The Savitar as Archive: Documenting a Century of Student Culture at MU
On the ground level of the MU Student Center, visitors can now explore an exhibition that brings renewed attention to one of the University of Missouri’s most significant yet often overlooked historical resources: The Savitar. As MU’s yearbook from 1894 to 2005, The Savitar documented generations of student life, campus culture, and institutional change. For decades, it served as the visual and textual archive upon which many of our past exhibitions, research projects, and interpretive narratives have relied.
The name “Savitar” derives from Hindu religious texts and serves as an epithet for the Vedic solar deity Surya. In the Rig Veda, the earliest extant collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns, Savitar is described as a life-giving force and an all-seeing witness capable of discerning the moral actions of humankind. As a divine figure associated with vitality, observation, and judgment, Savitar provides a symbol that resonates strongly with the aims of a publication designed to document campus life, observe student communities, and articulate the spirit of its era.
According to research conducted by the University of Missouri Archives, the student editors “may have been inspired to adopt the name by Professor James Shannon Blackwell,” who taught at MU from 1886 to 1897 as a professor of Semitic and modern languages and was well known for his scholarship in Sanskrit. The Archives further note that the founding editorial team of Savitar was also drawn to the name for purely aesthetic reasons—“the editors enjoyed the visual form and the auditory quality of the word ‘Savitar.’”
"It is with much fear and trembling that we submit our maiden effort to the mercies of a critical world, but the love of our Alma Mater and the thought of after years spurs us on."
–A hopeful greeting from the editors of the inaugural 1895 Savitar.
SAVITAR, the official yearbook of the University of Missouri, was first established in 1894 and continued publication through 2005. As one of the University’s longest-running and most historically significant publications, Savitar offers a systematic record of more than a century of student life and campus transformation. Its volumes encompass a wide range of materials, including student and faculty directories, academic and administrative organizations, campus events, athletic competitions, Greek Life (fraternities and sororities), student clubs, creative works, and lists of graduating classes.
With an uninterrupted publication history spanning 112 years, Savitar functions not merely as a yearbook but as a vivid and detailed visual archive of the University of Missouri. From early black-and-white photography and hand-drawn illustrations to the later adoption of color printing and modern graphic design, Savitar provides invaluable primary sources for studying the University’s social culture, constructions of student identity, visual traditions, and collective memory.
Our Savitar collection also preserves early works by several distinguished alumni, including poems published by the American playwright Thomas Lanier “Tennessee” Williams, illustrations created by the noted cartoonist Mort Walker, and numerous photographs of actor Brad Pitt and singer Sheryl Crow taken during their years at the University.
The complete run of The Savitar has now been fully digitized. Visitors who wish to explore the yearbooks in greater detail may do so through the University of Missouri Digital Library.
Curator: Hanxue Zhang
Collections: Missouri Student Unions
Location: Ground level of the Student Center
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