Iona Irving Ferguson Collection, 1893-1950

Title: Iona Irving Ferguson Collection, 1893-1950

Predominant Dates: 1911-1924

ID: MSS Ferguson

Primary Creator: Ferguson, Iona Irving

Extent: 0.15 cubic feet. More info below.

Languages of Materials: English [eng]

The Iona Irving Ferguson Collection consists of ephemera assembled by Iona Margaret Irving, primarily during her student years at Oregon Agricultural College. The collection includes invitations, dance cards, and programs as well as newspaper clippings, postcards, publications, a grade report, and artifacts. Of special note is a student account book, sold by the College Bookstore, in which she tracked her income (receipts) and expenditures (payments) by month. The book includes several receipts from local Corvallis busineses.

The publications include a 1917 alumni directory, commencement programs, and a 1924 history of the Classes of 1914 and 1915. The artifacts include a ribbon, pins, a felt sash with for the Class of 1915, two medals from a Golden Jubilee alumni reunion, a decorative leather memory book, and a souvenir coin from the 1893 Columbia Exposition.

The collection includes two photographs. One is a photographic postcard of members of the Margaret Snell Club, all dressed in white, with Snell in front of Waldo Hall. The second is a hand-colored image of Iona in her graduation cap and gown.

Iona Margaret Irving enrolled at Oregon Agricultural College (OAC) in September 1911 and graduated in 1915 with a BS in Home Economics. She attended summer sessions at OAC in 1916, 1923, and 1926 and was enrolled as a graduate student in spring term of 1925. Irving married Oscar Ferguson, a 1916 graduate of OAC, in 1917; they lived in Kansas City, Chicago, and Eastern Oregon during the next several years and by the mid-1920s were living in Selma, California.

Iona was born August 23, 1893 in Salem, Oregon; she graduated from Central High School, in Washington, DC. She died in California in 1992.

Additional information about the Irving family is available in the central file for this collection.

More Extent Information: 2 photographs; 2 boxes, including 1 oversize box

Statement on Access: Collection is open for research.

Acquisition Note: The materials were donated to the Archives in 2011 by John W. Irving, an extended family member of Iona Irving Ferguson.

Related Materials: The Special Collections and Archives Research Center holdings include numerous collections of student memorabilia and ephemera assembled during the 1910s. Other collections that document the student experience in the mid-1910s are the Irwin Betzel Papers (MSS Betzel), A. Freeman Mason Scrapbook (MSS Mason), Francis and Lois Wilson Neer Photograph Album (P 206), Nicholas Schneider Photograph Collection (P 148), and Marshall S. Wright Photograph Album (P 276). The Milton O. Stemmler Student Diary (MSS Stemmler) includes entries of income and expenses for a student who attended Oregon Agricultural College in the 1890s.

Preferred Citation: Iona Irving Ferguson Collection (MSS Ferguson), Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.

Ferguson, Iona Irving

College costs--Oregon--Corvallis.
College students--Oregon--Corvallis.
Ferguson, Iona Irving
Oregon Agricultural College--Students.
Student activities--Oregon--Corvallis.
University History

Dance cards.
Ephemera (general object genre)
Photographic postcards.
Photographic prints.