Thursday, April 27, 2017

Color Day - Spring Day - Daisy Chain

Here is the history of these various spring events in a nutshell:




In brief, the original spring thing was Color Day, c1902-1938. (Hartwell closed it down in his era, thought it was getting out of hand!) Color Day was a sort of May Day, and I think some years coincided with Apple Queen events etc. The day was more or less as follows: a baseball game, a pageant (girls dancing around a May Pole, costumed students playing Rip Van Winkle...) a picnic, and a dance in the evening. I actually have 40 minutes or so of digitized home movie footage of Color Day in the '30s.

   I think what followed that up at some point in the '40s was "Spring Day," which was at least in part, if not largely, a student recruitment event.

   The Daisy Chain was a separate thing, I think it ran c1947-1964, something like that. That was where a group of junior women carrying daisy chain garlands preceded the seniors as they paraded to Hartwell Hall for graduation, I think many years they started at the Roxbury, or Baptist Church.

   Then of course there was the famous, or infamous, Spring In of the '70s, the Genny beer trucks on the mall etc.!

Fall 2017 interns

Met with a prospective intern for this coming fall. She wants to do something different, an internship that will use historical sources in the archives as a basis for creative writing, writing a fictional piece for example about a student here in the 1920s. This is an exciting new wrinkle on internships, it will be fun to work with her on this.

Ghosts of Hartwell

A student read the combined papers on this phenomenon in the Digital Commons and emailed me with some questions about the background etc.

Adriane Livingston...?

Staff member working on transcripts of Writers Forum materials asked about this name, supposed to be a member of the African American Studies department c1982. She's not in the staff spreadsheet, will have to add, but there is an Adriane M. Livingston listed in that department as a lecturer in the 1981-83 catalog. Probably not here more than a few years. Searching for this reminded me of the dilemma, what will researchers 30 years from now do, given that there is no longer an accumulating run of catalogs and staff directories...?

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

High res images of campus growth

From a student researcher, sent a folder of aerial photo jpgs, c1946-78, to a zip file, and shared with him via Dropbox, also giving a little narrative background in the email.

Brown & Yu

The Port needed images of these two past presidents for the upcoming issue. Retrieved, scanned, and sent some of each.

Mary Mortimer - The Port

Wrote a short bio piece and supplied an image of this pioneering woman educator to The Port for the next issue.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Northampton Park

A student in biology contacted me, they are doing a research project concerning Northampton Park, and she wanted to learn more about the land use and history of the site. I scanned and sent her sections of the 1902 plat maps for Ogden and Sweden which cover what later became the park, referred her to NYS Historic Newspapers etc.

Friday, April 21, 2017

Yearbook request

Member of class of 1972 looking for a yearbook. Unfortunately it's hit and miss, some years I have many extra copies I can give one of, but many years I only have 2 or 3 copies and feel I need to keep them. The yearbooks are online though, and I shared that information.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Barn researcher

A researcher into a particular type or make of barn, those built by John Talcott Wells in the Scottsville area, was at a preservation conference not long ago and on mentioning that she wanted to scan some larger size drawings etc. she has was told that we have a large book scanner here. She inquired asking if I could scan some things for her and I replied that after the semester ends I'd be happy to get together and see what I can do to help.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Women's basketball 2007-08

That team is being honored at a banquet this weekend, found and sent via Dropbox two folders of images, one of individual players, the other of a game against New Paltz in December '07.

Student photography researcher

Had a student photography researcher in yesterday from one of Kitty Hubbard's classes, spent some time showing her the photo collections I have, discussing organization, preservation, digitizing etc. She is coming back to spend more time with the Dusen photos, and wants to do a little scanning etc.

Methodist church clock tower & Capen Hose

After last nights presentation at Morgan Manning on the reaper business, which went well, was approached by a couple of people wanting help with projects. One is a Lions member, they are looking at sponsoring the restoration of the clock in the Methodist church, and he is looking for history on the clock. I said I'd see what I can find, and also suggested the Knapp Museum.


Another person is a member of the Capen Hose museum, and we on the Brockport Community Museum have started to work on a historical panel for them. He had some other questions, and I offered what I knew, and said would look for more.


Update: heard from both, sent the one some images of Capen Hose, for the Lions club member I searched a bit, found an Elwell column on the clock, and a 1914 Brockport Republic article detailing the clock and its installation, saved and sent to him.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Morgan Manning House presentation

After Mornings with Professors Tuesday morning, am doing a presentation Tuesday evening at the Morgan Manning House on Seymour & Morgan and their reaper business. Going through various secondary sources, scanning some of the old patents we have, sales brochures, looking at other primary sources like local newspaper...

Mornings with Professors

Spending a lot of time here and there working on a slideshow for the talk I am giving this coming Tuesday morning, which will focus on the lesser known early history of the school, the Collegiate Institute and Normal school eras.

Women's Center 20th display

Spent a good bit of time preparing a display for this event tomorrow. Also in assisting Rachael Fort, a student from the program, who did a very good deed and found a box of Women's Center materials I'd been given but have not yet added to the collection, what with moving this past year etc...

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Canal & Master Plans

The current interest in the canal is part of an expanded master plan development that will focus on not just the college but it's place in the surrounding community. Am reviewing the old master plans, which go back to 1946, as well as other records and documents to aid in illuminating the college's visions concerning our physical properties, their use, the impact on the local community...

History of Clarkson

Someone stopped by interested in researching the history of Clarkson. Showed them the materials I have in Digital Commons, the plat maps, history books etc., and showed them NYS Historic Newspapers too. Explained how to use, offered to help further if needed...

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Guelf photos of canal etc

Have been working with Norm Frisch of the Brockport Community Museum on some local history projects that are making use of the historical glass plate negatives taken by George "Buzz" Guelf" a century ago. The photos were digitized and added to NY Heritage a few years back but the digital files need to be better organized, a project for the future, but they are worth going through, they are remarkable photographs.

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Dance, Art dept dates

Query re start dates of these departments: both were 1967. Also shared link to the digital commons page for the dance archives.

Monday, April 3, 2017

1973 yearbook

Grad of that year, had lost hers, was looking at online copy, but apparently Part II isn't there, need to check on that! But I have some extra copies, offered to mail her one, she was very happy about that.