DIY Research
The UA Archives website presents original documents, photographs, maps, and other media. Through the UA Archives, the Library cultivates ongoing partnerships with the Upper Arlington Historical Society, the City of Upper Arlington, the Upper Arlington City School District, community organizations, and individuals to digitize items of historical interest and make them available to the public.
Four children having a tea party heralding the start of a new school year in 1918. (Courtesy of the UA Archives.)
historical images
Watch the story of the Upper Arlington community unfold in our Historical Images collection, which includes images from the Norwester magazine as well as the collections of the Upper Arlington Historical Society and individual donors. Browse the images chronologically to view Upper Arlington's development and learn some fascinating little known facts about early life in our community.
norwester magazine
The Norwester magazine was published monthly from November 1917 through March 1922, chronicling early suburban life in the Upper Arlington, Grandview Heights, and Marble Cliff areas. The Upper Arlington community initially published the magazine from 1917-1920 as part of their ideal to be "the finest residence district and the most cordial community in Ohio." For the final fifteen months of its publication, the communities of Grandview Heights, Marble Cliff, and Upper Arlington jointly published the Norwester. The magazine essentially served as the first newspaper to focus on the northwest suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, and it is a rich resource for historical, cultural, architectural, and genealogical information.
Image from the August 1920 Norwester magazine cover. (Courtesy of the UA Archives.)
The cover of the 1956 Norwester yearbook. The complete contents are available online. (Courtesy of the UA Archives.)
norwester yearbook
The Norwester yearbook has been published annually by the Upper Arlington City School District since 1923. Many of the earlier yearbook volumes included every grade in the school district, but the younger grades were gradually phased out until, beginning with the 1956 yearbook, only classes from the Upper Arlington High School were included.
The Upper Arlington Public Library partnered with the Upper Arlington City Schools and the Upper Arlington Alumni Association to launch the yearbook collection on October 7, 2009. As part of the library's agreement with the schools, there will always be a ten-year delay for any yearbooks presented online. Digitization of the pages took nearly two years to complete and is ongoing since a new volume will be added each year.
UA Archives is the Upper Arlington Public Library's digital library initiative. Through the UA Archives, the library partners with local organizations and individuals to digitally preserve our community’s historical resources and make them available online. In addition to the featured topics below, the UA Archives contains letters and memoirs, archive collections from the Miller and Thompson families, city and village documents, Wall of Honor information, historical maps, and more.