T-shirts provide snapshots of student life

Students dragging themselves to 8 a.m. classes are known for dressing casually, but a lot can be learned about campus life by looking at the t-shirts they wear. Warm spring days draw out the #GDTBATH shirts in full force, and the Quad is full of students decked out in Carolina blue.

UNC has an extensive system of archives documenting University events. The UNC t-shirt archive, which intends to capture the UNC experience through the eyes of students, is one of the newest of the library’s collections.

Created in October 2016, the website chronicles UNC t-shirts representing different aspects of student life. Anyone with a UNC t-shirt and a story to share can submit a photo to the archive. The archive’s Tumblr page has 345 submissions, which range from caricatures of Coach Roy Williams and Coach Mike Krzyzewski to student organizations like the Marching Tar Heels.

Jennifer Coggins, a UNC Libraries archivist and one of the project’s creators, said she is excited by the number and variety of submissions.

“Thanks to everyone who’s contributed to the project, we now have shirts spanning from the late 1940s to 2017, reflecting many different aspects of student life,” she said.

This creative approach to documenting student life was inspired by the Wearing Gay History project, an online collection of photos of t-shirts representing LGBTQ communities from across the country.

University archivist and project creator Nicholas Graham said he wants the project to connect current and past students through their favorite UNC memories.

“We thought t-shirts would be great because they’re so ubiquitous on campus,” Coggins said. “Just about everyone has a shirt they can share with the archive. UNC-related t-shirts represent such a wide variety of events and interests at Carolina — activism, University events, parties, dorm life, student organizations, athletics, inside jokes. They provide a window into campus life at the time they were made and worn.”

Graham said his favorite thing about the archive is its creativity and diversity.

“Whether they’re promoting the Dance Marathon, protesting or celebrating yet another national championship, the t-shirts provide a fun and fascinating snapshot of student life at Carolina,” he said.

Senior Kishan Rana said that he submitted a picture of a t-shirt from his student organization Monsoon, which creates a South Asian magazine, immediately after he heard about the project.

“Monsoon submitted a photo to the archive since we are a very rare kind of organization, and we want to leave our marks everywhere we can,” he said.

Dozens of the t-shirts are related to UNC men’s basketball. The basketball shirts range from NCAA Championship victories to praising popular players and winning scores against Duke to phrases like “lock in.”

Coggins said the archive is an ongoing and growing collection.

“We hope students will remember us and share a photo when they add a new shirt to their own personal collections,” she said.

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