Spotlight Feature

The University Archive & Special Collections has over 20,000 images online in the Rice Library Image Collection. This gallery is made of local collections on Evansville history and the surrounding areas. It includes unique items like the Evansville Argus, a newspaper produced by the African American community from 1938 to 1945. The Evansville Argus has local, state, national, and international news.

One of the most popular collections is the Flood of 1937. The collection has over 900 images of Evansville during the most devastating flood in Evansville history. It has photographs of Jeffersonville, Leavenworth, Tell City, and personal scrapbooks from community members that lived through the flood.

   Evansville Argus,        Roofless Church dedication, 1959                                  Riverside Drive, 1977
           1941

Each collection has information about the contents and date ranges for material. Some of the more popular collections include Sonny Brown, a retired Evansville Courier photographer. This has wonderful pictures of Evansville from the 1950s to the 1970s. It contains over a 100 images from Bull Island Rock Festival and many shots of politicians and celebrities like John F. Kennedy and Liberace. The galley has images from two other local photographers, Gregg Smith, who worked for the Evansville Press and Robert Blake from the Evansville Courier & Press Sunday editions. These collections have images from concerts to events around the state like the Indianapolis 500 and political rallies.

Beyond Evansville there is the John Doane collection. Mr. Doane was a photographer in Mt. Vernon, Indiana. His collection has buildings and events from Mt. Vernon history but also has many photographs from New Harmony. Another New Harmony collection is the Don Blair collection. This is a wonderful historic collection of New Harmony from the 1880 to the 1820s.

   Posey County Courthouse, 1950                    Rodeo Parade in New Harmony, 1935,               Transitions Yearbook,                                                                                                                                                                         1973

The online gallery is growing every day. New collections are being added all the time. Over the next few months there will be a University Photograph collection that will include smaller collections like athletics, commencements, and buildings on campus. Graduation commencement booklets and yearbooks are already online.

Anyone can search or browse collections. There are links to share and for tagging images on the gallery as well as a comment section where people can leave thoughts or information about individual images. Look for postings about new collections on the
Let's Talk Library blog.

Check out Rice Library's previous Spotlight Features.