Since at least 1920, Latvian students have been attending the University of Illinois. They have included agricultural engineers, authors, chemists, dancers, dentists, diplomats, educators, musicians, military officers, philosophers, and volleyball players. While they have been a smaller student population, Latvian students have been big participants in multicultural activities and events on campus. Read on to learn about early Latvian Illini!
A Daily Illini photograph of two students from displaced persons camps, Mr. Sokolov (of Latvia) and Mr. Goncharoff (of Ukraine), found in Record Series 41/8/801.
Since at least 1897, Polish students have been attending the University of Illinois. They have included accountants, architectural engineers, artists, business administrators, cartoonists, catalogers, ceramic engineers, chemical engineers, chemists, civil engineers, historians, mathematicians, philosophers, photographers, sociologists, and writers. Read on to learn more about early Polish Illini!
A Polonia Club group photo from the 1918 Illio, Page 337, found in Record Series 41/8/805.
Since at least 1920, Turkish students have been attending the University of Illinois. Early Turkish Illini have included accountants, anthropologists, architects, business administrators, chemists, civil engineers, computer scientists, economists, educational researchers, electrical and computer engineers, food scientists, materials scientists, mathematicians, mechanical engineers, musicians, political scientists, soldiers, swimmers, and teachers. Read on to learn more about early Turkish Illini!
A Turkish Student Society group Illio Photo from the 1945 Illio, Page 405, found in Record Series 41/8/805.
Since at least 1921, Indonesian students have been attending the University of Illinois. Early Indonesian Illini have included accountants, architects, artists, botanists, chemists, economists, educators, electrical engineers, entomologists, food scientists, geologists, mathematicians, statisticians, and zoologists too.
An Indonesian Night program from the 2016 Fall performance, found in Record Series 41/6/840.
Read on to learn more about early Indonesian Illini!
Marissa Krein is a graduate student at the School of Information Science. She is currently completing a practicum at the Student Life and Culture Archives.
Souvenirs from nights out in Champaign-Urbana
The Student Life and Culture Archives recently received four scrapbooks from the family of Miriam Backs chronicling her years as a student at the University of Illinois.
Miriam Carolyn Backs was born on November 30, 1928, in Nashville, Illinois. Her father, Gus H. Backs, was the owner and manager of Backs Department Store and her mother was a homemaker. Miriam grew up in the small southern Illinois town and graduated from Nashville Community High School in 1946. She chose to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and enrolled in the freshmen class of 1946. Mirroring her family’s business background, she majored in accounting at the College of Commerce and Business Administration (now College of Business). Her scrapbooks chronicle her four years at the university and are full of memorabilia highlighting her involvement on campus and her active social life as well as her various summer vacations through the South and Midwest. Continue reading “New in the Archives: The Scrapbooks of Miriam Backs”→
