on her students’ papers.
- Transregional History: "Mobilising Shame: Violence, the Media, and International Relations" fall 2013When faculty are teaching courses cross-listed in multiple areas, University Archives staff works closely with Subject Librarians to provide both archive and library instructional sessions to students.
- American Culture Studies: Methods and Visions "Unthinkable Crimes" fall 2013The students Katherine Mooney's "Unthinkable Crime" seminar examined copies of the St. Louis Evening Whirl for primary examples of sensational crime reporting.
- Art and Art History: "Photography in America" fall 2013During their class visit to the archive, student in Professor Miller's course were able to examine photographs as both objects and images. The class examined over a dozen different types of photographic processes, including glass negatives, tintypes, cyanotypes, and and stereoscopes.
- Architecture: Social Justice and the Built Environment spring 2013 & 2014Associate Professor Robert Hansman's "Social Justice and the Built Environment" students used Archive resources to study both historic and present-day issues of civil rights in St. Louis.
- History: Civil Rights and Service-learningWashington University students in Associate Professor Sonia Lee's classes "The Long Civil Rights Movement" and an "Building St. Louis History: The City and Its Renaissance" relied heavily on the rich documentation available at University Archives.
(Washington University Magazine February 2012) - Comparative Literature "1968 - In Theory and Praxis," spring 2012Stamos Metzidakis's students visited the University Archives to view materials from the 1960s, such as an original printing of the Port Huron Statement, and protests flyers posted on campus. These provided a visceral context to the literature they were reading focused on the year 1968.
- Freshman Seminar "How To Read A University," fall 2010 and fall 2011Professor Bill Maxwell's first year students explored Washington University Yearbooks as part of their course "How to Read A University" and also viewed "Once Upon A Hill" a 1960s film produced on campus showing a day in the life of a student.
Support for Faculty
University Archives strongly encourages the use of the collections in support of teaching and learning.
Arrangements can be made for classes to meet in University Archives (at the West Campus Library) or in Special Collections (at Olin Library on the Danforth Campus). The format is flexible: we encourage faculty or instructors to select the materials they would like to present in a classroom setting, or University Archives staff can assist in selecting and introducing materials. We are happy to show materials for single class visits or to put them on internal reserve for consultation in our reading room (at University Archives) during normal hours of operation (Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.).