Friday, December 16, 2016

Finians Rainbow

Jamie Beers-Wilson asking about this, for an alum who was in it, will look for her. I think in the '50s images there are some of this play. The alum is Beverly Smock (Starling) '62.

Photos of Paul Yu

Paul Yu, former president, died recently, and I was asked for some images of him for social media. Found, scanned and sent some to them.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Social media intern

A student doing an internship on social media with Dave Tyler stopped in, she had been by before, but now is ready to set something up in Pinterest using the Betty Evershed material Lyndsey scanned. I copied the files onto her drive and talked a little about their background, and some other options for such materials.

Hartwell & Tower death dates

Former President Paul Yu died the other day, and I was asked about the death dates for Hartwell and Tower. Hartwell died in 1965 and is buried in Lakeside Cemetery in Brockport. Tower died in 1977 and is buried in Hillside Cemetery in Dundee NY.

Monday, December 12, 2016

Mornings with professors

Had emailed Dawn in Advancement when a call for speakers for this came out a while back. Just heard back, am going to speak at the 4/18 Mornings with Professors. I told her my topic would be the earlier history of the school, BCI - BSNS, a period many don't know much about, but generally seem to find quite interesting.

#History

A new journal the history department is setting up in Digital Commons. They wanted an image of the history muse in the old stained glass windows to use as cover art. Have supplied the image to Kim.

Blanche Southcombe March '29

Jeanette asked about her dates, Blanche was an important part of alumni association for years. Blanche is one of those folks who did both high school and Normal school here, graduating from the high school department in 1926, then the Normal "intermediate" (for those planning to teach junior high,) in 1929. As an aside, Brockport and the other normals did not prepare high school teachers, it was either elementary or junior high, high school teachers trained at a teachers college like Albany, or one of the private colleges.


Update: I posted a pic of Blanche from her '26 graduation in "Remembering Brockport" on Facebook and a few minutes later her gr-grand daughter commented!

Friday, December 9, 2016

Processing - Int'l Ed

Ralph Trecartin of Int'l Ed is leaving the college, but this past summer he asked me to come over and look at a room of "stuff" he had in Morgan. It was a couple rooms, packed with many years of international education materials, things of John Perry's from his various posts in addition to int'l ed., and much else. I made some suggestions to Ralph about what to do with it all, and said that if he needed or wanted at some point, send it to me.
He did, lol, the movers came with 10 boxes of material from over there the other day. So as I can am going through them in a rough way for initial processing. Much goes into recycling bins, but some good stuff to keep, documenting the various study abroad programs and so forth.
These sorts of arrivals are not actually that infrequent, and processing is something I periodically spend a lot of time on, but for some reason don't usually post about it in here. Just doing a rough go thru of the materials Ralph sent over has occupied 5 or 6 hours so far....

Thursday, December 8, 2016

GE skillets

A local history question from a law office re the manufacture of electric skillets at the local GE plant. Tricky question, did find a 1955 article in the Brockport Republic about the beginning of manufacture of that item here, and a 1963 article commemorating the 3,000,000th skillet with the production of a special gold plated skillet! As best I could tell between local articles and posing the question on Facebook in the Remembering Brockport group, where several former employees responded, the skillet was not made here after 1983 when the plant was sold to Black & Decker, who closed it in '86. Typical rust belt story in many ways!

Monday, December 5, 2016

Interns

Have been working with Rani Gill & Caitlin Tavernia as they do 30 hour internships for their Public History class. Rani is doing some slide shows of Brockport in the '50s, learning how to scan the old negatives etc. Caitlin is getting a start on her 3 credit internship for next semester, helping me work on a complete inventory and revision of the finding aid, something very much needed.




Finished recently with Lyndsey Richards, who did a 2 credit internship this semester, focusing on student life in the WWII era, the project being grounded in the scrapbook of Betty Evershed '46. Lyndsey did extensive study of the scrapbook and relevant documents, catalogs etc., scanned the scrapbook, did a slide show of it and more. She hopes to do a Scholars Day presentation on this in the spring, something I have encouraged her to do.


Update: Spring semester I think I will have 3 students each doing a 3 credit internship...

Photos of Joe Winnick

Lauren Lieberman from KSSPE wanted pics of Winnick for an event honoring him this week. Found some various images, scanned, and sent to her.

Talk at Rotary

Gave a talk at a meeting of the Brockport Rotary this past week, seemed well received. I stressed the village origins of the college, and people seemed interested by that.