Brockport from the air, ca1950

Here's an aerial shot from our past,  from about 1950, perhaps a little earlier. It shows houses all around the campus that no longer are there, not only on Kenyon, but on the Utica Street side of Hartwell too. If you look off in the distance you can see "West Hall," a temporary dorm structure, where Rakov is today. The great expansion of the 1950s and '60s was about to begin!

(Click on the photo to make it larger.)

An early history by Alene Butler '29

Alene Butler '29 was a real Brockport product. First she went K-12 in the "Training School," as the campus school was then called - the village of Brockport didn't build its own high school until about 1930. Then she attended the Normal school itself, graduating with the class of 1929. She then went to the University of Rochester and got a bachelors degree, and got a job teaching history in the newly established Brockport High School. Over the next few years she worked in the summers on a masters degree from the University of Rochester.

Her thesis interestingly enough was on the history of the Brockport Collegiate Institute, the original form of our school. Much of her research was done using the rudimentary archives of the time, a closet in the principal's office holding old student registers, catalogs, correspondence books and so forth. Her thesis has been digitized and is now available on our Digital Commons.

Black history at Brockport

A reunion is being planned this summer for alumni who were part of the early Black Student Liberation Front and OSAD in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As part of that a display of black history at Brockport is being worked on in the archives. One of the organizers was interested to learn that there were some black students here before the '60s, as evidenced in this photo of Barbara Wolcott, '55, teaching in the campus school.

AV Party!

There was an active audio-visual program here in the 1950s. Sherwin Swartout was an innovative leader in the field, and Brockport became well known for its work with instructional television and related efforts. Here is a photo of the AV Club in the 1950s having a party. The archivist is currently sharing this and other photos with Jeanette Banker '53, trying to identify people and scenes, but any ideas from anyone else are welcome! Please contact Charlie Cowling, ccowling@brockport.edu.