Early 20th century Furman viewbooks are now available online in the Furman University Viewbooks collection. According to Merriam-Webster, a viewbook is “a promotional booklet with pictures that is published by a college or university and used especially for recruiting students.”
As photographs became easier and cheaper to create and mass-produce in the late 19th century, many colleges and universities began producing viewbooks to entice prospective students to their campuses. You can learn more about the history of viewbooks and their impact on higher education marketing from this article “A Brief History of College Viewbooks.”
In the meantime, feel free to explore the buildings of Furman’s old downtown campus through these pages of the past.
