Melville S. Munro Papers

Collection

Call Number: MS036

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Scope and Contents

This collection primarily consists of photographs of Tufts College and students taken by Melville Munro between 1930 and 1945. Munro arranged most images into albums by theme or topic. There are also some albums of clippings and publications on topics of interest to Munro in his teaching, including weather formations and electricity. Many of Munro's photographs have been cataloged separately at the item level.

Dates

Creation: Majority of material found within 1930 -- 1945
Creation: 1858 -- 1959

Creator

Munro, Melville S. (Person)

Language of Materials

English

Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Some material in this collection may be protected by copyright and other rights. Please see “Reproductions and Use” on the Digital Collections and Archives website for more information about reproductions and permission to publish. No documentation is available regarding the intellectual property rights in this collection.

Biographical / Historical

Melville S. Munro (1881-1945), a faculty member for more than three decades, made his most notable contributions to Tufts through his camera's lens. Munro was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on July 7, 1881. He graduated from Tufts College with a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1904. Following graduation, Munro was appointed as an assistant to the electrical engineering department. He became an instructor in the department in 1905 and was made a professor in 1913. During his thirty-seven years on the faculty, Munro worked as the college's official photographer, recording an almost complete pictorial history of campus and student life up until 1941.

Munro retired in 1941 and died at his summer home in Maine on June 1, 1945. His wife, Ruth Harmon, W1903, predeceased him in 1941. Both of their children, Lawrence, E1930, and Ella, J1935, attended Tufts.

Extent

84.62 Linear Feet (118 boxes)

808 Digital Object(s)

Additional Description

Arrangement

This collection is organized into fifteen series: Photographic history of Tufts College; Afield with a camera; Campus related activities; Photo inventories; Small photo albums; The scrap book; Tufts and the war; Tufts College History; War years at Tufts; The weather; Loose prints; Photographic History of Dramatics at Tufts College; Lantern slides; Boston Globe Currier and Ives Prints; and Tufts College history and technology.