The Graham collection contains rich documentation of athletics and campus life in the first decade of the 20th century. The scrapbook contains clippings of newspaper accounts of football games and other athletic events; programs, posters, and tickets for musical, theatrical events and fraternity activities and variety of student memorabilia
The Photo album contains numerous pictures of the varsity team posed on campus and at pre-season training camp at Whitmore Lake and Ludington. The are many individual photos of players and coaches including Fielding Yost and Keene Fitzpatrick as well as a rare photo of the football training table. There are photos of baseball and track teams and athletes and of push ball and tug-of-war competition between classes. Campus social life documented in photos of J-Hop and other dances, fraternity houses and events, the campus "county fair" and other events including a minstrel show parade with cast members of a production of Uncle Tom's Cabin in which Graham played Little Eva. All of the images are carefully, often humorously, captioned by Graham. He always captioned photos of himself with a question mark.
The second photo album includes a few football images (duplicates of items in the first volume) and the appears to be images of Graham's family and friends.
Walter DeWitt Graham was an engineering student and a guard on the University of Michigan football team, 1904-1907. Graham was born January 23, 1885 in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Hyde Park High School where starred in football and track. At 5'6" and 225 pounds, Graham was one of the heaviest players on the last of Fielding Yost's "point-a-minute," but was also fast for his size. Graham was known by his nickname "Octy", diminutive for Octopus.
Graham was an active participant in campus social life. He was a member of Phi Delta Theta, the Michigamua, Triangle and Vulcans honor societies and active in campus events such the County Fair, minstrel shows, and regularly attended dances, and theatrical and comedy performances. He graduated in 1908 with a degree in mechanical engineering
After graduation Graham returned to Chicago and worked for a number of companies, eventually serving as secretary and treasurer of the Vit-0-Net Manufacturing Company. Graham died July 12, 1927 in River Forest, Illinois.
