The majority of the archives’ digitized records can be found on Athena Commons, the W’s institutional repository. These include the Oh Lady humor magazine, the entire run of the Meh Lady yearbook, and the portion of the photograph collection also located in the Mississippi Digital Library, as well as the Ellard-Murphree-Pilgreen-Smith Family Papers Collection. Athena Commons is updated consistently as archives student employees and staff work to make more of the collection available online.

The use and reproduction of copyrighted material policy applies to all digital resources.

Photograph Collection

A large sampling of historical photographs from the Beulah Culbertson Archives and Special Collections is available in .jpg format and searchable online via the Mississippi Digital Library.

University Publications

Desegregation Materials

The anthology “The Price We Paid: An Anthology of the Desegregation of Mississippi State College for Women” was created in 2016 as part of the Those Who Dared event series commemorating the 50th anniversary of desegregation. It is composed of student literary, historiographical, and artistic submissions; previous student work from the Dilettanti literary annual; snippets from oral histories conducted from 2011-2016; and primary source documents.

Copyright for the student submissions and work from the Dilettanti belongs to the authors. Copyright for the oral histories belongs either to Mississippi University for Women or to Columbus-Lowndes County Public Library. Copyright for other material belongs to Mississippi University for Women.

A substantial digital exhibit on desegregation at The W, In Their Footsteps, contains over 40 pages with images as well as audio clips taken from oral histories.

This subject guide on desegregation/civil rights at Mississippi State College for Women can be used to see our physical holdings on the subject.

OH LADY Magazine

Only three issues of the OH LADY humor magazine were published. MSCW sophomore Eudora Welty was a cartoonist for all three issues, and probably wrote some of the satirical poetry which is left unsigned. 

Meh Lady Yearbook

The Meh Lady was the annual published to commemorate the events of each school year. With the exceptions of 1913-1916 and 1918-1921, the publication ran from 1902-2004. At the beginning of its run, the Meh Lady contained original art and written compositions created by students, including Eudora Welty, who was on staff from 1926-1927. The contents of the Meh Lady took on many forms in the 95 years it was published, reflecting the changes taking place on campus. These yearbooks represent the history of the W through the eyes of students and are an invaluable resource for the W community.

Ephemera Literary Magazine

EPHEMERA literary magazine was published during the late 1930s through the 1940s and was the predecessor to The Dilettanti. All files are in .pdf format.

Industrial Institute & College Catalogs

These are catalogs from the Industrial Institute and College, the original name of Mississippi University for Women.

Reference Files

The archives maintains a collection of copies of newspaper articles, programs, brochures, and other ephemera for ready reference on a variety of topics relating to Mississippi University for Women. Such topics include (among other things) notable people, locations around campus, events, and campus offices and departments, as well as topical headings from a survey of students taken during the 1960s. Persons with three or more items are given their own file; all others are kept together, alphabetized by last name, in a single file labeled “biography.” Materials are regularly added to the subject files from newspapers around the state, online articles from Mississippi media, and publicity and other items printed from MUW campus offices.

Note: there are no cross references in the listings, so one may need to consider multiple possible headings, both general and specific, to find all relevant material.

Current Subject File Headings (pdf) — updated 05/2021