Tales from the Picture File
An exhibit featuring materials from Special Collections and Archives
Union College and Schenectady have played host to countless stories over the campus’s centuries-long history. Since the invention of photography, members of the campus community have documented this history and their stories visually. Many such photographs are housed in the Picture File (SCA-1206), a collection of thousands of images preserved in the Special Collections and Archives department.
In Tales from the Picture File, SCA staff and students mined the collection for exceptional images documenting Union’s student experience, campus scenes, and surrounding neighborhoods. Many of the selected photographs were taken in the 19th century, a period when the college accepted only men and held admission quotas for groups based on religion, ethnicity, and geography. Those privileged to attend were also those most often photographed, excluding countless people who were present and prominent in the Union College community from visual collections such as the Picture File.
As you browse the exhibit, consider the subjects of these images over time and what it means to be visually represented in Union College’s history. Who is pictured, and who is not pictured? What stories do these inclusions and exclusions from the Picture File tell about Union College over time and who was considered fit to be pictured? We hope these images will enrich your understanding of the grounds you walk each day as you look back on days of Union’s past.
TO LEARN MORE OR TO EXPLORE THE PICTURE FILE FOR YOURSELF, PLEASE CONTACT SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES AT SPECIALCOLLECTIONS@UNION.EDU OR VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT UNION.EDU/SPECIAL-COLLECTIONS.
Curated by Matthew Golebiewski, Processing and Records Management Archivist & Joseph Lueck,
Outreach and Reference Archivist with assistance from Madeline Rioux, UC ‘23 and Jupiter Justice, UC ‘26.
