To many, the thought of a school yearbook connotes images of mediocre Photoshop skills, pubescent faces on a blue background and sensationalized editorials about irrelevant varsity teams. For me, simply looking at one brings up long suppressed anxieties about collecting scrawled signatures and maintaining subjective relevancy. Yet regardless of whether those old middle and high school yearbooks instill angst or nostalgia, we can’t deny their ability to reflect the past in shocking (and often uncomfortable) clarity.
Yearbooks are unlike any other publication because this is their sole purpose: to capture the essence of a particular environment, time and experience.
This leads us to the unavoidable question of “So, where’s the UF yearbook?” Well, you sort of missed the boat on that one. The first UF yearbook, misleadingly titled “The Seminole,” was published in 1910 and printed annually up until 1973, when financial issues supposedly interfered. Brought back in 1983 under the much more appropriate title, “The Tower” (like Century Tower, in case you didn’t catch that), the yearbook flourished until financial issues once again ended its reign in 2008.
I was lucky enough to meet with the university archivist, Peggy McBride, and sift through these dusty relics last week, as one of my English seminars was conducting research into Floridian and collegiate culture in the 1950s. We were somehow deemed responsible enough to handle a variety of archival materials from that infamous decade, and needless to say, I was in heaven. Despite the variety of materials at our disposal, I was drawn to the yearbooks.
The phrase that comes to mind is “Everything changes; everything stays the same.” I laughed in disbelief at the “Beauty” section in the center of the yearbooks, with its full-page photos of blonde debutantes and accompanying descriptions of their well bred credentials. Immediately after, I gazed in disbelief at a photograph of drunken Hawaiian-shirt-clad upperclassmen that looked as if it could have been plucked off someone’s Instagram.
More than anything, I was amazed at what a comprehensive image the yearbooks gave me. Sure, there were the fraternity formals and Homecoming bonfires, but also the racial inequality and Cold War tensions. I wondered where the students peering at me from black and white photographs were today.
As my classmates flipped through glossy pages searching for photos of their grandparents, I was struck by the fact that fictional grandchildren of my own wouldn’t be able to do the same.
Bringing it back to the 21st century, I truly believe the UF yearbook should be revived from its extinction. For one, there’s no other publication solely dedicated to conserving the present student culture in a way that’s accessible to future generations. Sure, there’s the Alligator, but that’s more geared towards disseminating information than preserving it. Our personal collegiate souvenirs may remind us of our four years in Gainesville, but that neglects the more holistic student experience. Our undergraduate journeys are immensely personal in nature, yet we often underplay the influence UF as an institution has on them.
Another potential hurdle is the sheer size of the UF Student Body, as any attempt to document the entire student experience is sure to exclude someone. But I suppose an incomplete attempt is better than none at all.
I can only hope that at some point in the near future the yearbook will experience its third revival. Maybe we could name it “The Potato.” But in the meantime, I highly recommend you visit the university archives on UF’s digital collections website and scroll through some of the old yearbooks. Maybe then you’ll be convinced.
Marisa Papenfuss is a UF English junior. Her column appears on Tuesdays.
