The Banyan

In 1911 Brigham Young University began to publish a yearbook. The name of the yearbook, the Banyan, was taken from a statement made by Karl G. Maeser comparing the influence of the university on Church education to a banyan tree. The Banyan was supervised by the Student Publications Board. It had its own faculty adviser and students did the majority of the work on the yearbook. The Banyan aimed to capture student life on campus through a combination of text and images. The Banyan features class pictures as well as photographs of athletic events, student activities, and clubs. It also includes information on student government and descriptions of campus life. The Banyan was published through 1985.

The University Archives recently had our collection of the Banyan digitized and it is now available through the Internet Archive. Follow this link to the Internet Archive’s search page http://www.archive.org/search.php and use the search term “banyan” plus the year that you are looking for to locate a particular copy of the Banyan. For example, if you were looking for the 1965 Banyan your search string would be “banyan 1965.”

If you would like to know more about the Banyan or other materials documenting the history of Brigham Young University, please contact the University Archivist at (801) 422-5821 or gordon_daines@byu.edu