In the yellow card project we collected demographic information about the Mount Holyoke College class of 1955. The yellow cards were administrative tools used by the college to record a variety of demographic information. While these cards are valuable pieces of information, they are also sensitive in nature; they have been released to the Archives and Special Collections at Mount Holyoke after many years have passed, and are only accessible to individuals with special authorization.

Most cards include a freshman-year picture, basic family information, grades, and disciplinary action. By compiling the information from these yellow cards, the Mount Holyoke Archives will have a better idea of the students who made up the class of 1955, and in turn also have a better understanding of primary documents involving the class of 1955 that may already be found in the archives.

Yellow card data are available in some form from 1925 until federal privacy legislation passed in the mid-1970s altered the way the college and the archives kept student records.