This collection includes more than 3,500 glass plate negatives created by photographer Edmund Wolven. Most of the images are of Vassar College people, events, buildings and grounds, but there is a subset that relates to other local educational institutions and Poughkeepsie. Wolven, born in Poughkeepsie in 1876, worked for many schools and colleges in the area. He began taking photos for Vassar College in the late 1890s, and became the official college photographer between approximately 1900 and 1910. The latest photographs in this collection are from the 1940s.

Content Warning

The Vassar College Archives within the Digital Library include some images, texts, and material items that are racist, xenophobic, or otherwise harmful. The Vassar Libraries have provided descriptive text and additional notes whenever possible to alert Digital Library users to these items. The Engaged Pluralism Initiative Race and Racism in Historical Collections Project Group is working with the library on contextualizing and facilitating community conversations about these materials. For more information see: https://library.vassar.edu/rrhc