Tracking a Single Person Historically

From time to time, we received visitors in the Museum whose family members were alumni of Gallaudet College.  Naturally, the visitors were curious about the experiences those ancestors had on campus, so after gathering what they knew about the person, I would do a short search through available resources (Annual reports, Buff and Blue, etc.) to find information about their personalities, which clubs they were in, and any other information that may pop up.  While a full search can be extremely time consuming, this brief look often gave the visitors a lot of information they did not previously know, or at the very least, confirmed (or in some cases, refuted) any information they did know.

I have also applied this to exhibits, most prominently with the Hard Hit exhibit currently in the Student Academic Center.  With so many alumni dying during the 1918 Influenza pandemic, I wanted to explore their stories, pulling back the curtain, and letting them be more than just another name in the list.  I will use Anna Johnson of Nebraska, class of 1912, as an example in this article, as she was an alumna of Gallaudet College, and died due to Influenza in March of 1919.

The first thing I do when searching for someone that I know was an alumnus of the college is go to the Alumni Cards.  This is a collection of index cards on all college students at Gallaudet between 1866 and 1964, with information about their name, state of origin, any name changes, their class year, how long they were a student, and updates on their lives, including places they lived, jobs they held, when they got married, and if they died.  This is a great resource to confirm basic information and can tell you when you should look for their name in other resources. 

Anna Johnson shows up in two alumni cards; her own, which tells us she is from Nebraska, her middle name starts with a “V,” she received a BA degree in 1912, married Tom L. Anderson from the same class, lived in Texas and Nebraska, and died of pneumonia.  As pneumonia was a common symptom of the 1918 Influenza, this is a good indication the pandemic killed her.  That is a lot of useful information.  The second alumni card is Tom Anderson, her husband.  This confirms some information about Anna, and shows Tom remarried after Anna’s death.  A great start.

Anna Johnson’s and Tom Anderson’s Alumni cards side by side. While Anna’s is brief due to her early death in 1919, Tom’s continues on the back, listing his various jobs and addresses up to 1959. Courtesy of the Gallaudet Archives.

The next source I will visit is the Annual Reports.  With reports from the 1940s and earlier, they will list active students, usually towards the back.  If you know the class year, you can figure out which reports the person is likely to appear in, since you know most students were at Gallaudet for 5-year programs; since students are listed by state, the alumni card can help you narrow your search.  You may also want to search the report for the name, as it may appear in other sections (such as health).  Using this, we know Anna will likely show up in the reports from 1907 to 1912 under Nebraska. 

However, when we check the 1906 report to confirm this, we find her name listed (page 12).  We also find her name in the 1905 report (covering Fall 1904 to Spring 1905), but not the 1904 report.  This tells us Anna was a student starting in Fall 1904, but graduated in 1912; but why?  She is listed in every report from 1905 to 1912.  Intriguing!  Before we put this aside, let’s go back a moment and see when her future husband, Tom Anderson, was a student.  His alumni card said he was from Texas, and graduated in 1912, but also got an MA in 1918 from Gallaudet.  Thomas L. Anderson first appears in the 1907 report, as well as the 1908-1912 reports, so he was a student from Fall 1907 to Spring 1912.  Was Anna older than him?

Anna’s name first appears in the 1905 Annual Report under Nebraska. Courtesy of the Gallaudet Archives and Archive.org.

Anna and Tom appear in the 1912 Annual Report, in the Presentation Day exercises, receiving their Bachelor of Arts Degrees. Additionally, both Anna and Tom gave orations, presenting research they had done. Courtesy of the Gallaudet Archives and Archive.org.

The Annual Report has given us more crucial information.  Now we know we must search the Buff and Blue from Fall 1904 to Summer 1912 for information about Anna’s life as a student.  But let’s take a break and see what other resources might be available to us.  First off, we should be taking notes.  I create a Word Document, including critical information at the top, and then listing in chronological order the information I find, as well as links to where I found that information.  This helps me organize the bounty I am about to reap.  However you do it (index cards, pen and paper, etc.) be sure to write down what you find.  I will even take screenshots and insert them into the document, which reduces my typing time.

As a result of the research for Hard Hit, I have gathered a variety of resources available online to help me with future research projects.  Therefore I know many of the Nebraska School for the Deaf biennial reports are available online.  I also know the Gallaudet Archives has a few issues of The Nebraska Journal, the school’s student newsletter, online.  These are my next documents.  The Nebraska Public Documents website is not user friendly, but I limit the documents by searching for the “Nebraska school for the deaf”; this removes a lot of irrelevant documents, though not all of them.  I am guessing a bit here, but Anna entered Gallaudet in the fall of 1905, so I want to be looking at reports prior to and including 1905.  The 1904 report lists “Johnson, Anna” as 15 years old, from Minden (NE), of Danish-American ancestry, and admitted to the school on 9/21/1903; unfortunately, it is missing the cover page, but we know it is a biennial report, covering the 1902-3 and 1903-4 school years.  Searching through a report from before 1902 will not help us.  The 1905-6 report has Anna in its lists of graduates, reporting she is a freshman at Gallaudet College, and her home was Minden, NE.  The 1900-2 report does not list Anna Johnson, confirming she became a student after that.

