Collections : [Columbia University Archives]

The surviving files of official correspondence, reports, documents, and printed materials of King's College from 1750 to 1784 and Columbia College from 1785 to 1890, as well as Columbia University up to 1964. The King's College era materials include grants, deeds, indentures, lists of governors, leases, accounts, etc. The Columbia College era papers commence with documentation regarding the attempts to revive the college at the end of the American Revolution. In the later period these papers primarily supplement and document the minutes of the meetings of the Board of Governors and the Board of Trustees. Much material was destroyed and scattered in the late 19th century leaving this collection quite incomplete.

Records documenting Columbia University's activities prior to, during and immediately following World War II represent the focus of the collection. The collection contains material generated by a variety of groups and offices on campus evidencing the varied activities undertaken by the Columbia community during this time of world crisis.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Columbia students urged the university to divest from companies doing business in South Africa in protest of South Africa's system of apartheid. After a series of student protests culminating in a month long blockade of Hamilton Hall in 1985, the Trustees voted to begin full divestment. The collection contains the administrative records of this decision making process in the 1970s-1980s.