There are no restrictions this collection.
The collection is located on-site.
Photographs consist of black and white prints and negatives, color prints and negatives, and color slides and transparencies documenting the activities of the School of Journalism. Images include portraits and events involving students, faculty, administrators, professional journalists, and visitors.
This series contains photographs of professors, both portraits and candid scenes in class with, or without, students. Faculty portraits are arranged alphabetically since dates of service overlap. Photos of students are arranged by class year. Photographs of students are found throughout the collection participating in events and class instruction. Class portraits include views of students standing in a group and those of students sitting at desks in the News Room. Although student portraits may later seem to fall under alumni and alumnae portraits, they document student activities at the Journalism School and are found under this series.
Individual courses are listed alphabetically under subseries "Instruction." Scholarships, Fellowships & Awards pertaining to students are also included as a subseries. Professional Awards, such as the DuPont Awards, are located in Series IV.
Deans, members of advisory boards, benefactors and other supporters of the School are located in this series. Administrators and deans are listed chronologically. Some members may also be found in the first series under "faculty." Events particular to the administration, and those that encompass participation from several groups include administration, students, alumni and alumnae, Columbia University community, and general public, such as commencement ceremonies, Scholastic Press Conference, and the 50th anniversary of the School.
Journalism Day is comprised of various lectures and awards ceremonies at the end of the academic year, such as the Pringle Memorial Lectures and Journalism Award. To locate a particular event, consult both "Journalism Day" the individual event folders.
Photographs documenting "Events" are found under Series II, III and IV. Events specific to Alumni and alumnae and professional programs are found in those respected series. Some events focusing on alumni, students, faculty and staff include Journalism Day, Columbia Journalism Alumni meetings, reunions, exhibits, etc., but often these groups overlap.
Series IV: Professional Events & Prizes
Columbia University hosts many national and international programs and prizes for superior work in professional journalism. Awards include the Pulitzer Prizes, Dupont Awards in broadcast journalism, Maria Moors Cabot Prizes in inter-American understanding, and Mike Berger Awards for feature reporting. The school also hosts professional lecture programs and forums such as the Panel Breakfast from the Poliak Center for the Study of First Amendment Issues, Reuter Forums, and Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism Lectures. Other lectures, such as the Henry F. Pringle Memorial Lectures, are included since they are not targeted solely as student instruction.
Series V: Buildings and Grounds
Photographs of the Journalism Building, Morningside Campus and beyond are arranged in alphabetical order under this series. People are absent from most of these images. Views of building exteriors and interiors can also be found in other series, such as class photos in the newsroom, class instruction, and any event involving the School.
School and University symbols, such as school seals or logos, are arranged under this series. Paintings, busts, and other images and artifacts of Joseph Pulitzer are found under Series II: "Administration". Likewise, objects that my symbolize the school, such as the Journalism Building and Statue of Liberty stained-glass window, are located in Series V: "Buildings and Grounds".
Negatives were separated from the prints and are located in this series. Negatives maintained using a "Nega-file" indexing system created in 1943-1944 were kept in their original order to assist the location of corresponding negatives to prints.
This collection is arranged in 7 series.
You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.
There are no restrictions this collection.
The collection is located on-site.
Reproductions may be made for research purposes. The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Photographs, 1918-2002, University Archives, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York.
Columbia Spectator Photograph Collection, 1950-1999 (UA#0036)
Columbia University Faculty Photographs Collection, 1938 (UA#0115),
Graduate School of Journalism Founding Documents, 1892-1912 [Bulk Dates: 1903-1904](UA#0562)
Graduate School of Journalism Records, 1912-1999 (UA#0065)
Historical Photograph Collection, 1860 - . (UA#0003)
Office of Public Affairs Photographs, 1947-2006 (UA#0109)
Richard T. Baker Papers, 1930-1981 (MS#0061)
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
This collection was processed by Jennifer Ulrich in 2003.
Finding aid written by Jennifer Ulrich in March 2003.