This is part of the list of pupils enrolled at the school during the 1902-1904 school years.  From left to right, we have the Number, name, age, town of residence, nativity, and date of admission.  Number 82 is our girl. Courtesy of the Nebraska Public Documents website, from the Fourteenth Biennial Report of the Superintendent and Board of Trustees of the Nebraska Institute for the Deaf and Dumb for the Years 1903 and 1904 to the Governor Hon. John H. Mickey (full title assumed, title page missing).

Anna Johnson in a list of graduates of the Nebraska Institute for the Deaf and Dumb (sic).  We also see two classmates of hers, Maudie Roath and Helen Northrop, were attending Gallaudet as well.  While Helen became a librarian and teacher at the College after graduating (she was on campus during the beginning of the Influenza Pandemic), Maudie Roath, graduating from the college in 1910, died of influenza on 11/17/1918, four months before Anna.  Courtesy of the Nebraska Public Documents website, from the Fifteenth Biennial Report of the Superintendent and Board of Trustees of the Nebraska Institute for the Deaf and Dumb for the Years 1905 and 1906 to the Governor Hon. John H. Mickey.

Leaving the Nebraska Public Documents page, we head to the Gallaudet Archives’ The Nebraska Journal collection, part of their The Little Paper Family collection.  Searching this collection for “Anna Johnson” helps to focus our efforts.  In many papers, students may be listed by their last name only, so we may have to spend a lot of time later searching for various combinations of Anna’s name; for now, let’s see what we have.  As we open the first result, we find a problem.  The earliest issue to feature “Anna Johnson” is from 1908, after she left the Nebraska School.  A quick ctrl+F search for “johnson” gives us Nellie, Wilson, and Nora, but no Anna.  While it is possible Anna may be mentioned in another issue (sometimes these newsletters will give updates about alumni), it is unlikely.  We should only continue to pursue this if we have a lot of time on our hands.

Well, that was disappointing.  We have learned very little about Anna prior to her time in college, though we learned she lived in Minden, NE for a little while.  Since she was not in school before 1903, she may have lived somewhere else, and her family moved to Nebraska, enrolling her in the Nebraska School for the last year of school before she went to college.  That would likely require paid research on Ancestry.com.  Where she came from, we may never know.  If you know where the person you are researching came from thanks to the Alumni Cards and Annual Reports, you can try searching for state archives.  It is hit or miss, but you never know.  I got lucky with Wisconsin, North Dakota, Kansas, and Indiana.  Next, let’s switch to the Buff and Blue and Anna’s college years.

The Buff and Blue (alternative link)is a great resource for information about campus life between November 1892 and 2000.  It is my go-to resource to find out what a person was like, what clubs they joined, and even what they were up to after graduating.  The link will bring you to a list of years.  You can search the entire Buff and Blue collection, but with a common name like “Anna” or “Johnson,” going to your specific dates first may be more useful.  For less common names, such as “Schory” or “Studt,” using the search box, then picking out years you know they were in school, is a good tactic.  For our girl, we need to get into the weeds a bit more.  Clicking on a year opens months, and clicking on a month will show you what issues are available.  For Anna, we know she joined the college in Fall 1904.  Selecting 1904, we see the first issue after the summer is October 1, 1904.  No results in the search for “Johnson” or “Anna” that match our person.  No results in the November 1, 1904 or December 1, 1904 issues either.  What did we get wrong?  The annual reports will sometimes list incoming students for the next year, instead of only students from the previous year.  We can keep searching the Buff and Blue issue by issue, or…come on a little side trip with me.

The Deaf-Mutes’ Journal.  Published 1872 to 1937 by the New York School for the Deaf, these newspapers contain information from deaf communities across the country, including Gallaudet College.  Often, their issues at the start of a school year will include a list of new students at the College.  Searching “1905” in the metadata gives us all issues from 1905.  Skimming through the 55 issues, we can open those from the Fall of 1905 (late September is a good choice).  Remember, we are dealing with the snail mail days; it took time for news to spread.  9/28/1905 page 2 gives us the first information about Gallaudet.  No list of students.  10/5/1905 page 2; Eureka!  Anna Johnson is listed under Introductory Students, putting her in the class of 1910 (make note of this, as it will be important later).  So the 1905 report listed incoming students as well.  Anna Johnson started in Fall 1905, not Fall 1904.  But let’s confirm; search “1904” in The Deaf-Mutes’ Journal search, open issues from late September to early October… 9/29/1904, page 3, our list of enrolled students.  Anna Johnson is not listed under the Introductory Class females.  Back to the Buff and Blue!

