Trailheads

While Abercrombie & Fitch is known for selling trendy lifestyle clothes, the brand’s roots lie in rugged outdoor adventure. In 1903, the company published a “Catalogue Of Complete Outfits For Explorers, Campers, and Prospectors.” While Abercrombie & Fitch originally sold sporting goods, the company passed through the hands of several owners over the next 85 years and eventually transitioned into fashion retail.

However, the 1903 catalog is a reminder of the company’s past, and it’s just one of the many interesting documents you can examine while exploring Utah State University’s Outdoor Recreation Archive.

Established in 2018, the archive includes some 15,000 printed documents related to the outdoor industry, including catalogs, magazines, financial records, sketchbooks, patents, and correspondence.

“It includes pretty much anything on paper related to the history of a company or the people behind the brands,” says Chase Anderson, archive manager and head of outdoor industry relations for Utah State University in Ogden, UT.

Archive Origins

Utah State established the Outdoor Recreation Archive to provide research materials for students studying the history of outdoor products. However, the archive’s mission expanded as it gained a following beyond the university.

“Our Instagram account (@outdoorrecarchive) really opened our eyes,” says Anderson. “We started posting images from the collection online and got followers from Paris, Tokyo, London, New York, and Los Angeles. There were outdoor enthusiasts and people in high fashion, graphic design, branding, and advertising, just looking for inspiration. So that opened our eyes and expanded the vision.”

While the archive still serves students, its expanded mission is to be the world’s most comprehensive collection of printed materials chronicling the history of the outdoor industry. “The goal is to continue finding and preserving stories and materials,” says Anderson. “Then, we’ll find new ways to make it more broadly accessible so more people can learn from it, study it, and appreciate it.”

The best way to explore the archive is to visit Utah State in person, says Anderson, noting that much of the material has not been digitized, so it is unavailable online. “We allow people to come into the archive and do research,” he says. “I always advise people to visit for a couple of days because people often don’t have enough time.”

“We also take the archives on the road,” he says. “We do exhibits around the country and typically bring a collection of magazines and catalogs for people to look at. We’re actually flying out to do an exhibit on The North Face in Paris.”

If you can’t schedule a trip to Utah, you can sample the archive by visiting Instagram (@outdoorrecarchive). There, you’ll see amusing images from a variety of sources, such as

Eddie Bauer’s 1979 catalog, the 1932 Old Town Canoes & Boats catalog, and a Ski Fashions publication from 1956.

You can also explore the historical materials by purchasing The Outdoor Archive, a 384-page hardcover book ($65) that includes images from outdoor magazines and catalogs spanning 100 years.

Teaching and Inspiring the Next Generation

While the archive aims to preserve outdoor industry history, another goal is to inspire the next generation of product designers and developers. The archive is integral to Utah State’s Outdoor Product Design & Development program.

“We’ve been very strategic about how we integrate the archive throughout the four years,” says Anderson. Students in their first semester of the program study the archive to learn the importance of sketching and visual communication. “Students go in and see sketches from incredible designers from our industry. They can see beautiful hand-drawn renderings next to a designer’s rough ideas.”

The archive also enables students to better understand how to tailor designs to reflect a brand’s history, principles, and style. “This semester, we tasked our junior-level students with designing with The North Face in mind,” says Anderson. “Before they came up with concepts or put pencil to paper, they had to go into the archive as a class and dig through the company’s history.”

Benefits Beyond the Classroom

While Utah State students learn valuable lessons from the Outdoor Recreation Archive, the collection also benefits the entire outdoor industry, says Anderson. First, the archive reminds people that the industry is important and impactful and includes intriguing history worth preserving.

“We talk with donors all the time who are surprised we want to preserve their materials because they don’t think of themselves as part of something bigger,” says Anderson. “The industry has matured and grown and plays an outstanding role in our culture and the economy.”

By preserving history, the archive not only demonstrates the industry’s influence and evolution but also reminds people of its foundational values. “So many brands have baked into their DNA incredible stories of where they came from,” says Anderson. “There’s value in understanding what made these outdoor companies unique, special and successful. For any brand, it’s important to ask, ‘Do we still do those things? Is there a common thread that we’re still weaving today as an outdoor brand? Do we still espouse those same values?’