School’s out … but thanks to a long-standing tradition, students across the U.S. have a keepsake to remember the past year.
Filled with superlatives, quotes, signatures and “H.A.G.S.” messages, school yearbooks celebrate the joy, inside jokes, school pride, loss, change and the overall story of the year. Behind every page, is an effort — often led by student yearbook clubs — to document academic life.
This tradition dates back to the 19th century — thanks to Boston-based photographer George K. Warren — who encouraged college students to bind and trade their “graduating class pictures.”
As school communities evolve, yearbooks remain a time capsule that preserves how students and educators saw themselves and each other.
Here’s a visual journey spanning decades, exploring the nostalgia and joy of the last day of school:
From left, Whitney Blaine 8, Kyley (cq) Waitsman 8, Tiana Paul 8, and Natasha Poliakin 7, all second graders at Westlake Hills Elementary School in Thousand Oaks look over the schools yearbook on their last day of school. (Steve Osman/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)Tim Wilson, Lovonya DeJean Middle School music director, signns the yearbook of Julio Davila (not shown) after class on the final day of instruction at Lovonya DeJean Middle School on Thursday, June 8, 2017 in Richmond, Calif. (Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)Nancy Lopez (cq), 8th grade, lays on her backpack reading what her friends wrote in her yearbook on the last day of school at Louisville Middle School in Louisville, Colorado June 07, 2007. (Mark Leffingwell/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images)Siraj Ameen, left, and Torian Carre look at a yearbook during lunch at Manual High School on Tuesday, May 10, 2011. The school, which re-opened in 2007 after it was closed due to subpar performance in 2007, released its first yearbook since reopening. (AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post via Getty Images)Middleton High School yearbook staff works together, seated around tables, Middleton, Wisconsin, December 10, 1928. (Angus B. McVicar/Wisconsin Historical Society/Getty Images)Myron Vaughan, 59, 5th grade teacher at Big Spring Elementary School in Simi Valley, signs the yearbook of teary eyed Alyson Thompson, 11, one of his students, after the end of class on the last school day of the year. (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)Last day of school tradition, the signing of the yearbooks. Jamie Smith,11, thinks of what to write in one of the many year books passed around by students and teachers at Meadows Elementary School in Thousand Oaks. (Carlos Chavez/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)1967: Students from Roslyn Heights And Wheat Ridge high schools look at a yearbook. (Bill Johnson/The Denver Post via Getty Images)Marica Moore, holds the center fold of a yearbook that looks more like an art book than a high school yearbook, produced by Moore and a group of students at New Roads High School in Santa Monica, California. Carmela Vibiano, Cooper Nagengast, and Domanique Bjington are students who worked on the yearbook. (Carlos Chavez/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)Aug. 20, 2001: At the reunion of the Falmouth High School Class of 1951, Jackson Blake adds a new inscription to a classmates yearbook, “How did we make it this far?” (David MacDonald/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)Alli Tahmoush laughs at pictures in her school yearbook with old classmates at Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart. (MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)Students sit in the commons area and page their new yearbooks at Prospect High School on May 26, 2015, in Mt. Prospect, Illinois. Nearly 75% of all students order yearbooks in the school. This number includes 1,500 yearbooks. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)June 5, 1998: Pausing as they recognize a friend, (L) Dominique Brogden,18, and Tomeka Robinson, 17, had been looking over a yearbook on the steps of the old Blair High School. Brogden had just graduated from Blair and was among the last class there. Robinson (a junior) says that while she’ll miss some things about the old Blair, she’s looking forward to being the first class to go to the new Blair. (Michael Williamson/The The Washington Post via Getty Images)May 31, 2005 / Boulder, Co / Coco Miller (Cq), graduating senior, writes in a friends yearbook during English class Tuesday afternoon at Fairview High School.(Mark Leffingwell/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images)(L-R) Principal Alice Hom and teacher Laura Lai look over the recently arrived Class of 2021 yearbook at Yung Wing School P.S. 124 on July 22, 2021, in New York City. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)Mariel Fulton lays in the grass signing a friend’s yearbook during the last day of school at Louisville Middle School in Louisville, Colorado, on June 7, 2007. (Mark Leffingwell/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images)
