Photos in a Flash

The Centennial Image Collection includes all available information about each photo, and it allows users to view thumbnails or download high-resolution image files for educational use and for personal enjoyment. Here’s how to see what’s there:

Navigate online to http://archive.umw.edu.

Under the blue “Archives @ UMW” banner, you’ll see a link to the “Centennial Image Collection.”  Click it to access the search page. On the left navigation bar, under “Repository,” click “Show All” to view the entire collection.

Choose from the two icons at right – “list view” for titles and “icon view” for thumbnail images of the photos – to browse the entire collection, beginning with “1913 The Nightingales” and ending with “YWCA officers [1965].”

Try these search tips:

To browse by title, find the “Browse” column at left, then click on “By Title” to access an alphabetical list. On a recent day, a click on the letter “D” yielded 59 image titles, including five daisy-chain images from 1930 and 1932. “G” produced 31 images, including “Girls in Beanies” and “Goldwater for President Rally.”  “C” and “Class of 1918” brought up an image of smiling students in white skirts and swept-up Gibson-girl hairdos singing with their arms raised, mimicking the wings of songbirds.

Use the “Search” function by typing in such subjects as “Nina Bushnell” to see the storied dean of women who from 1921 to 1950 kept a strict vigil over the morals and manners of Mary Washington girls. Or search “James Farmer” to find images of the civil rights leader who taught at UMW.

Have information or photos to share?

To add information about images you recognize or to upload your own photos, visit the UMW centennial photo blog at http://centennial.umwblogs.org. The blog links to the UMW centennial group on Flickr, an online photo-sharing service. To learn more about the blog and its connection to Flickr, go to http://centennial.umwblogs.org/about.