Historical Photograph Collection
The Roy C. Andrews collection, 1902-1955

Collection number: PH 003

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Biographical Sketch:

Roy C. Andrews was a school teacher and administrator in Michigan, Texas, Arkansas, Washington and Oregon. He was a chemistry instructor at the University of Oregon from 1935 until his retirement in 1950. Andrews is noted for his photographs of one-room schoolhouses in southern Lane County, 1911-1913.

Born in Doon, Iowa on March 3, 1885, Andrews attended the State Normal School in San Jose, California (now Cal State). In 1908-09 Andrews taught high school in Columbus, Texas, and the following year may have taught in Lorane, Oregon. In 1911 he became the rural school supervisor for southern Lane County, which gave him the opportunity to travel to fifty one-room schoolhouse in the area. As a diarist and amateur photographer, Andrews documented a wide variety of school buildings, classrooms settings, and teachers with their students.

In 1915 Andrews received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Oregon, and taught high school in Astoria, Oregon until 1917. From 1919-20 he taught at South Bend, Washington, and from 1920-34 at Jefferson High School on Portland. In 1935 he was placed in charge of the chemistry laboratory at the University of Oregon, and later began teaching on campus. Throughout his life, Roy C. Andrews was active in the Unitarian Church, the Portland Choral Society, and the Eugene hiking group, Obsidians. Roy C. Andrews died on February 3, 1955 following a brief illness.

Scope and Contents:

This collection consists of 2,037 nitrate negatives, 18 glass-plate negatives, and 2,047 vintage silver gelatin photoprints, 247 of which are in an album. Copy negatives and viewing prints have also been produced. Among the photographs is a series of primary school photographs, interior and exterior, taken in Lane County, Oregon, 1911 and 1912. Approximately 100 images on nitrate are of unidentified schools. Images of life in Eugene and on the University of Oregon campus also appear in the collection. The collection is arranged in four series:

People and Places: Snapshot photographs, including southern Lane County, Oregon schools, arranged by state, city, site and activity. (P1-P1499A; album contains P759-P1006).

Friends and Family: Snapshot photographs of the Andrews family and friends, arranged by name (P1500-P1970).

Various Subjects: Snapshot photographs, arranged alphabetically (P1971-GN2015).

Non-Andrews photographs: postcards, souvenir photographs, and snapshots from friends (P2016-2049).

The original donation included a series of hand-tinted lantern slides and a kerosene slide projector with an attachment for opaque projections; the location of those items is not known.

Andrews' best known image is of two schoolgirls at lunch from Hadleyville, Oregon. "Dixie Queens" is image P954

Extent: 9 linear ft. (34 containers)

Provenance:

The collection was donated by Andrews' sisters, Martha Belknap and Dorothy Brown, in March 1955.

Access restrictions: None.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Roy C. Andrews collection, PH 003-[item number], Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403-1299.

Related materials:

Related materials (diaries, one account book, two ledgers, music concert lists, correspondence, University of Oregon material, and other miscellaneous items) are housed in the Roy C. Andrews Papers, Ax 2.

Publication rights:

Property rights reside with Special Collections and University Archives. Copyright resides with the creators of the documents or their heirs. All requests for permission to publish images must be submitted to the Photographs Curator of Special Collections and University Archives. The reader must also obtain permission of the copyright holder.

Processed by: Ross Sutherland/Megan Dazey and Normandy S. Helmer

Date Completed: June 1994/ February 2004

For a listing of some of the other digital collections or projects being undertaken by the Libraries, please visit the UO Libraries Digital Collections Home Page.

Support for this project was generously provided to the Libraries through a gift from Margaret and Thomas Hart.