Snapshots

Photos from the archives and readers like you.

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Spring/25

Eds will roll

Black and white photo. Students holding balloons and kazoos walk down the street toward the camera. Two students roll a giant kazoo. A woman in a leotard and white boots leads the group, holding a baton. Big Ed, the 15-foot-long and couple-hundred-pound kazoo, trundles along in the 1974 reunion parade. Named after UChicago president (1968–75) Edward Levi, LAB’28, PhB’32, JD’35, Big Ed replaced Big Bertha, the giant bass drum of the University’s Big Ten years, as the centerpiece of halftime shows for the newly reinstated varsity football program. (Photography by Leslie Travis, AB’73)

Roll that beautiful bean footage

Black and white photo. Four men in suits eat. The man on the left stands and the other three crouch. It is a sunny day; small bushy trees are in the background. A truck is visible in the background. Distinguished guests enjoy a chuckwagon dinner at the opening of McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains of West Texas in May 1939. Pictured from left are Bertil Lindblad, director of the Stockholm Observatory; Edward Arthur Milne, professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford; Arthur Holly Compton, professor of physics at the University of Chicago; and C. J. Stilwell, president of the Warner and Swasey Company, which designed the observatory’s 2.1-meter reflector telescope (today known as the Otto Struve Telescope). The University of Chicago and the University of Texas jointly operated the observatory until 1960; today, it is operated by the University of Texas at Austin.(UChicago Photographic Archive, apf1-01874, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

Friz frame

Black and white photo. Smiling woman in a long coat with a flower at the neck and a hat, carrying a large plaid bag throws a frisbee toward the camera. Two young adults smile in the background. A chain link fence, bushes, and a university building are behind them. At her 50th reunion in 1958, Una Jones Nelson, AB 1908, “learns to ‘friz,’” as this magazine put it. It was only the previous year that Wham-O had begun producing the plastic Frisbee discs we know today, but college students had been flinging flying discs at each other for decades. The tradition began as early as the 1920s at Yale and other New England schools, where students let soar empty pie tins from Frisbie Pie Company, based in Bridgeport, Connecticut. What was your favorite way to spend time on the quads? Throw us a memory at uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu. (Photography by Lee Balterman)

Historian of Chicago

Black and white photo. Woman in dark top with short light-colored hair sits at a desk and faces the camera. She is speaking. Behind her are floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. History professor Bessie Louise Pierce, AM 1918, pictured here in 1967, joined the UChicago faculty and became head of the History of Chicago Project in 1929. She led the project until 1973, producing the first comprehensive history of the city of Chicago, from 1673 to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The University of Chicago Press published the three-volume A History of Chicago from 1937 to 1957. Did you work or study with Pierce? Share your memories at uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu. (Photography by Edward De Luga, UChicago Photographic Archive, apf1-06827, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

In the cards

Black and white photo. Four students sit at a wooden table around a card game. Many students sit in groups on the grass behind them. Students play cards in Hutchinson Court in May 1971. At a time of national discord and big changes on campus—including a new library—students came together to make their own fun. Read an oral history of College life in the 1970s. And share your own memories of that time at uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu. (Photography by Frank Gruber, AB’74; UChicago Photographic Archive, apf4-04481, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

Orly’s or …

Black and white photo. An empty restaurant. On the right, along a wall of windows, are white booths and palm plants. At the left there are three carpeted stairs leading to a higher level. Orly’s Restaurant at 55th and Hyde Park Boulevard is pictured here circa 1981, the year it opened. The restaurant morphed several times—in name as well as cuisine—over the years. Most recently, Litehouse Grill occupied the spot, though today the restaurant is empty. Did you know it as Orly’s, Jalapeño’s, Hyde Park Barbeque and Bakery, the Big Easy, or something else? Share your stories at uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu. (Copyright 2025, The Chicago Maroon. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.)

Have chalk—will travel

Black and white photo. Students sit in the grass facing away from the camera. They are looking at a man in cargo shorts and a t-shirt talking in front of a chalk board. Math equations are written on the board. Behind the board a building is covered in ivy. Quadratics are better on the quads. A math instructor moves class outside to take advantage of a sunny day. Did any of your courses at the University take you outside the classroom? Tell us about it at uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu. (Copyright 2025, The Chicago Maroon. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.)

Connecting classrooms

Black and white photo. Two women face the camera and smile. In front of them is a computer and two keyboards. Behind them are bookshelves and a bulletin board. Astronomy and astrophysics graduate students Lucia Muñoz-Franco, SM’95, PhD’00 (left), and Luisa Rebull, SM’93, PhD’00, worked as curriculum coordinators for the Chicago Public Schools/University of Chicago Internet Project. Started in 1996, the program aimed to help public schools on the South Side connect to the internet, providing infrastructure as well as training for teachers and administrators. The idea for the program originated with Don York, PhD’71, Horace B. Horton Professor Emeritus in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. (Photography by Lloyd DeGrane, UChicago Photographic Archive, apf1-13304, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

Have photos from your UChicago days? The Magazine may be able to share them in Alumni News and in a future Snapshots. Send high-resolution scans and your memories of what the pictures are about to uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu.

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