We open the first Fall edition of the Buff and Blue from 1905, October 1.  Searching “Johnson” gives us a couple references to a Johnson from the class of 1909.  Uh oh, Anna is the class of 1910.  The 1905 Annual Report lists 3 people with the last name Johnson; Harry T. Johnson and Ellen D. Johnson of Minnesota, and Annie V. Johnson of Nebraska.  Going back to the Alumni Cards and searching “Johnson,” we see Ellen is from the class of 1909.  Harry is from the class of 1907, though he died in 1906.  However, we now know that Johnson from the class of 1909 is not our girl, and Anna was not admitted into the OWLS in Fall 1905.  Back to the Buff and Blue October 1905 issue, there are no other Johnsons, and no results for “Anna.”  Let’s try something…search for “Johns.”  A lot of results.  Words were often split at the end of a line with a hyphen connecting it to the next line.  But none of these are Anna either.  Try again with “nson” (from the end of Johnson), no results.  Weird, since we know Johnson (’09) does appear.  Ok, one issue down, five dozen to go!  Add another 57 issues for her alumni years.  Let’s get digging!

Allow me to summarize what I found about Anna Johnson across thirteen years of the Buff and Blue.  Yes, 13 years.  The Buff and Blue will often mention Alumni updates, such as marriages, alumni meetings, deaths, births, trips, and other interesting tidbits, to help alumni keep up on each other’s lives; a precursor to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  Back to Anna.  She was a member of the Jollity Club, the OWLS, the Co-eds (Women’s) Reading Room Club, the Buff and Blue Editorial Staff, the girls’ basketball team, and the YWCA, holding leadership roles in many of those clubs (I’m exhausted just thinking about it).  We also found out why she entered in 1905 but graduated in 1912.  In the April 1908 issue of the Buff and Blue, Anna was called home due to the severe illness of her mother, who died 3/17/1908.  In January 1910, we find out Anna was teaching at the Nebraska School for the Deaf, and in May 1910, joining Alumni Association events in Nebraska.  In December 1910, she was again participating in the Jollity Club, showing her return to campus in Fall 1910.  This explains her unusual years.  She entered Fall 1905, took time off starting in Spring 1908 due to the death of her mother, and returned in Fall 1910, to graduate in Spring 1912.

The Buff and Blue also mentions her marriage to Tom Anderson on 9/21/1912, which matches the information on Tom Anderson’s Alumni Card.  This is where keeping links to documents becomes important, allowing you to easily relocate information you previously found.  The Kappa Gamma section of the October 1912 Buff and Blue also confirms this marriage, though they say Tom was class of 1913.  This is probably a typo, since all our other sources so far say Tom graduated in 1912.  Oops.  The November 1912 issue says Tom and Anna moved to Minnesota, also matching Tom’s Alumni Card.  After this point, we also need to keep an eye out for Mrs. Tom Anderson, as women at this time were commonly referred to by their husband’s name after their marriage.  But be careful; we already know Tom remarried in 1920, so if we see Mrs Tom Anderson after 1919, that is Effie Weseen, and not Anna Johnson.  We learn little things about Tom and Anna through the years, such as the type of work Tom was doing, where they lived, and what social events they participated in.  But at last, we arrive in April 1919, which reports the death of Anna “on the 24th of March last of the Spanish influenza, leaving a sorrowing husband and two children…”.

From here, it depends on what you want to do next.  Do you want to try and find more information?  Again, it depends on the period you are searching in.  Late 1800s to late 1900s, The Silent Worker could be a good resource, or you can return to The Deaf-Mutes Journal for late 1800s to early 1900s.  1940s to 2000s?  The Tower Clock is available online for researchers.  1970s to 2010s?  The Gallaudet Today and On the Green magazines/newsletters are online.  Were they a member of the NFSD (1902-2006)?  Check out The Frat.  Maybe they had a photo album; search for either their name or the names of classmates and friends (you documented this while reading The Buff and Blue…right?).  In Anna’s case, she had a record book, an amazing resource if I needed to dig deeper into Anna herself.  Were they a student under Edward Miner Gallaudet’s presidency?  It could be a long shot, but Gallaudet’s correspondence is online, organized by date.  This is only some of what the Gallaudet Archives offers to online researchers and does not include other online archives.

Many state archives will include records from deaf institutions among their online resources, and some of the best state archives I found for this purpose are the Aram Public Library in Delavan, WI; the North Dakota State Archives, which we spotlighted back in our March 2024 newsletter; and the Indiana University of Indianapolis Digital Archives, featuring records relating to the Indiana School for the Deaf.  If you found your ancestor was a member of clubs or sports, the Gallaudet Archives’ photo collection has photos of the student body through the years, sports teams, Greek organizations, and many others.  If you know what your ancestor looked like, search for groups they were a part of, and see if you can spot them.  Some June editions of the Buff and Blue will feature headshots of the graduating students, giving you a face to start looking for.  If they were a member of The Buff and Blue staff or the OWLS, there might be group photos in The Buff and Blue that identify the individuals in the photo.

Searching for information about ancestors who attended Gallaudet can be a daunting task.  I often prefer to help people out by finding as much as I can in as short a time as I can.  However, as you can see, this is a massive project to find information about just one person.  We live in an incredible time of accessibility to historical documents, and the Gallaudet Archives is working hard to make sure a wide variety of resources are available to the public for research purposes.  Hopefully Anna Johnson/Anderson’s example will provide some guidance for those looking to learn more about their own connections to Gallaudet University, and the wider Deaf world.