Honors program history

Donna Kowal, current director, called asking about the history of the program, seeking to make some connections with a digital project they are interested in... Emailed her back, there is a nice HST691 paper from '99, a number of primary materials etc. Offered general assistance, to host her and students for a visit...

Janette Reynolds photo help

Met with Greg Lawrence, an area photographer and digital guru, who in his retirement is doing some amazing free work for local historical societies and archives. I gave him the original of the Janette Reynolds (Class of 1873, first professional librarian here,) photo. As can be seen in this thumbnail, she was shot wearing a dark dress against a dark background, the photo is scratched etc. I could do some of the scratches, but doing something about the contrast and background is well beyond me. Greg is going to scan at very high resolution, work it out pixel by pixel, am looking forward to seeing it.

Phil Hunsinger '67

Jeanette Banker '53 (and Education emeriti) connected me with Phil Hunsinger '67 who has been in town for the recent 50th reunion of his class. They came to the archives and I did an oral history interview with him. Fascinating, positive man, and many interesting memories of Brockport. Am uploading to filecty2, and need to get back to having transcripts made, adding to the existing student reminiscences on Digital Commons.

Emeriti seeking conservation advice

Emeriti seeking advice re their church wanting to build or buy a display case to exhibit materials. Shared some suggestions, links to specs for same, vendors... As always in these things I try to be pragmatic, recognize that state of the art isn't always affordable, or even necessary to be honest, and that doing better than the current level of housing is always a step forward...

Alum family seeking sports articles

An alum of '67 family member contacted me, seeking Stylus articles about his sports days here. I found some in NYS Historic Newspapers, downloaded, edited in Photoshop, and sent to her as images she could print out as is, insert in Word etc.

Dedman materials

Surprising phone call came to the circ desk while I was walking by. The caller was looking for the archivist, I took the call, and it turned out to be someone who had know college historian & history prof Wayne Dedman and his wife well. The caller had lived in an apartment in their house c1980 while going to college, and apparently had had a role in cleaning the house out after their deaths. He has some of the materials still, and wants to give them to me, some items re the old Normal school and so on. He's coming up from the Southern Tier next week.
 (John Kohena '80.)


Update: amazing collection of materials, some of great interest:

One standard box of materials. Some may not keep, e.g. a history of University of Rochester, but there is much of value. One particularly interesting item is a notebook from Wayne Dedman’s retirement in 1977. Text of a speech by Jack Crandall, many notes and cards, a vivid capture of some senior faculty of the time as they reflected on not only Wayne’s career, but the career of the college and their department over the previous decades of expansion. His personal copy of his history of the school, Cherishing This Heritage has many cards and notes of congratulations on its publication. Also a metal stamp for imprinting the name of the Collegiate Institute on paper, along with "P. J. Williams," who was Principal of the BCI 1861-1863.

Oral history

A prof teaching an oral history class this coming spring asked about what I have done, equipment etc. Shared links to the student oral histories in Digital Commons, referred to other oral histories I have digitized of Bruce Leslie's, described tech tools library has...

Sandwich signs/advertising Brockport

A researcher looking for images of sandwich signs and advertising in Brockport turn of last century. Shared a couple of the Guelf photos, links to 1913 All Brockport Supplement...

Archives Fair

This event is tomorrow, in Rochester. Each participating archive is at a table, the theme is novel/interesting/spooky things you may have. I am bringing a table display on the campus ghosts, giving a 10 minute talk on them...

Class of '67

Completed scanning various docs and images, created slideshow, sent via Dropbox to Advancement to use at the luncheon etc.

"Purlie"

Musical done here late '80s. Someone looking for playbills, images etc. Had to say was so busy right now it might take a bit to search for this, but would get back to them asap.


Update: managed to find time finally to dig out some negatives of this play, it was in 1990 actually, and to scan and send some to them.

Interns update

Much activity with the four interns, so busy couldn't even finish this the other day! Have four, 3 credit interns, each doing great work. Some have projects where they can go along pretty independently much of the time, but even they need me to spend some time with them, and others are doing things that can call for me to spend a few hours or more in a week with them.

History of Hartwell Society

A '67 grad playing a role in this year's induction of her class contacted Alumni Affairs about the Hartwell Society, what the background to it is etc. I responded, sharing some history, that it started in 1994 with the induction of the Class of 1944, that Peg Hare Browne '44 was the driving force behind it etc.

Modern Greek societies

Contact from Greek Office on campus. They're doing a 25th & 50th anniversary for a couple of the groups in late Nov., are looking for pics etc. I'll have to look, but off hand doubt I have much at all, not like files etc. There may be some pics in the Dusen photos, but none of the groups are listed in the index, I'll have to look in Stylus for events, dates, then surf the negatives as well as catching the Stylus pieces for use.

Homecoming history

Got a question about the history of homecoming here, and in particular did our homecoming start earlier than some other schools or...? Our started in 1947, our rivals at Geneseo started theirs in 1953, so that's good, lol. That was from checking the student newspapers in nyshistoricnewspapers.org.  The general story is that homecoming, from it's inception in the pre WWI era, was closely linked to college football, and Teachers Colleges generally didn't have much in the way of football teams until after WWII, when enrollments grew, especially of men.