All Collections

Photograph album by Robert G. Whitfield documents the work of the Nashville Bridge Company on bridges in the Gainsboro and Lebanon areas from 1926 to 1929. The majority of the black and white photographs depict the construction of the Austin Peay Bridge in Jackson County, Tennessee. Other images show the construction of a bridge on the Cumberland River in Lebanon. The collection also includes photographs of camp life during the construction process, featuring the workers involved. Additionally, the album contains photos taken by Whitfield of various other bridges, including those in Gainesboro, Lebanon, Sparta, Martin, Elkton, Halls, and Historic Double Bridges. While many photos focus on the bridge construction, several capture the workers and surrounding areas.

This collection of postcards was curated by Danny Allen and donated to Tennessee Tech Archives. The Danny Allen Country Music Postcard collection features early country music artists, many of whom used postcards to promote themselves. The collection includes real photo postcards signed by musicians, postcards used for radio station advertising, and postcards containing written sentiments mailed through the United States Postal Service. Descriptions of postcards with autographs, writings, or other textual documentation include transcriptions.

Photographs taken for The Dispatch newspaper published in Cookeville, Tennessee. The newspaper was published under the title Tennessee Pictorial Dispatch from August 1963 to April 1965, and The Dispatch from April 1965 until closing in 1994.

Digitized and born digital photographs and videos taken by the Tennessee Tech University Photo Services office within the Office of Communications and Marketing. The photographs represented in this online collection are only a small fraction of the entire collection. Check out the full finding aid here: https://archives.tntech.edu/repositories/2/resources/8 Note: Photographs digitized for exhibits, as well as images and videos captured using digital cameras, are organized chronologically by decade, year, and month, where applicable. Ongoing digitization efforts will be incorporated into this collection based on box and folder numbers, aligning with the corresponding entries in the finding aid.

Students taking Dr. Tony Baker’s Fall 2024 Graphic Novel class (ENGL 4650) created Archive Comics Projects by researching primary source documents in Tech's Archives and Special Collections. Students wrote comic scripts and used their artistic skills to compose fiction and nonfiction comics. The student cartoonists used a variety of visual styles to tell a wide range of local, archived-based stories. These stories were digitized and shared in an online exhibit. The archives only holds the digital versions. In previous Graphic Novel classes, students worked with Kim Winkle's Art 2320 students to illustrate comics. Their work is in published books at the University Archives under Collab-O-Comix.

T.J. Farr (1902-1962) was a history professor at Tennessee Polytechnic Institute and a chairperson of the English and Education Departments. He was also involved with the Tennessee Folklore Society and gathered folklore from across the Upper Cumberland region, along with East Tennessee Folklore. The materials date from 1926 to 1961, with the bulk of materials dating from 1935. The materials consist of Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletins, correspondences, and membership materials; along with different folklore and superstitions he collected, and some personal attributes. Note: Only select materials from RG 59 T.J. Farr papers have been digitized and made available. To maintain continuity between physical and digital materials, these digital materials are presented in a box and folder level format. For a full list of materials, please see the finding aid available at https://www.tntech.edu/library/pdf/RG59-TJFarrPapers.pdf

The Herald-Citizen began as the Putnam County Herald, and its first edition was printed Feb. 11, 1903 by Elmer Lincoln Wirt and his son, Ralph Wirt, in their small printing shop across from the west side of the Putnam County Courthouse, where the historic Arcade building is now. Cookeville native John R. Mott started a weekly tabloid newspaper, the Cookeville Citizen, in 1954, and the two papers merged on Feb. 1, 1960, temporarily becoming the Herald and Citizen before the name changed to Herald-Citizen Jan. 14, 1969. (From https://www.herald-citizen.com/site/about.html) The Herald Citizen newspaper collection was digitized from bound copies that were donated to Tennessee Technological University Archives and Special Collections. This collection is organized chronologically by decade, year, and month according to the name of the newspaper at the time of publication. Photographs taken for The Herald Citizen newspaper were digitized from negatives and slides that were donated to Tennessee Technological University Archives and Special Collections. Photographs in this collection are organized chronologically by decade, year, and month.

 Photo of thirty-five Cookeville Cavalry men in uniform, mounted on horses.

Digitized and born-digital editions of The Eagle, the student-produced yearbook of Tennessee Tech University. Yearbooks include headshots of students, faculty members, administration, and staff; photographs of student organizations and athletic teams formally recognized by the university; photographs of campus and buildings; and photographs of events. Born-digital editions of The Eagle were originally distributed on DVDs. The born-digital editions include the software executable files and the video, image, and text files that make up the yearbooks. Note: Yearbooks in this collection are organized chronologically by decade and then by year.