The creation of what was first known as the Washington Agricultural College and School of Sciences was authorized by the Washington State Legislature in March of 1890. The first Board of Regents first met in April of 1891, and began the business of creating and running the college. The Regents had full authority over all the college’s financial transactions. President E.A. Bryan describes the financial processes of the early college on page 523 of his Historical Sketch of the State College of Washington by saying: “all moneys collected were at once placed on deposit to the order of the treasurer of the board and were paid out only on vouchers duly audited by the board.”
The Washington Agricultural College became the State College of Washington on 1905, and in turn the Washington State University in 1959. The Board of Regents has remained the school’s governing body throughout its history, though their control over the purse strings is now held at a much less fine level of detail.
This collection contains vouchers for university purchases, reimbursements, payments, and other expenditures incurred from 1892-1912. In this time period, the Regents approved virtually all college expenditures, and so every aspect of the college’s financial spending can be tracked through the payment records in this collection. This often includes payroll information for faculty and staff, as well as payments for contractors, architects, and for the daily management of the school. These records also include vouchers regarding the extension offices and research properties owned by the university across the state. Some materials from 1913-1914 are also included, but they are incomplete and relatively small.
The materials are arranged in chronological order, organized by year and month, reflecting the date(s) of purchase on each voucher. Within each months the materials are in no particular order. The small number of materials for 1913 and 1914 are each contained within single folders dated only by year.
This collection is open and available for research use.
[Item description] Washington State College Board of Regents Vouchers, 1892-1914
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The records in this collection were transferred to the Washington State University Libraries’ Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC) in February of 1980 from the Controller’s Office via University Records Manager Bruce Harding. They were retained as UA1980-03.
These records were processed in July of 2018 by James Feller. The items in this collection were originally in a general chronological order, dated by the date of auditing on each voucher, and were reorganized to their current order in processing.
Archives 369, Controller’s Office Records 1899-1920s, contains contracts and bonds from this time period, plus business correspondence of the Board of Regents. A number of subject-organized contract files in this time period can be found in Archives 50, Controller's Office Contract Files 1893-1973. Later records can be found in other Controller’s Office collections.
The vouchers are noted as having been microfilmed prior to transfer, but it is believed that this film is held only at the WSU Controller’s Office, not in MASC.
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.