Although the Hartford Public High School had its literary publication, The Chronicle, as early as June, 1891, yearbooks began to appear in 1896. The first yearbooks were an offshoot of The Chronicle and were named The Owl Annual; they were quite different from the yearbooks that we are accustomed to seeing in high schools today. The Owl Annual did not have pictures of individual students. However, there were group pictures of the members of clubs such as the Hopkins Debating Club, the HPHS Debating Club, Drama Club, The Athena (ladies’ debating club), Mandolin Club, Banjo Club, and the athletic teams. Each Owl Annual had class lists for all four classes and it had pages dedicated to the secret societies and fraternities. Although this publication was printed from 1896 up through 1917, there is a two-year gap in the school collection. However, a final edition was produced in 1920. The name of the school newspaper, The Owlet, was taken from this early yearbook when it first appeared in April, 1919. The Owl Annual was succeeded by a standard type of classbook or yearbook. The collection of HPHS yearbooks in the school archive begins with the year 1923. From 1923 through 1936 these books have an A edition and a B edition, reflecting the dual classes that graduated from the overcrowded school in those years. In the 1922-1923 school year, for example, there were 3,952 students enrolled in the school. These classes were called “semi-annual graduation classes,” with “A” for the January class and “B” for the June class. Over the years, the yearbooks have varied in format. Originally, they had black and white photos of the graduating seniors. Colored photographs became popular in the 1980’s, and some books even have smaller photos of the underclassmen at the school. The costs of printing severely curtailed the artistic inspiration for the yearbooks as time went on, but yearbooks up to the 1960’s have an abundance of student art and decoration. The Collection is added to each year and, as of this writing, extends to 2022. There are several gaps, and when the school was divided into academies in 2008, some of the yearbooks were published by academy. With the reunification of the school, the HPHS yearbooks returned to the format of a single high school.
