Tolland COUNTY · Schools & community
Storrs: classrooms, farm fields and early college life
Twenty photographs from 1890–1909 follow the agricultural college through lessons, farm work, student gatherings and a growing campus.
Historical focus · 1881–1939
LOOK CLOSER · OPEN ANY IMAGE
The story in photographs
1890
Graduating Class
Graduating Class — Storrs, Connecticut, 1890
Image credit & source
“FI0025000,” Storrs, CT, 1890 by Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library/Fortepan CT, “https://fortepan.us/categories/all/FI0025000,” CC-BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, as stated on the individual Fortepan download page; archive-published JPEG reproduced without alteration.
Original source · Reuse terms1894
Class Of 1897
Class Of 1897 — Storrs, Connecticut, 1894
Image credit & source
“FI0025009,” Storrs, CT, 1894 by Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library/Fortepan CT, “https://fortepan.us/categories/all/FI0025009,” CC-BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, as stated on the individual Fortepan download page; archive-published JPEG reproduced without alteration.
Original source · Reuse terms1899
Class Of 1899
Class Of 1899 — Storrs, Connecticut, 1899
Image credit & source
“FI0025049,” Storrs, CT, 1899 by Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library/Fortepan CT, “https://fortepan.us/categories/all/FI0025049,” CC-BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, as stated on the individual Fortepan download page; archive-published JPEG reproduced without alteration.
Original source · Reuse terms1900
Agricultural Committee At Storrs, Connecticut Agricultural College
Agricultural Committee At Storrs, Connecticut Agricultural College — Storrs, Connecticut, 1900
Image credit & source
“FI0024950,” Storrs, CT, 1900 by Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library/Fortepan CT, “https://fortepan.us/categories/all/FI0024950,” CC-BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, as stated on the individual Fortepan download page; archive-published JPEG reproduced without alteration.
Original source · Reuse terms1900
President's House
President's House — Storrs, Connecticut, 1900
Image credit & source
“FI0025096,” Storrs, CT, 1900 by Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library/Fortepan CT, “https://fortepan.us/categories/all/FI0025096,” CC-BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, as stated on the individual Fortepan download page; archive-published JPEG reproduced without alteration.
Original source · Reuse terms1901
Drawing Class
Drawing Class — Storrs, Connecticut, 1901
Image credit & source
“FI0024901,” Storrs, CT, 1901 by Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library/Fortepan CT, “https://fortepan.us/categories/all/FI0024901,” CC-BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, as stated on the individual Fortepan download page; archive-published JPEG reproduced without alteration.
Original source · Reuse terms1902
President Stimson, Connecticut Agricultural College
President Stimson, Connecticut Agricultural College — Storrs, Connecticut, 1902
Image credit & source
“FI0024945,” Storrs, CT, 1902 by Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library/Fortepan CT, “https://fortepan.us/categories/all/FI0024945,” CC-BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, as stated on the individual Fortepan download page; archive-published JPEG reproduced without alteration.
Original source · Reuse terms1902
Plowing on campus
Plowing on campus — Storrs, Connecticut, 1902
Image credit & source
“FI0025114,” Storrs, CT, 1902 by Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library/Fortepan CT, “https://fortepan.us/categories/all/FI0025114,” CC-BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, as stated on the individual Fortepan download page; archive-published JPEG reproduced without alteration.
Original source · Reuse terms1904
Indoor Lesson On Connecticut Trees
Indoor Lesson On Connecticut Trees — Storrs, Connecticut, 1904
Image credit & source
“FI0024897,” Storrs, CT, 1904 by Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library/Fortepan CT, “https://fortepan.us/categories/all/FI0024897,” CC-BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, as stated on the individual Fortepan download page; archive-published JPEG reproduced without alteration.
Original source · Reuse terms1904
Site Of Storrs Hall, Connecticut Agricultural College
Site Of Storrs Hall, Connecticut Agricultural College — Storrs, Connecticut, 1904
Image credit & source
“FI0024951,” Storrs, CT, 1904 by Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library/Fortepan CT, “https://fortepan.us/categories/all/FI0024951,” CC-BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, as stated on the individual Fortepan download page; archive-published JPEG reproduced without alteration.
