About the Collection
The Intercollegiate Rowing Association Collection was put together in the early 2000s when Marist College was preparing to renovate the historic Cornell Boathouse and the land surrounding it that would become Longview Park. The original collection consisted of a few programs, artifacts, and news articles. A website was created featuring images from the programs and news articles, but only offered basic information about the regatta. This site also featured lists of New York Times articles about the race.
This event was of particular interest to Marist College Archives and Special Collections as Marist College owns the last remaining boathouse on "Regatta Row" in what is known as Longview Park and much has been done by the College to restore the boathouse and share information about the Regatta's history.
In 2013, Elizabeth Clarke began working on the collection and in 2014, Ann Sandri joined the project. The work on the collection had two goals, expand the collection and conduct in depth research on the Regatta to create a definitive history. A history was built year by year by examining local newspapers, The Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle, and The Pokeepsie Evening Enterprise in addition to the existing known coverage by The New York Times. We connected with local history organizations, the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Administration, university archives, etc., to name a few in order to obtain copies of images, film footage, and more. These duplicate items are part of our collection with attributions to the original owner. Additionally, items were purchased and donated for the collection.
To learn more about the collection process, view the video below.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the following for sharing their knowledge and items with us: