The Washington State University's students residences Davis and Wilmer Halls were designed by Stanley Smith, University Architect. Constructed in 1937, they were originally named North Hall and South Hall, respectively. In 1947, they were renamed as Wilmer Hall, in honor of Frank J. Wilmer, a former state senator and member of the Board of Regents, and Arthur William Davis, another former member of the Board of Regents. They were planned and have been used continuously as women's residence halls.
To avoid confusion, it should be noted that two other Washington State College dormitories bore the North and South names - North House and South House were constructed in late 1946, and torn down before the end of the 1960s. Those were located east of Stadium Way, off of Farm (Grimes) way.
The collection consists of approximately four dozen scrapbooks created by the students and student advisors of Washington State University's Wilmer and Davis Halls, covering dates from 1937-2013. The scrapbooks document student life in these two women's dormitories, and include photographs, clippings, and ephemera. The contents change by years and are representative of the available technologies of their times - earlier scrapbooks tend to be more utilitarian, primarily newspaper clippings, while the later scrapbooks tend to be primarily photographic, and more ornate.
A small amount of student government materials, primarily minutes from 1994-2006 and two ledgers covering 1948-1981, are also included in the collection.
Individual scrapbooks were unbound and foldered upon arrival in the archives, with their commercially-purchased covers being discarded. The sole exception is the wood-bound 1941-1946 scrapbook in box 2. Several dozen loose pages, apparently either created individually or previously parsed from other scrapbooks, have been placed in folders with the scrapbooks with matching dates. Some dates overlap or even duplicate each other; this is how these were received in the archives.
While Wilmer-Davis is generally treated as one dorm today, this was not the case in the early days of this collection, so sometimes a scrapbook will be specific only to one dorm. For ease of patron use, the folder listing below is a chronological list, rather than an ordered box-folder list, with the oversized materials at the end.
While the items were organized chronologically, due to the varying sizes of the scrapbook materials they ended up in three parallel chronological physical series based on sizes (boxes 1-7 and 11-13 are 16"x20"x3" flat boxes; boxes 8-10 are standard records boxes, either 5" or 2.5", and the oversize folder is 24"x36"). Some dates overlap or even duplicate each other; this is how these were sent to the archives.
This collection is open and available for in-person research use.
Copyright and student privacy restrictions may be an issue in reproduction.
[Item Description]
Wilmer-Davis Hall Scrapbooks, 1937-2013 (Archives 342)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
These Wilmer-Davis scrapbooks had been in semi-public storage in Wilmer-Davis since their creation. In March of 2014 they were transferred to Washington State University Libraries' Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC) by Alisha Balzaretti. They were retained as UA2014-05.
This collection was processed in March-April, 2014 by University Archivist Mark O'English.
A variety of scrapbooks from other WSU dormitories are held here in the University Archives in Washington State University's Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections.
Collections specific to Washington State University Wilmer-Davis include Washington State University Davis Hall Records,
1955-1968
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.