Extracurricular Activities, 1949-2003

The Niel M. and Verna Applegate Johnson papers, 1910-2008, contains documents relating to the Johnsons' affiliation with Augustana College and specific groups on campus including the Augustana Choir, Rho Nu Delta, and the Augustana Observer. Niel Johnson continued to collect items pertaining to the college after he graduated, including letters to alumni of the college, letters to alumni of the various groups to which he belonged, choir programs, homecoming programs, newspaper clippings, and photographs.

Original order of the collection has been maintained. It is generally in chronological order with folders demarcating separate subjects and/or time periods. The papers relate to different aspects of Augustana College and have been arranged into four series: Academics, Extracurricular Activities, General, and Photographs.

The Academics series (1949-1953) contains items relating to Johnson's academic career at Augustana including class schedules, assignments, and exams.

The Extracurricular Activities series includes items relating to the groups that Niel and Verna Johnson belonged to while at Augustana. This series contains papers from their time at Augustana, but also demonstrates Niel's ties to these groups after leaving the college. This series represents a large portion of the collection and contains information on Neil's interests: sports, choir, the Observer, and Rho Nu Delta. Included among these files are newspaper clippings, programs, scrapbooks, letters, newsletters and reunion information. Verna's scrapbook is also included in this series. Verna's scrapbook contains newspaper clippings of campus events and wedding announcements, choir programs, and welcome cards from sororities.

The General series contains files created by Niel Johnson that contain a variety of types of information about Augustana arranged by time period. These files contain Augustana directories, newspaper clippings, programs, promotional materials, publications, newsletters, reports, among other items. The files that cover the period from 1967-1969 include items pertaining to Johnson's tiem as an instructor in the department of history at Augustana. These particular papers give a glimpse of curriculum issues being discussed at this time as well as the scholarship that faculty members were involved in. The later files are composed of items relating to Johnson's position as an alumnus of the college and demonstrate his interest in the development of the school by way of clippings, programs, and newsletters that he sought out and saved.

The Photographs series contains images documenting Augustana College for a period of nearly 100 years, including the dedication of the Thomas Tredway Library in 1990.