Welcome to Institute Archives and Special Collections Digital Assets | Institute Archives and Special Collections Digital Assets

Featured Collections

Roebling Collection

Select photographs and drawings from the Roebling collection dating from approximately 1844 to the early 1900s, the period of time when John A. Roebling and Washington A. Roebling was active in the design and construction of suspension bridges and the manufacture of wire rope. Especially significant are the extensive records documenting the planning and construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, the world’s longest suspension bridge in the world when it opened in 1883, and the early scrapbooks created that document the progression of the construction activities.

Polytechnic

The Polytechnic (The Poly) is Rensselaer's student newspaper first published in 1869 and has been in continuous publication since 1885. More back issues will be added in the near future.

Photograph Collection

A vast collection of photographs from the Archives that document student life, campus activities and scenes, buildings and their histories, classes and reunions, and various subjects related to science, technology and engineering.

History

The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute : its reorganization in 1849-50, its condition at the present time, its plans and hopes for the future

Published Rensselaer Histories

Eleven publications dating from 1855 to 2006 that detail the history of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and its predecessors beginning with its founding in 1824 as the Rensselaer School and its later incarnation as the Rensselaer Institute.

RPI Players

Photographs from the RPI Players records highlighting student theatrical productions from 1930 through the 2000s.

Postcards

The collection consists of picture postcards of street scenes, parks, public buildings, businesses, monuments, educational institutions, scenes along the Hudson River, and other views in and around Troy, New York as well as a small set of postcards of bridges built by RPI engineers. The years 1900 to 1920 are widely regarded as the golden age of postcards, when they began to be used both as souvenirs and as an inexpensive means of communication. The majority of the postcards withi this collection date from that period, and depict a variety of buildings and public spaces in and around Troy, New York and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The images included here are a small fraction of the Postcard Collectionheld by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Archives and Special Collections Department.

Innovation

George Low NASA Photographs

Photographs of the personal and professional activities of George M. Low, an influential aeronautics and aerospace engineer, federal agency manager, and university president.

Rensselaer Alumni Magazine

Items in this collection have been published under a variety of titles from 1929 to the present. Issues typically contain articles about developments at RPI in addition to news regarding student, faculty, and alumni accomplishments. Recent issues have alumni contact information redacted.

Project Tubeflight

Tubeflight was the brainchild of RPI professor Joseph V. Foa beginning in the 1950s. Foa, his colleagues, and students studied a novel means of ground transportation in which a vehicle was propelled through a tube at high velocity. This collection primarily consists of RPI technical reports dating from 1964 to 1970, some of which served as reports to funding agencies. There are also four renderings illustrating what the system would look like, and an issue of the Rensselaer Review focused on Tubeflight.