page_title: UA Archives (Upper Arlington, Ohio)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: UA Archives (Upper Arlington, Ohio) / History
caption_attribution_description: Miss Mary Boyer, the first teacher in Upper Arlington, reads to her students, Warren C. Armstrong and Carol Arnos. Classes in the Upper Arlington school system were initially held in the basement of the home of King Thompson, one of Upper Arlington's founders. Published on page 12 of the Norwester, December 1917, in a feature titled "Education in the Upper Arlington School." Original caption read: "Under home like conditions Miss Boyer is seen here giving personal instruction of a type that would be impossible under crowded city conditions."
context_page_description: The UA Archives program provides access to materials related to the culture and history of Upper Arlington, Ohio, and is part of the Upper Arlington Public Library's digital library initiative. Free online access to these materials via the UA Archives website is provided in accordance with the Library's mission to help the community explore Upper Arlington's heritage and grow through a lifetime of learning.
  Through the UA Archives, the Library cultivates ongoing partnerships with the Upper Arlington Historical Society, the City of Upper Arlington, community organizations, and individuals to digitize items of historical interest and make them available to the public. By working with the Historical Society and other community groups, the UA Archives digital library initiative supports the goal of preserving Upper Arlington's history as well as the Upper Arlington Historic District's listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
context_section_description: The Upper Arlington Public Library began preliminary work on their digitization program in November 2002.  These initial preparations included researching existing digital library initiatives and standards. Digitization program management was appointed, a formal collection development plan was drafted, and potential users, partnerships, and program goals were identified. Through the UA Archives, the Library would lend their expertise to other community organizations and individuals by digitizing, cataloging, and providing access to historically and culturally significant materials related to Upper Arlington.
  The Upper Arlington Historical Society was a natural choice as the first community organization with which the Library would partner. The Society and its members play an active role in the community, which is also a reflection of residents' interest in the history of their city. In addition to their local history archives, the Historical Society maintains preservation guidelines; a historical home inventory; and the Upper Arlington Wall of Honor, a tribute to notable area residents. Due to the volunteer nature of the organization, however, the rich resources of the Historical Society were not always easily accessible to the community. The Library approached the Upper Arlington Historical Society in the spring of 2003 with an offer to digitize and provide online access to their holdings. In November of that year the Library penned a formal agreement with the Historical Society.
  The UA Archives website launched on September 15, 2004, after two years of planning and over 1,500 hours of work. At that time it included historical photographs depicting little known facts about early life in the community. One photograph shows the Marble Cliff Depot, a railroad station known originally as the Scioto Depot. This station house served the Upper Arlington area until the late 1920s and was located on the south side of Fifth Avenue just east of the Pennsylvania tracks, near the present day entrance to First Community Village. Another photograph shows the first teacher and students in Upper Arlington at a time when classes were held in the basement of the home of King Thompson, one of Upper Arlington's founders. Yet another captures a scene from Camp Willis, a military training camp located in Upper Arlington during the community's early development in 1916. Ohio Guardsmen were trained at this camp to defend the United States against cross-border attacks from Pancho Villa's Mexican troops.
  The debut of the UA Archives website also included approximately 2,000 pages of text and photographs from the Norwester magazine, the original community newspaper, published from November 1917 through March 1922. Among other topics, the Norwester magazine covered local residents, homes, schools, sports, and daily life. The magazine also included first-hand accounts of World War I, received from local residents stationed in Europe, and chronicled life on the home front as community members bought Liberty Bonds and war savings stamps, planted backyard war gardens, and debated the patriotic virtues of continuing to spend their money versus saving.
caption: Mary Boyer, the first teacher in Upper Arlington, held class in the basement of King Thompson's home.
  (view this photo >) [5]
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "96", "Image YResolution": "96", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2004:07:27 14:54:27", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2488", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "376", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "600"}