Records Management History

Part 1:    The Early Days: UC’s Predecessor Schools

The University Archives holds records of the Cincinnati College (founded in 1819), the Medical College of Ohio (founded in 1819), the Ohio Mechanics Institute (founded in 1828), the Miami Medical College (founded in 1852), and the Conservatory of Music (founded in 1867), that provide clues to understanding how records were created and managed in the early days.

Early Records Management & Records Managers

Although the term “records management” would not be coined for decades, the administration, faculty and staff of these schools, nonetheless, had rules and procedures for what information was to be recorded, how it was to be organized, and to whom responsibility was given. Stress was put upon the accurate recording of financial, executive, and, eventually, student information.

We find in the Laws & Regulations of the Cincinnati College, codified in 1819, what may be the earliest mention of records management requirements:

Chapter IV. Section 3. The faculty shall appoint a clerk who shall enter in a book, a fair statement of their transactions, resolutions, and determinations, which book the clerk shall lay before the trustees at each of the stated meetings.

The Cincinnati College operated for six years after its founding in 1819, then instruction ceased until the Cincinnati Law School became part of the Cincinnati College in 1834. In 1836 a new department of medicine and a liberal arts college were added. Neither the medical nor the liberal arts sections lasted more than a couple of years, but the law department remained until it was merged with the University in 1897. Very few records exist from the infancy of the Cincinnati College between the years 1819 and 1825 and only scattered papers are extant from its reemergence in 1836.

The earliest known document of UC's predecessor schools. Minutes of the faculty meeting of the Medical College of Ohio, January 14, 1820. (click for a large image)

The earliest known record of UC’s predecessor schools held by the Archives is a record of the minutes of the Faculty meeting of the Medical College of Ohio dated January 14, 1820. At the meeting several letters were introduced by President Daniel Drake and “ordered to be filed.” Where these letters may have been filed is a mystery as they are not included in the Archives collection.

Any early minutes of the Board of Directors of the Ohio Mechanics Institute that may have been recorded between the years 1828-1840 are lost, although supporting papers go back to 1838, and membership records date back to the institution’s founding in 1828. Few curriculum records before the twentieth century still exist. The bylaws of the Board, adopted on June 24, 1829, specify that “it shall be the duty of the Secretary to keep a correct record of all the proceedings…”

Rev. Elijah Slack was the first Registrar of the Medical College of Ohio. As such, it was his responsibility to record minutes and file documents of the Faculty. Slack was made Dean in 1830.

Peyton Short Symmes, was secretary of The Cincinnati College at the time of its reconstruction in 1836, and he may have held the position during the earlier attempt at sustaining the College.

Alexander Hamilton McGuffey, of the McGuffey Reader family, succeeded Peyton Symmes as secretary and treasurer of the board in 1845. McGuffey would contribute much to the recordkeeping of The Cincinnati College with his conscientious documentation as well as his preservation of the private papers of his father-in-law Daniel Drake upon Drake’s death in 1852. Included in Drake’s papers were the records of the medical college during his tenure as Dean. Sidney Maxwell took over as Secretary of The Cincinnati College after McGuffey’s death in 1896.

In the early days of  recordkeeping, each college administrator in charge of creating or receiving documents was also personally responsible for the safekeeping of those records, which usually found their way to that individual’s residence or place of business rather than a central repository.  Additionally, meetings were held in homes, offices, and sometimes public spaces, so the records would be carried around by the person responsible for their maintenance.

This practice may certainly be the reason for the loss of the earliest records of the Cincinnati College. In 1861, Peyton Symmes, died, leaving no estate, and taking with him the secret location of the Cincinnati College board records. Upon his taking office, McGuffey attempted to procure the records maintained by Symmes, but was unsuccessful. Symmes, who McGuffey described as “a literary and very accomplished gentleman” but “exceedingly unsystematic,” stored the records of the board at his home, and their location was never discovered by subsequent office holders. Fires in the college building in 1845 and 1869 could also  be a factor in the absence of records.

