NEWBERRY — Newberry College recently opened an archive room on campus — this new room stores Newberry College historical documents from its founding in 1856 to the present.
A culmination of five years of work by Dr. Tracy Power, assistant professor of history and the director of the college archives, the public archive room is open from 1-3 p.m. on weekdays — located on the bottom floor of Wessels Library.
Power gained experience in archiving by working with the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, prior to working at Newberry College. When Power was hired by Newberry College in 2014, he was offered the opportunity to assist with the archives.
The historic documents were housed in the upper level of the library, and the college’s history was boxed away and unable to be accessed by the public. Along with the help of Nancy Rosenwald, former librarian and current special collections director, Power began organizing the boxes of documents. The process involved taking inventory of all the boxes, arranging the content into an easy-to-find system, then providing a description of all the content.
“It takes years to read through everything and get it set up and organized properly,” Power said.
The process involved lots of work; but, according to Power it was well worth it.
While analyzing all of the documents and photos, Power learned more about the college. During the inventory process he found a gold medal and was unsure of its history. Two years later, Power was reading through a different document when he discovered the medal was for an award from a writing competition that granted scholarships to the winner. The medal, the scholarship and the winning paper are now on display right outside the archive room.
“You learn something new each day when you are working with the archives,” Power said.
The archive room has presidential journals, college annuals, newspapers, unpublished papers and student records. Much of the information isn’t available anywhere except the archive room, according to Power.
Along with generic information about students, the year they attended Newberry and what clubs and activities they were in, one can find stories — such as president George B. Cromer having to talk with the junior and senior class about why they cannot blow up the outhouses. Later that year, Cromer talked to the freshmen and the sophomores about why they cannot throw bullets into the fireplace to scare people.
Also, in 1912 a student named Louis Herbert Wink built a working airplane at the college.
Now that the archive room is officially open, Power and some of his student interns are organizing the room. Power is also looking to expand the archives past the bottom floor of the library.
The library has copies of the college annuals from 1941 to 2011, and Power is considering placing them on the main floor of the library so alumni can have easier access.
“The Newberry College annuals are usually one of the more popular documents that alumni want to see,” said Power.
While this is not available yet, it is something Power hopes to get done. In the future, Power wants to start digitizing some of the school newspapers from 1929 to 2010 — but that will require a grant.
