How many stanford graduates have served on the Supreme Court? Did JFK really attend classes on the Farm? Would the University be interested in having my Wilbur Hall T-shirt from the 1960s? For the past 15 years, Maggie Kimball has fielded questions like these in her role as University archivist. Working out of a small office in Green Library, Kimball, ’80, keeps track of a vast and growing collection of antique campus photographs, student letters and journals, faculty papers and Stanford bric-a-brac. The most priceless material, though, is inside her head—she’s a walking encyclopedia of Cardinal facts and figures, always ready to help students, faculty and staff with their research, no matter how arcane. “I always tell people that I don’t know everything,” the historian says, “but I know where to start looking.” At the 2003 commencement, colleagues gave Kimball a Cuthbertson Award for her exceptional contributions to the University.
It’s a whole lot of stuff.
Kimball estimates that the Stanford Archives houses about 30,000 linear feet of material—that’s a hundred football fields’ worth of gray, acid-free archival boxes. The collection grows from 500 to 1,000 linear feet per year. “A typical faculty member’s papers might take up 10 linear feet,” she says, while the papers of a Nobel laureate like the late Stanford physicist Arthur Schawlow might measure 10 times that. The collection includes some 30,000 doctoral dissertations and master’s theses—so many that they had to be moved this year to a new climate-controlled storage facility in Livermore.
Cleanliness counts.
While the archives are open to anyone with a legitimate research interest, strict rules keep the materials safe. Visitors, who average about five a day, must register at the front desk of Green’s Field Room and stash all their belongings (except for pencils, loose paper and laptop computers) in nearby lockers. They’re given just one box at a time and taught how to keep things in order within its folders. “I’m pretty much of a stickler for not allowing pens in any of our spaces,” Kimball says.
Diaries are priceless.
Of all the items in the archives, Kimball says, the most fascinating may be a journal kept by a young student named Mary Freeman Crabbe in the 1890s. “She talks about the parties they had, going to class, what it was like to listen to a zoology lecture, the issue of women’s suffrage,” Kimball says. Other vivid documents include letters that young Leland Stanford wrote to his parents when he was establishing himself in Sacramento, and student letters describing the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Attention all pack rats.
In addition to written materials, the archives house weird and wonderful artifacts, ranging from a female student’s 1890s fencing vest to psychedelic campus posters from the 1970s. Sometimes antiques dealers alert Kimball to particularly exciting pieces, which she purchases with the help of a small acquisitions fund. More often, she’ll get calls from folks cleaning out their attics, offering stuff for free. “One faculty member said, ‘I have a rock that came through my window in the 1960s. Do you want that?” Kimball recalls, laughing. (The answer was no, thanks.) Among the more memorable items: an empty tortoise shell that supposedly appeared during a séance in Thomas Welton Stanford’s house, a collection of class hats from the turn of the century, and a still-full bottle of wine from the Stanford estate.
She’s the answer person.
In addition to caring for the collection, Kimball answers up to 20 inquiries a day by letter, phone and e-mail. Often the questioners are genealogical researchers trying to verify that a relative went to Stanford. Administrators will ring, asking her to pin down some facts for inclusion in a speech. Academic departments contact her when they’re writing history pages for their websites, or redecorating their offices. (These days, framed reproductions of old campus photographs are de rigueur.) One time, President John Hennessy asked Kimball to make him a pocket-sized version of the University’s Founding Grant.
Save those e-mails.
Like many historians, Kimball is worried that modern Americans aren’t writing thoughtful letters or keeping diaries as they used to. “It’s a real problem,” she laments. “The way students and parents communicate today—instant messaging and talking on the cell phone every day—is very different from the past. We’re moving back to a much more oral tradition, and there are going to be a lot of questions raised in the future about what was real and what was not.” Her plea to Stanford parents: “Print out those e-mails from your kids.”
— Theresa Johnston, '83
