If you are looking to research a specific student who attended Smith College, there are many resources available in Smith College Special Collections. We have created two guides as starting points, one to highlight the select materials that can be accessed online and the other which is more expansive and lists where materials can be found throughout the collections of smith College Archives.
Before diving into these resources, please visit our Search Special Collections to learn more about searching the collection and finding digitized resources.
Things to keep in mind:
List of Smith students. Sometimes student names are missing, but often former members of the class are listed. Located in the Special Collections Reading Room.
Archival records kept for each graduating class.
Search for "Class of XXXX". For example, "Class of 1902" would be part of Classes of 1901-1910 records
Part of Class Records.
Search for "Class of XXXX". For example, "Class of 1902" would be part of Classes of 1901-1910 records.
Example: Mary Louise Bancroft
Smith College Yearbooks/Class books from 1897-1933 are digitized. Visit the College Publications page of this guide for information on accessing digitized issues.
Full run available in the Special Collections Reading Room for research.
The Smith Alumnae Quarterly (SAQ) was established in 1909 and is published by College Relations four times each year. They include life updates submitted by alumnae, class notes, obituaries, reports on campus events (such as commencement), plus articles about alumnae, faculty, and more.
You can also visit the mobile site for the best experience. For information on navigating the digital archive, follow the directions in the How to Use Our Digital Edition PDF.
Lists of contact information for students, faculty, and staff. A good resource to see what houses students lived in on campus if it is not otherwise mentioned in the course catalogs.
They can be found under Directories in the Smith College publications and publications records
Programs listing members of the graduating class, including graduate students. These are located in the Special Collections Reading Room.
List of courses taught at Smith. Multiple years are grouped together in one volume. Provides information about courses taught, sometimes the list of students by class, graduate assistant positions, and other information.
Visit the College Publications page of this guide for information on accessing digitized issues.
CA-MS-01054
The majority of the Office of the Registrar records includes grade sheets and transcripts. Other material includes commencement files, statistics, original exams, reports, correspondence, and information on Junior Year Abroad, Honors List and Deans list candidates.
IMPORTANT NOTE ON ACCESS: Student academic records, student disciplinary records, and all records containing FERPA-covered student information are closed during the lifetime of the student. Student records created 100 years or more ago are assumed to be about deceased students.
Materials that are currently open for research are located under College register volumes, 1879 - 1930.
Reunion books are published by the Classes at regular intervals and provide members of the Class with an opportunity to bring their classmates up-to-date on individual activities. Reunion books have been generally published at the 10th, 25th and 50th Class reunions, although some classes produced them more often. Participation in writing a piece for the reunion book was/is totally voluntary.
These are located in the Alumnae Class Records (see above)