Alumni Files, 1910 - 1978

As a result of the efforts of both staff and alumni, the Alumni Files are a fairly complete and informative record consisting of the Alumni Information Files, 1910-70, the List of Alumni, Classes of 1911-78, and the Alumni Publications, 1947-75. Over the years the school staff tried to keep themselves informed of the whereabouts and achievements of the alumni. The Alumni Association has been in existence since approximately 1932 (see “Alumni Association Business” and the publications), and many of the graduates have been consistently in contact with their alma mater and former classmates through both the Association and the newsletters.

The Alumni Information Files are compiled from two questionnaires sent to alumni, c.1955 and c.1968, requesting basic personal and professional statistics: birth date, address, spouses’ name, occupation of alumni and spouse, educational and professional credentials. (Although the Institute did not become a full four-year high school until 1924, the classes of 1910-23 were also listed as alumni.) A list of alumni, organized in alphabetical order within graduating classes, has been kept and updated through 1978, the last year that the school was in operation. The alumni newsletters—the Alumni Newsletter and the Alumni Reflector—are brief, newsy reports on the alumni and their families. These were often originally a part of the various school newspapers but were evidently detached from these publications at some point and filed with other materials regarding alumni.