Images of campus life, 1974-78

Eric Weston ’78, a former Cornellian and Royal Purple photographer, has posted an extensive collection of images of Cornell student and academic life from 1974-78. Weston documented campus life throughout his four years on campus, mostly in black-and-white, and edited the ’76 and ’78 Royal Purple yearbooks.

Now an attorney living in Seattle, Weston alerted the college in an understated e-mail that said, “I graduated from Cornell in 1978. During my life there, I shot a lot of photographs. Over the past several years, I have scanned and digitized those negatives. Over the past month, I’ve been building a Web site for those and other photos. You might be interested in taking a look at the Cornell College set.”

Communications Director Dee Ann Rexroat ’82 received the e-mail and claims not to have completed work for a chunk of that afternoon while viewing the images online. She contacted college historian the Rev. Richard Thomas, who had interviewed Weston while researching and writing Cornell’s scholarly history book.

“It’s a very valuable collection. It has the integrity of a defined period and reflects that time in a fascinating way,” Thomas said. “It’s a documentation of student life at Cornell and perhaps of the larger world of student life in that period. I was enthusiastic about his art while he was making it. He has a gift for composition.”

You can view the photos online. But first, set aside plenty of time.