Wells Sisters in Japan

In 1960 Professor Orlo Derby wrote a piece for the Alumni News about an experience he had while teaching for a year in Tokyo. Before going he had been given contact information for two Brockport graduates who were long time residents in Japan, and after his arrival, he went to visit them. His story of meeting Florence Wells 1904, and her sister, Lillian Wells 1893, is fascinating. Think of the two sisters having gone to Japan as missionaries and teachers around the beginning of the 20th century, and then living on there for over 50 years, including throughout WWII, what a remarkable story! You can find a link to a copy of the article here.

Rockin' Normal Hall!

The archivist is doing some research into the "Mandolin Club" that was here ca1885 to 1910 or so. This sort of music group was very popular at the time, and played a mix of popular and classical music. As jazz and other forms of music became more popular this type of group faded away, but there are actually still a few around. Go here to see a YouTube clip of the Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra! Shown here is a picture of the the Brockport Normal School Mandolin Club from the 1899 yearbook.

Shirley Chisholm spoke here...

Shirley Chisholm was a notable figure in her day. She was the first black woman elected to Congress in 1968 and was also the first major party black candidate, in the 1972 campaign. In 1983 she was the undergraduate commencement speaker at Brockport. She is shown here with then President Van De Wetering. This slide is part of a massive collection of photographs the archives is currently processing which represent 30 years of campus photographer Jim Dusen's work.

Dance & Migrant Education

   Some significant new collections have been added to the college archives of late. The Department of Dance has long maintained an archives of its own, and the last two semesters has had a student working in the college archives to digitize some of this remarkable collection. Those digitized materials are now being added to the college's Digital Commons.

Another major addition to the history of the school is the transfer to the archives of 6 boxes of materials from the Migrant Education program that has been here for over forty years. It will be a significant addition to the record of diversity at the college!

Circa 1880 Calling Cards

We have all sorts of things in the college archives, including a few calling cards of students who attended the college in the 1880s, like those pictured here. The calling card was a widespread item among the middle and upper classes in that era. These were not business cards, but social cards. They allowed people to make themselves known to others, who then could choose to either visit and leave their own card, initiating a visit or relationship, or they could return the card, indicating that they did not wish to make the acquaintance of the person leaving the card. It might seem rather quaint, but perhaps we do something similar on FaceBook, when we send a "friend invitation" to someone else!

We've had some of our books for a really long time...

One of the books in our rare books collection is The Greek Reader, by Frederic Jacobs, "Professor of the Gymnasium at Gotha," in an American edition produced by David Patterson, "Teacher of Languages in New York." This 1827 title was a reader used here at Brockport in the old Collegiate Institute days in the classical Greek classes. Featured here is the bookplate from this title, still here after all these years!

1906 Girls Basketball Team

An early photograph and account of women's athletics at Brockport. The account of a game is taken from the January 1906 Normalia, predecessor to the Stylus. (Note: in this era games between the Normal School students and local high school teams were not uncommon.)

"The girls' team played their first public game January 18, with the girls of the Middleport High School. It was an easy victory for the Normal girls, winning by the score of 27 to 2. The game was played under boys' rules and was very exciting, although the Brockport girls outclassed the visitors in every department... As the game was the first that the girls had played this season there was much interest and a large crowd was in attendance. Miss Lawton played the star game for the locals, making seven goals. The team work of Miss Baily and Miss Maney was one of the features of the game."

The girls were Caton, Lawton, Snyder, Bailey and Maney. Unfortunately there was no yearbook at this point and the photograph does not indicate the player's names. The woman standing with them is most likely Ermina Tucker, a recent graduate of Oberlin College and teacher of "Elocution and Physical Culture."