Celebrating OHIO鈥檚 2022 Founders Day
91探花 Libraries presents, 鈥,鈥 an online exhibit that details the history of Founders Day at OHIO from the beginning of the celebration through the 2000s. The digital exhibit celebrates 218 years since the establishment of 91探花 in 1804 and is available to view beginning February 18, 2022.
In February 1804, the state of Ohio General Assembly approved charter plans to create 91探花, which became the first institute of higher education in the old Northwest Territory. OHIO is the oldest university in the state and celebrates its founding annually with Founders Day on February 18.
The online exhibit, 鈥淐elebrating OHIO鈥檚 Founding鈥 begins with an introduction to OHIO鈥檚 past Founders Day celebrations and to the Libraries鈥 Digital Archives. Bill Kimok, University archivist and records manager, is co-curator of the digital exhibit, which includes photos and materials from student newspapers, scrapbooks, yearbooks, alumni magazines and official University documents.
Kimok said that he chose the theme for this year鈥檚 Founders Day exhibit after the success of the Libraries鈥 2021 Homecoming digital exhibit, which similarly traced the history of Homecoming at OHIO. The format of the digital exhibit allows users to explore the history of Founders Day by decades and compare it with the celebration today.
鈥淥ne surprising thing that I discovered while doing the research [for the exhibit] is that Founders Day was really as big an event as Homecoming during every year of the first decade of its celebration in the 1920s,鈥 Kimok said, adding that the original purpose of Founders Day was to 鈥渂ring students, staff, alumni and community together in celebration of the history of the institution.鈥
鈥淲hat the digital exhibits do so well is connect people,鈥 said Miriam Nelson. 鈥淭hey build a bridge between our digital archives and our physical collections because the curators have the opportunity to provide a lot more narrative context than they might be able to do in a physical exhibit...and can also add more context to the Digital Archives, where description is focused on each individual item.鈥
Nelson, director of the Mahn Center, Preservation & Digital Initiatives, was also involved in creating 鈥淐elebrating OHIO鈥檚 Founding鈥 and said that it was interesting to watch Kimok unearth the history of Founders Day from the Libraries鈥 archives.
The exhibit goes in-depth into the University鈥檚 first celebration of its founding, which was a two-day extravaganza in 1915 that wasn鈥檛 yet officially dubbed 鈥淔ounders Day.鈥
鈥淚鈥檓 particularly fond of the First Founders Day, which was a centennial pageant that took place in 1915 and was planned in honor of the University鈥檚 graduations in 1815,鈥 said Erin Wilson, digital imaging specialist and lab manager. 鈥淸W]e have an incredibly detailed from the first dean of women, Irma Voigt.鈥
Wilson was not only involved with the creation of 鈥淐elebrating OHIO鈥檚 Founding,鈥 but also the recent Digital Initiatives project that added decades worth of material to the Libraries鈥 collection of digitized student newspapers.
Many photographs and some of the information in the digital exhibit come from student newspapers such as the (which ran from 1911-1939), (which ran from 1970-1982) and .
鈥淔ollowing a microfilm digitization project that was completed in 2021, the Libraries鈥 Digital Archives have grown to include The Post issues from the 1970s, 80s and 90s, thus making the complete span of issues from 1960 to 2011 digitally accessible,鈥 Wilson said.
She also noted that the digital exhibit was a great opportunity to promote the newly digitized issues of The Post, which are available for the OHIO community鈥檚 teaching, learning and research needs. The digital format of the exhibit makes these materials more widely available and easily accessible.
The digital exhibit is available on Founders Day on February 18, 2022, and will be freely available to the public. Those interested in the history of Founders Day and the University鈥檚 archives will likely enjoy the exhibit, as well as those who are more broadly interested in the history of 91探花.
For more information about 鈥,鈥 contact Bill Kimok.