Original source · Reuse terms1904
Ice Skaters
Ice Skaters — Storrs, Connecticut, 1904
Image credit & source
“FI0025020,” Storrs, CT, 1904 by Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library/Fortepan CT, “https://fortepan.us/categories/all/FI0025020,” CC-BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, as stated on the individual Fortepan download page; archive-published JPEG reproduced without alteration.
Original source · Reuse terms1905
Football Players, Football Team
Football Players, Football Team — Storrs, Connecticut, 1905
Image credit & source
“FI0024817,” Storrs, CT, 1905 by Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library/Fortepan CT, “https://fortepan.us/categories/all/FI0024817,” CC-BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, as stated on the individual Fortepan download page; archive-published JPEG reproduced without alteration.
Original source · Reuse termsTHE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTOGRAPHS
People, places, and change.
An agricultural school in Mansfield
Storrs, a village within Mansfield in Tolland County, became the home of a new agricultural school in 1881. Brothers Charles and Augustus Storrs supplied land, buildings and money for its beginning. The institution became Storrs Agricultural College and Connecticut’s land-grant college in 1893, and Connecticut Agricultural College in 1899. These changes provide the setting for the photographs gathered here. A graduation portrait cataloged to 1890 belongs to the school’s first decade; the class of 1899 appears at the point when its name and statewide identity were changing. [1] [4] [6] [3]
Learning in fields and classrooms
The images show the close relationship between agricultural work and instruction. A 1902 view records plowing on campus, while another from 1906 shows potato spraying. A mule team with a load of hay appears against the college’s buildings in 1907. Indoors, a drawing class and a lesson on Connecticut trees present different kinds of study; a 1909 poultry class gathers for a group photograph. These are specific scenes preserved by the University’s archives, rather than a complete timetable of student duties. Together they show why both fields and classrooms belong in the history of the early college. [11] [21] [22] [9] [12] [23]
A campus taking shape
The collection includes the president’s house, portraits of President R. W. Stimson and a photograph cataloged as the site of Storrs Hall in 1904. UConn’s account of its landscape identifies the completed Storrs Hall of 1906 as the campus’s first large red-brick building. The contrast between an undeveloped site and an emerging institutional landscape helps explain the college’s physical growth. Buildings stood within a working rural setting, visible in the farm, horse and hay-making photographs. This landscape was part of the educational environment, not simply scenery around an otherwise urban institution. [8] [10] [13] [2] [19]
Students beyond the lesson
Ice skaters and football groups broaden the story beyond instruction and farm work. Different poses and settings preserve informal recreation alongside official portraits, though the captions do not identify every person. The University Library contributed these images to Fortepan CT, where each has an individual record and a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. Dates follow those records: the photograph titled “Class Of 1897,” for example, is cataloged to 1894, and that date is retained. The college later took the Connecticut State College name in 1933 and became the University of Connecticut in 1939, after the period pictured in this gallery. [14] [15] [16] [17] [5] [1]
Sources & further reading (23)
- University of Connecticut: History
- University of Connecticut Magazine: The Shape of Storrs
- Connecticut State Library: CT Towns & Counties
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Graduating Class (1890)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Class Of 1897 (1894)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Class Of 1899 (1899)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Agricultural Committee At Storrs, Connecticut Agricultural College (1900)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: President's House (1900)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Drawing Class (1901)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: President Stimson, Connecticut Agricultural College (1902)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Plowing on campus (1902)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Indoor Lesson On Connecticut Trees (1904)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Site Of Storrs Hall, Connecticut Agricultural College (1904)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Ice Skaters (1904)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Football Players, Football Team (1905)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Football Players, Football teams (1905)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Football Players, Football Team (1905)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: President R.W. Stimson (1905)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Gilbert farm (1906)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Artimon (1906)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Spraying potatoes (1906)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Mules and load of hay, Farm team and Agricultural Hall (1907)
- UConn Archives / Fortepan CT: Professor Blakeslee And The Summer School Poultry Class, Connecticut Agricultural College (1909)
Keep the sources close.
Download this collection’s notes, timeline and image credits. Photographs link to their original archives and require an internet connection.
Building dates and photograph dates are recorded separately. Later photographs are identified in their captions; unknown exposure dates remain unknown. Follow each image’s credit and reuse terms.