University of Northen Iowa (UNI Gallery of Art, University of Northern Iowa)

The University of Northern Iowa (UNI) Museums is the repository for an archive of 9,000 original documents relating to early Iowa education. This project will establish collections management control over the archive’s resources, ensuring their security and preservation while allowing public access to the valuable historical information contained within the archive. The historically important Marshall Center School, owned by UNI Museums, maintains a collection of over 3,000 photographs, school board records, oral histories, teacher certificates and contracts, teaching materials, maps, diaries, letters, furnishings, and textbooks from the 1850s to the 1960s. With the addition of the statewide collection of official rural school documents, the UNI Museums’ Center for the History of Rural Iowa Education and Culture is poised to become a significant national center for the study of educational, rural, and women’s history.