The Kansas City Public Library is pleased to announce the addition of 1,109 digitized yearbooks to our digital history site KCHistory.org. Resulting from more than two years of work by Missouri Valley Special Collections staff, the Kansas City Area High School Yearbooks Collection has tremendous research potential.

Each volume has been uploaded to the site as a text searchable PDF and, unlike other sites offering access to digitized yearbooks, the entire collection is freely available to researchers with no need to login or register.

Frequently used by genealogists, yearbooks go beyond providing a trace of an elusive ancestor at a specific point in time, they can help match a name with a face. They can also be used to learn an ancestor’s hobbies and interests by getting to know the clubs and activities in which they participated. Suddenly census sheets, city directory entries and other vital records are given new life.

Historians also use them to learn the story of individual schools, or to understand how their student populations have changed over time. Yearbooks can also provide a glimpse into adolescent life, a topic that is not often covered within traditional history texts.

And, of course, they are also great for simply taking a walk down memory lane. If you’ve misplaced your own yearbooks over the years, it may be possible to reconnect with the past once again using this exciting new collection.

Explore the Yearbook Collection Now

Do you have old yearbooks you’d be willing to share? If so, Missouri Valley Special Collections is always seeking to add new volumes and fill gaps in our yearbook collection. Please contact us to learn more about making a donation.