Library of Michigan seeks to expand yearbook collection

Most of our student yearbooks are gathering dust in an attic, basement or on an old bookshelf. Every now and then, we pull them out and laugh at photos of our old classmates and do the “remember that?” thing.

However, the Library of Michigan is seeking old yearbooks so they can be used as research tools.

If you have Michigan yearbooks and want to donate them, contact the Library of Michigan by email at librarian@Michigan.gov or phone at (517) 335-1477 to check if it may already have copies. Not all yearbooks are cataloged yet.

Community engagement librarian Adam Oster, who’s spearheading the collection effort, said yearbooks provide a unique snapshot of social, cultural and historical landscapes across generations.

The 1957 Cass Technical High School yearbook contains a photo of actress and comedian Lily Tomlin, then known as Mary Jean.

You might think yearbooks are all about reliving the “glory days,” but they also chart popular music, TV shows, radio programs and movies, along with trends in clothing, hairstyles and facial hair. You can trace a time when senior photos were straight-on headshots, which morphed into photos of graduating seniors taken off-site and in unusual poses, like climbing trees. You can also trace when jackets and ties began to be replaced by sweatshirts.

Yearbooks also provide insight into massive cultural movements. In the mid-‘60s, for example, women’s athletics were elevated from club sports to varsity, and yearbooks began focusing on women’s sports alongside men’s athletics.

Oster said yearbooks also give us insight into the lives of individuals like Jeff Daniels (Chelsea High School), Lily Tomlin (Cass Technical High School) and Gilda Radner (the Liggett School).

“The 1967 Chelsea yearbook has a photo of Daniels laying up a basketball,” Oster said.

Additionally, they memorialize young men who didn’t return from war and teens who were killed in auto accidents.

Oster said the library’s existing yearbook collection was spurred by a large donation of yearbooks from the Detroit Public Library, which had amassed thousands of yearbooks that were outside its service zone.

“They donated more than 7,000 yearbooks, which became the beginning of the yearbook collection,” Oster said.

He estimated that the collection contains about 80,000 to 100,000 yearbooks from schools across Michigan. The oldest is an 1861 University of Michigan yearbook that has a picture of the late Michigan Supreme Court Justice Thomas Cooley in it.

Yearbooks were sometimes themed, like the 1937 Eastern High School Lantern, which highlighted aviation and aviators like Clem Sohn, an Eastern graduate who died in 1937 while performing a daredevil aviation stunt in Paris, or the 1955 Muskegon Heights High School yearbook, which featured a modernist architecture theme. The space race was often covered in the yearbooks of the 1950s.

Yearbooks from rural areas are especially difficult to locate because of the small class sizes. (My high school in Essexville only had about 180 students in total.)

Oster said one of the most highly sought-after yearbooks is from Cadillac High School. It features a photo of an appearance by rock band Kiss at the October 1975 homecoming dance. One edition is for sale on eBay for $2,500. Another rare yearbook with Malcolm X’s (then Malcolm Little’s) photograph is virtually impossible to find. The only known copy is in New York City’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

The 2022 Oxford High School yearbook, titled “What You Didn’t See,” memorializes the loss of four classmates in a mass shooting. Oster said it’s one yearbook he hopes shows up at the library.

Inscribed yearbooks are especially interesting due to their candid comments about young love, breakups and what was going on when the yearbook was published. The inscriptions evolved from “roses are red, violets are blue” to cryptic messages hidden in letters. Many yearbooks also contain penciled-in descriptions like “married” or “dead.”

Capital Area District Libraries has what is considered the most complete collection of Lansing-area yearbooks, which are available for viewing at the downtown branch.