Celebrating 60 years of preserving Buckeye history

The Ohio State University Archives is turning 60 this fall. That’s six decades of preserving the university’s heart and history, protecting millions of pages of paper and digital documents and thousands of artifacts. Housed in a vast climate-controlled facility on West Campus, the archives’ collections range from early, handwritten letters to military uniforms, agricultural implements and an astounding array of maps, manuscripts and photographs. 

“I like to say the archives is the official memory of Ohio State. We document and preserve the history of everything at the university,” says Tamar Chute, university archivist. “That includes anything from new building blueprints to traditions like freshman beanies in the 1920s or the lyrics to campus ditties.”  

Though the university was founded in 1870, it wasn’t until 1965 that Ohio State established a centralized archives, consolidating pockets of historical materials that were kept in various units scattered around campus. In 1995, the ever-growing archives moved to its current spacious home on Kenny Road, where stacks 170 feet long and 30 feet tall hold a multitude of boxes of materials. 

“We get items almost every day from the university,” Chute said. “We just received 600 boxes of films – mostly game footage – from the Department of Athletics. We’re working to inventory it and determine how best to preserve and potentially digitize it for long-term storage.” 

The treasure trove of archived materials, however, isn’t just tucked away in locked, temperature-controlled vaults. It’s brought to life in classrooms, exhibitions and research projects that connect past to present for students, faculty, alumni and visitors. 

“We want to connect our materials with others,” Chute said. “I love using artifacts to tell stories about the university, and to share its background and history with students in classes. Earlier today, I took some wooden apples with hooks in them to a Lunch-and-Learn program for the alumni association. They couldn’t guess what they were for.”

As it turns out, an Ohio State study once used the apples to determine if harmful insects were drawn to scent or color in apple orchards. 

“We’re open to researchers of all kinds, too,” Chute added. “We want to be able to help people. We want to answer questions. We want to do special programming. We want to engage with our community.” 

Nicole Craven discovered the archives early in her career with Ohio State’s First Year Experience office.

“My role is orienting new students with Ohio State and setting a foundation for them. I’ve done a lot to educate myself about the broader history of our university to lay the groundwork for our newest Buckeyes,” said Craven, associate director of the program.

“Early on, I wanted to find out what orientation used to be like, so I went to the archives to research ‘freshman week’ and discovered a tour script from 1927,” she said. “The archives gave me a copy of that tour route, and I mapped it out to figure out where everything was then compared to 80 years later. I am orienting new students to the physical layout of the campus and also the history and traditions of the university.” 

Craven is a third-generation Buckeye; her parents and grandparents (and her two sisters and husband) are all alumni.

“My grandmother majored in home economics in the 1940s, and my dad watched the campus protests unfold in 1970 from the safety of Thompson Library,” she said. “I have an appreciation for Ohio State’s past and how it feeds into who we are today. There is so much rich history here, and the archives preserves it and helps contextualize it so we can understand where we’ve been.” 

Craven has chosen to support University Archives as a donor, too.

Chute says donor support helps University Archives go above and beyond, including the ability for archives to invest in student workers, allowing them to gain workplace experience. Donations also support exhibitions of archived materials, oral history interviews, special events and speakers, and educational outreach. 

For alumni, wistful remembrances can spark support.  

“People remember their time on campus,” Chute said. “Preserving university traditions ties people together no matter when they went to Ohio State. It’s like when people see someone wearing a Buckeye shirt anywhere in the world, there is an instant connection. If you don’t maintain the reasons for why we wear scarlet and gray, or who Brutus Buckeye is, the history can fracture. People see the value of preserving our rich history and timeless traditions.”