Scope and Content

The Administrative Records of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens document the foundation, administration, and the other activities of the School from its establishment in 1881 until the present day. The majority of the records originated in the Director’s Office, although records are included which have been generated by other governing bodies of the School like the Managing Committee and the Board of the Trustees. 

Some of the records included in the Administrative Records were housed at the School’s U.S. office in New York (Mayer House). The latter served as the School’s base for U.S. operations from 1974 through 1993, before it was sold in 1998.  Writing about the Mayer House, Lucy Shoe Meritt in the History of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1939-1980 (Princeton 1984) mentioned that it served “as meeting place for the Trustees and the Managing Committee and their smaller sub-committees, as headquarters of the Trustees, as repository for records of the School kept in Athens, and for duplicates of excavation records.”  In 1998, when I visited the new U.S. premises of the School at Princeton, I found in the basement and attic of the new building several boxes with records bearing the indication “Mayer House.” Later that year these boxes were shipped to Athens, where they now form part of the School’s Administrative Records, with special notice about their origin.

In the mid 1990’s, Evi Sikla, who had undertaken the processing of the Administrative Records, and I decided to arrange the diverse material according to subject, following Helen Samuel’s Varsity Letters: Documenting Modern Colleges and Universities. Our main concern was to organize the Administrative Records in a user-friendly way, while respecting any pre-existing organization. The Director’s correspondence of the 1950s and 1960s was found already organized by year and by subject. The same was true for part of the early 1970s papers. Most of the documents predating the 1950s, however, were found randomly placed in boxes and file cabinets. Although some materials were arranged in coherent groups, no consistent overall classification system could be recognized.

The Administrative Records were grouped into ten thematic series and the folders were arranged within the series, according to their headings. New folders were created only for loose documents.

Entered by Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan, April 2010.