As yearbook creators, advisors, and designers, we know our yearbooks are historical records. While we often get caught up in the details—the big picture of a theme and capturing all the events of the year—a significant secondary benefit is the recording of history: the news, styles, trends, and many special moments in time. But when we stop and think about it, yearbooks offer so much more than just documenting a school year. They preserve the stories, emotions, and culture of the times.
The history of yearbooks is fascinating and reflects an evolution in both content and style. The earliest yearbooks were essentially scrapbooks, created in the late 17th century, filled with newspaper clippings, dried flowers, locks of hair, and drawings. The first official yearbook wasn’t until 1809, produced by the graduating class of Yale University. It was called “Profile of Part of the Class Graduated at Yale College,” and, since photography didn’t exist, the book included printed silhouettes of the students instead. As time went on and the printing press improved, combined with advancements in photography, yearbooks became more common, especially after the early 1900s, when yearbook companies started making production easier and more accessible.
What makes yearbooks even more special is that they’ve always been a reflection of the times. Whether it’s the clothing, hairstyles, or even world events, you can see how the world around us shapes the pages of yearbooks. For example, during the Great Depression and World Wars, you’ll find yearbooks capturing not just happy memories but also the realities of those tough times—whether through mentions of rationing, drafts, or major shifts in student activities.
In fact, I recently came across an article by Maris Fessenden in Smithsonian Magazine titled “Yearbook Photos Show How Smiles Have Widened Over the Decades.” It references a study done by UC Berkeley that analyzed 38,000 senior portraits from the 1900s through the 2010s. The study showed that smiles evolved from more serious expressions to the wide, toothy grins we often see today. Early photos were taken with slow exposure times, so it was hard to hold a smile for long. But maybe the lack of smiles also reflected the mood of the world. Over time, as photography got better and the world became more connected, students seemed to get more comfortable—and maybe even happier—in front of the camera.
Could it be that advances in dental care played a role, too? With better access to treatments, students probably felt more confident flashing their pearly whites! Either way, these changing smiles give us a glimpse into how students’ feelings and experiences evolved over time.
Yearbooks also show an important cultural shift in diversity and inclusion. If you flip through early editions, you’ll see that many yearbooks from the 19th and early 20th centuries reflected the racial and gender biases of the time. However, over the decades, you’ll notice more diversity in the pages. For example, during the Civil Rights Movement and school desegregation, yearbooks started reflecting these historic moments, capturing students from a variety of backgrounds and celebrating milestones of progress.
And it’s not just smiles and diversity—yearbooks also show how global events impact us. The COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, made its way into yearbooks with photos of masked students, Zoom classes, and socially distanced events. Yearbooks have truly become a time capsule of not only school memories but also world history.
From their beginnings as scrapbooks to today’s digitally produced volumes, yearbooks have come a long way. The addition of color photography in the 1960s and ’70s, then digital design software, has only made it easier for yearbook creators to capture the spirit of the time. What once started as black-and-white pages has turned into full-color, vibrant records of school life. And let’s not forget the fun traditions, like “Senior Superlatives”—those “Most Likely to Succeed” or “Class Clown” awards that still stick around today!
When historians, or even just future generations, look back, they can reference yearbooks to observe trends in hairstyles, fashion, eyewear, and even smiles. As hard as we can try to describe a past trend, a picture can do it so much better. These photos capture moments in time and preserve them for future generations.