Few constants exist in the ever-changing world of high school. Perhaps none have proven as nostalgically valuable as the portraits, signatures, and memories found in a high school yearbook. Much of Lethbridge’s own high school history sits in its shelves full of these volumes, dating as far back as 1922!

Our most extensive collection of yearbooks consists of the “SpotLite,” the annual publication of the Lethbridge Collegiate Institute. While the oldest publicly available issue in our Reference Library is from 1946, the archives shelves hold copies from over a century ago. In broad terms, the format of a high school yearbook has not changed significantly in the past century—the 1922 issue of SpotLite, for example, recounts some major events of the year (both global and local), features pictures of different clubs and athletic teams, and includes some blank pages near the end for peer signatures. While very little of this has changed from the yearbooks still published today, perhaps one of the most notable differences is the formatting of student photographs. Rather than the colour portraits of each student that we are familiar with today, many pre-1950 yearbooks consecutively feature pictures of each homeroom class. While there are obvious practical reasons for this (namely, cheaper prices for both obtaining the portraits and printing them in bulk), early Lethbridge yearbooks weren’t as barren as one might believe—and all of them, from the oldest issue in the Archives, are rife with advertisement.

Some formatting, too, depended on the resources available to the school. Compared to the many LCI yearbooks available in the Archives, some other mid-century volumes appear downright plain. Wilson Middle School’s 1954–55 yearbook, the “Wilson Warbler,” appears to have been typewritten, and much of the ink has faded in the seven decades since it was published. Only homeroom class pictures are featured in that year’s edition—even the school’s athletic teams are featured only through typed lists of player names.

Of course, no yearbook is complete without a sense of the school’s personality. In a broad sense, the execution of a school yearbook in Lethbridge appears to have shifted from staff responsibility to yearbook clubs around the 1940s, with all the teenage humour and charm to match. Some categories featured in mid-century yearbooks would almost certainly be lambasted today; the 1946 edition of LCI SpotLite, for example, features a “grade 12 popularity poll” for its graduates, with categories such as “hair,” “eyebrows,” “teeth,” “complexion,” “pep,” “dancing,” “voice,” and—perhaps most crushing of all for those not listed—“best liked.”

To view the many moments (and hairstyles!) recorded in the history of Lethbridge’s secondary schools, begin your research by booking an appointment at galtmuseum.com/research.