Finding aid reformatted by Evan Roth (SEAS 201) in November 2008.
Finding aid further edited by Jocelyn Wilk in July 2012.
Additional materials added and finding aid edited by Jocelyn Wilk in August 2017.
2009-10-29 File created.
2019-05-20 EAD was imported spring 2019 as part of the ArchivesSpace Phase II migration.
The School of Journalism was established through monies left to Columbia University in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, renowned photojournalist and newspaper magnate, who passed away in 1911. As he wrote in his will, "There are now special schools for instruction for lawyers, physicians, clergymen, military and naval officers, engineers, architects and artists, but none for the instruction of journalists. That all other professions and not journalism should have the advantage of special training seems to me contrary to reason." [pp. 3-4, "Extracts from the Will of Joseph Pulitzer, died, October 29, 1911]. The original agreements regarding the establishment and organization of the school were made in 1903 and 1904, but the school did not actually open until 1912 – a year after Pulitzer died
Seventy-nine undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in that first class, including a dozen women. Classes convened at several locations around campus, as the Journalism building was still under construction. The building opened the next year, and in 1917 the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded. The School of Journalism began as an undergraduate school offering a B.Litt. Degree to its graduates, but in 1935 the School became the first in the nation to adopt a program exclusively at the graduate level.
Dean Carl W. Ackerman, one of the first nine to graduate from the School in 1913, spearheaded the school's 1935 transition to become the first graduate school of journalism in the United States. Devoted to intensive, hands-on instruction, the school gave classes of sixty students the lives of journalists, racing around the city on subways to find stories during the day, and drafting articles in a single, large newsroom in the Journalism building well into the night.
The Journalism School's reach and reputation as a unique incubator of talent soared throughout the years, from the foundation of the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes in 1939 to promote inter-American understanding to the establishment of satellite schools in China and Venezuela during the next decade. The school also began to offer coursework in television news and documentary to supplement its traditional focus on newspapers and radio. Approaching its 50th year, the school instituted Journalism Day and the Columbia Journalism Award, and in 1961 established the Columbia Journalism Review, a groundbreaking publication covering trends and developments in the profession.
The Journalism School's sixth decade was an exciting one, as the building added newsrooms, began to dispense the National Magazine Awards, and created the Alfred I. DuPont – Columbia Awards for excellence in broadcast journalism. In 1966 the school brought in Fred Friendly, the legendary former president of CBS News, and opened a new broadcast news laboratory shortly thereafter. Friendly initiated a summer program for minority students, and Luther P. Jackson '51 became the school's first African-American professor.
Innovation with an eye towards tradition continued to guide the Journalism School through the years. The 1960s and 1970s established the blueprint of the school's basic curriculum and codified Reporting and Writing 1 (RW1) as the cornerstone of the Master of Science experience. The creation of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship to enrich business journalism in 1975 and the 1985 creation of the Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism gave students invaluable opportunities to specialize. Recognizing that computers and a changing media landscape would revolutionize journalism in the twenty-first century, Dean Joan Konner moved decisively in the 1980s and 90s to ensure that the school offered cutting-edge technology and intensive broadcast experience second to none.
The addition of a Ph.D. Program in 2001, a Master of Arts degree in 2005, and the 2006 opening of the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism have underlined the Journalism School's continuing vitality as it approaches its centennial. Recently, the opening of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism and the announcement of a new dual M.S. degree in Computer Science and Journalism have demonstrated the school's continued commitment to innovation and its endless capacity to evolve along with a field that is always on the move.
Former Deans of the Graduate School of Journalism:
Talcott Williams, (Director) 1912-1919
John W. Cunliff, (Director) 1920-1931
Carl William Ackerman, 1931-1955
Edward W. Barrett, 1956-1968
Elie Abel, 1969-1979
Osborn Elliott, 1979-1987
Joan Konner, 1988-1997
Tom Goldstein, 1997-2002
Nicholas Lemann, 2003-2013
Steve Coll, 2013-
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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