Take a Trip: Traveling and touring with the Visual Instruction Lantern Slides Collection

Join us! We're taking a trip this summer, traveling through Oregon and beyond!

The “Take a Trip: Traveling and touring with the Visual Instruction Lantern Slides Collection” comes straight from a great gem in our Archives, and until now really quite untapped, the Visual Instruction Lantern Slides Collection (P217).

So why is this collection so special? The Visual Instruction Department was created around 1932 as a unit of the Oregon State System of Higher Education’s General Extension Division, and was located on the Oregon State College campus in Corvallis. The department made slides and films available to schools, community clubs, churches, and other organizations for educational purposes.

This eclectic image collection contains 69 sets of mounted lantern slides covering a variety of topics, including many related to Oregon and the Pacific Northwest (Oregon Birds, Oregon Industries, Northwest Indians, Old Oregon Trail, Oregon State College, and Salmon Industry), as well as sets with biblical themes, U.S. history, and cultures in Europe.

Many slides are hand-tinted — one set is comprised entirely of 2″x2″ glass mounted color slides — and most sets include a typescript lecture (housed here in the Archives) that provides general background information on the topics.

How did they get here? The sets were probably acquired by the University Archives in the 1970s. They were transferred to the Horner Museum in March 1980 and then returned to the Archives in June 1996. Many sets were originally owned by the University of Oregon.

Learn more about the Visual Instruction Lantern Slides Collection (P217).