The University Archives is working hard to bring more and more of its collections out of hiding and make them available to researchers. As part of that effort we recently published finding aids for three Columbia photograph album collections: two featuring scenes of the Morningside campus from the 1930s and 1940s and one from President Nicholas Murray Butler.

The Walter L. Bogert Photograph album, 1932-1943, captures views of Columbia campus and of Morningside Heights taken by alumnus W.L. Bogert (AB 1888, AM 1889, LLB 1934). He lived at 25 Claremont Avenue and produced a photographic record of his alma mater and neighborhood. Some of his campus building photographs were included in the 1940 Columbia University calendar. This album serves as a comprehensive source for campus views of this period and includes scenes of Student Army Training Corps (SATC) reviews.

The Holcomb E.M. Jones Photograph Album, 1936-1943, similarly captures the Columbia campus in the late 1930s and early 1940s but, in this case, from a student perspective. Holcomb Jones (AB 1940) documented his days at Columbia College with photographs of his dorm rooms in Hartley Hall, the Columbia Boathouse and crew teams, Varsity Show rehearsals, a night at the Lion’s Den, and football games both at Baker Field and away. Jones also took photographs of King George VI’s visit in 1939, the World’s Fair in Queens in 1939, and Commencement days 1939 and 1940.

In 1916, Columbia University President Nicholas Murray Butler (AB 1882, AM 1883, PhD 1884) was elected by the Bohemian Club directors as an “honorary member,” the highest category of membership, reserved for a handful of prominent or distinguished men. As a member, Butler could (and did) attend the Club’s annual event, Bohemian Grove. This was a two-week summer retreat, held on private, Club-owned property, north of San Francisco. The Nicholas Murray Butler Bohemian Grove Photo Albums, 1916-1924 collection consists of four photo albums, featuring photos of the site: the entrance, the grove, the paths, the redwoods and the Russian River. Also featured are the campsites (Land of Happiness, Mandalay, Woof and Lost Angels), the performances at the Grove Theatre, the ceremony of the Cremation of Care at the Owl altar, and Butler and his Land of Happiness fellow campers: Carl F. Ahlstrom, William H. Crocker, Jerome Landfield, Henry S. Pritchett and camp founder Joseph Redding.