Scope & Content Notes with a Note on Reorganization
Note: Click on the underlined links at the end of each
paragraph to go directly to that series' section of the File Contents Inventory.
Major
Series/Subseries in UA 02-042:
Minutes/Resolutions
1878-1931: This series consists of both notes and drafts
of Board of Trustees; Minutes of meetings, and drafts of resolutions
brought for consideration at Board meetings. It is organized
chronologically for both subseries (this organizational schema most
nearly represents the previous calendaring of the collection).
Box 1, files 1-84
Annual
Reports 1890-1932: This series includes reports from a variety
of agencies, from the Trustees as a whole (and their subsidiary and
supernumerary components as well), to subsidiary elements of the University
of Georgia in Athens, to what were once referred to as Branch Colleges
throughout the state. Reports
from the office of the Chaplain and from the Medical Department in
particular help present a fuller picture of University life as the
campus moved from the 19th into the 20th century. Box 1, files 85-105 & Box 2, files 1-42
Committee Reports
1890-1931: Included in this series are reports from standing Trustees
Committees and special appointed committees dealing with myriad aspects
of the administration of the University. Key subseries treat the development of the
physical plant, monitor and review issues of laws and discipline for
the students, and grapple with issues of both student financial aid
and general fiscal policy. There is also a file on interactions
with the Alumni Society.
Box 2, files 43-51 & Box 3, files 1-35
Auxiliary
Reports 1879-1931: This small series of reports includes
catalogues, fiduciary documents, recommendations on degrees, and petitions
(including a series of petitions pertaining to the issue of admission
of women to the University). Box
3, files 36-40 & Box 4, files 1-7
Correspondence
1866-1931: This series is organized topically for the most
part, though a smaller subseries within this series is organized chronologically,
and principal correspondents for each time period are listed. Of interest topically within the series
are files on the admission of women, the emergence of athletics at
the University, early attempts at the mechanism of self-study (Committee
to Investigate the University), the growing role of the military on
campus, and the increasing involvement of private philanthropists
such as George Foster Peabody. The
collection offers an interesting array of 19th and early 20th century
business letterhead design. Box 4, files 8-72 & Box 5, files 1-61
Estrays
(Miscellaneous) 1891-1931: These materials resisted classification
as either correspondence or reports, and thus form their own small
subject-oriented series.
Of particular interest is an extract from
Faculty Minutes of 1891 (the only such document extant, as the regular
Faculty Minutes for that period were lost in the Science Hall fire
of 1903). Researchers may also find the copies of the University’s
Code of Laws from 1897 and 1928 to be of some interest. Box 5,
files 62-81
Collection
Working Papers 2002-2003: This small box houses the working
papers of Ms. Ann N. Graham, principal processing archivist for this
collection. Box 6
On the Reorganization:
These papers were received
into the Rare Book/Special Collections section of the University of Georgia
Libraries at some point prior to the mid-1950s. In the late 1950s
- early 1960s, these papers were calendared by Special Collections staff
under the supervision of John Bonner and housed in six boxes. This
dual system was arranged chronologically, with the initial series of Reports
followed by a series of Correspondence, each in their separate chronological
sequence. Either in the course of original ordering, or over years
of use by patrons, support documents became equally dispersed into both
the Reports and Correspondence series, and there was migration of Reports
documents into the Correspondence folders and Correspondence into Reports
files as well.
In 1996-1997, it was
decided that the papers were relatively inaccessible to researchers in
their then-current sequence, and it was decided to re-order the collection,
developing broad organic series suggested by the records themselves.
Almost immediately, this work was shelved to allow Archives to deal with
dislocations presented by the HVAC renovations that commenced at the UGA
Libraries in 1997. In 2002, Ms. Ann Graham joined University Archives
staff as a student worker. Her first project of significance was the
completion of work on these Trustees’ papers. After sorting through
the collection to assess the scope and content of materials, Ms. Graham worked
with Gilbert Head in delineating the major series and subseries into which
the papers in this collection would be gathered. Ms. Graham then refoldered
and reboxed the collection into a buffered environment, and generated a
file-level inventory of these papers. This phase of work was completed
on the last day of March, 2003.
Return to the UGA Archives Homepage
|
UGA
ARCHIVES
|
