A name for the archives!

After many years of being without a name, the archives of the college have finally received one. Through the extraordinarily generous planned gift of alumna and retired staff Virginia Campbell the archives has been named the "Rose Archives." The archives, the archivist, and the history and traditions of the college are most grateful!

NYC, June 1958

This image was recently discovered in the archives, and on the negative sleeve is written "Campus School trip to NYC, June 1958." It must have been an exciting trip for the lucky kids who went! If anyone has any memories of that trip they would care to share that would be great, please comment here or contact the college archives.

Early Campus Security Officer

A cache of photographs from the 1960s and 1970s recently was discovered in the Allen building and brought to the archives. Among the many interesting images was this 1967 portrait shot of Robert Coleman, a campus security officer as they were known then. This is the earliest known such photo of one of our officers.

Before the PC, before the typewriter...

They wrote everything by hand, everything. Minutes of meetings, correspondance, student registration records, all of it was written out by hand in ledgers and binders. For example here is a page from the 1869 registration book. These massive volumes are leather bound and about 11x17" on a side. Notice that in addition to people's names and so forth, they listed their "religious persuasion!" (Click on the image to view in a larger size.)

The first typewritten records appear in the 1890s and it wasn't till some years later that records were generally all typewritten. Many years later of course PCs and word processing came along, but that's another story!

Brockport Sorority of Yesteryear

The archives recently received some materials from a local family, and among the items was this photograph. It is a group shot of the members of the Alpha Delta sorority seated on the steps of the old Normal School and is dated 1896. There was an active Greek culture at Brockport from the 1870s up into the 1930s.

Alpha Delta and the other societies each had a room of their own in the building. In those days things were less structured, and they did many things that would be done today by BSG. For example they worked together to bring popular and prominent speakers to Brockport, they held debate contests, staged plays and held dances.

Boating on McCargo Lake, Fancher Campus

The photo here is not dated, nor the young women in the rowboat identified, perhaps somewhere in the early 1970s would be right. They are out on McCargo Lake, at the Fancher Campus. This was a property that the college owned, located a few miles west in Orleans County. The college had owned a camp in the Adirondacks, Camp Totem, but it was quite a drive up there, and in the early 1960s they sold that property and bought the Fancher site. A lodge was built, a pool and other amenities, and it was a popular recreational spot for the college community. It also hosted conferences, summer theater productions, McCargo Lake was used for water research studies, and an arboretum was developed there as well. In the 1980s the uses of the property had diminished, the cost of maintaining it had grown, and the property was closed and sold.

Look Ma, no mouse!

An early shot of a tired computer programmer at Brockport in the 1970s; no mouse, no screen, just a keyboard and a printout...