The Conversation | M Messner/Salinas High School
As a sociologist, I have studied high school yearbooks as time capsules and as a way to understand how youth culture, sports, gender and race relations have changed, or have not changed, over time. Despite their ubiquity, school yearbooks are a largely untapped source for scholarly inquiry. But as media historian Kate Eichhorn notes, people may probe an old high school yearbook to learn more about a mass murderer or to scrutinize whether someone is fit for public office.