Whether those early records that we do have survived as a result of a concentrated effort to preserve information, or just the luck of the draw, we do not know. The clustering of extant records around specific time periods and offices may indicate that the retention of records was driven by individual choice, rather than prescribed policy.

That we have fewer records from times past may also be a consequence of the arduous task of actually creating records ages ago. Much more time was put into writing out reports, minutes, and correspondence, as compared to our ability to dash these documents off on a computer, and copies had to be recreated manually. The mimeograph did not enter the scene until 1876, and, while it had been around in certain forms since early in the nineteenth century, carbon paper did not find a practical application until the typewriter was introduced to consumers late in the nineteenth century. There was no time or desire to create unnecessary or unnecessarily lengthy records.

Records in Litigation

In 1873 it was discovered that records of the shareholders of The Cincinnati College were sketchy at best. In a report to the shareholders dated March 28, 1873, the board reported that “there are no complete records to show who are the stockholders of the Cincinnati College” and that “there is a danger in this uncertainty that the stock may be lost, or its ownership be disputed.” This state of affairs was undoubtedly the result of the loss of records from Symmes’s stint as Secretary. The Board charged a committee of three to attempt to reconstruct the list of stockholders from extant college records, newspapers, court records, and personal inquiries, and issue certificates to those stockholders who could be identified.

It seems to have all started when the Board of the Cincinnati College denied a request from the Young Mens’ Mercantile Library Association to have electric lighting installed in the library premises, which were located in the Cincinnati College building. This denial incited the YMMLA to recognize other grievances regarding the management of the building, and they decided to right these perceived wrongs by attempting to oust the Board. The YMMLA argued that the Cincinnati College no longer met the terms of its charter, and that control of the College, and thus the building, should be transferred to the board of the University of Cincinnati. They were successful in  getting the general assembly of Ohio to pass a statute in 1892 assigning the property and control of the Cincinnati College to the UC board.

The problem with this statute was that while the Cincinnati College was chartered for a public purpose, it was still a private, stockholder-owned entity.  The Board of the Cincinnati College refused to comply with the statute and appealed in 1894. Alexander McGuffey testified regarding the reproduction of the stockholder records and the validity of the information that was presented at trial. The reconstructed stock certificates became central to the defense’s stance that the college was backed by private funds. Lawyers for the plaintiff went to great effort to discredit the reconstructed records, pointing out that many of the stockholders listed on the certificates were deceased at the time that they were issued, and  alleged that many of the stocks had been put in Alexander McGuffey’s name. McGuffey was very successful however at tracing each documented transfer by the heirs of each original deceased stockholder and proving the validity of the certificates. The Cincinnati College won the suit and the statute was repealed. Eventually they did merge with the University of Cincinnati, but in their own good time three years later.

Early Records Creation

Today it is difficult to imagine creating records without the aid of a computer, but, in fact, putting pen and ink to paper was almost the sole method of recording information at UC and its predecessor schools until around the turn of the twentieth century, when the first typewritten records began to appear. Although printing allowed institutions to publish catalogs, brochures, pamphlets, and important documents, the day to day creation of records was still accomplished manually.

As the 1819 board rule implies, records were kept in bound books, or documents were created on plain, usually unlined, paper. Pre-printed letterhead and business forms began to appear in the 1860s, and were first used by the Cincinnati College around the 1880s.

Office aids such as paper clips, staples, folders, envelopes, and even file cabinets, were non-existent when the Cincinnati College was founded, and would not come into use until late in the nineteenth century. Instead of staples or paper clips, office workers used pins, string, wax seals and ribbon to secure papers together. Bundled papers were rolled or folded and stored in cabinets with openings called “pigeon holes.” Later documents were stored in flat cases or punched and put in two-pronged binders.

Articles of Incoproration of the Miami Medical Colllege, 1852 (click for a large image.)

Part 2:    Documenting A University

Part 3:    Automation & Records Management