As soon as the collection became available to researchers, Dr. Sarah Strauss, History Faculty at The Packer Collegiate Institute, immediately made use of it. She developed an advanced topics history course called Making History. The course enables students to conduct original research to gain insight into history by using the materials held in the Packer Collegiate Institute records (2014.019) housed at Brooklyn Historical Society’s Othmer Library. Students visit the Othmer Library much like any other researchers, but with special assistance from Reference Librarian Cecily Dyer and supervision from Dr. Strauss. Throughout the semester, students learn about care and handling of rare documents, take photographs of relevant materials, record citations, and develop their skills as historians. The students’ focused research is delivered in two forms: first, in the composition of a scholarly essay; and second, in a public presentation at a scholarly symposium held at the end of the academic year. The Packer Collegiate Institute: A Story of Education in Brooklyn website features the first year’s student presentations and this year’s student essays. The Student Projects section of the site will grow with each Making History class that delves into Packer’s history using the archival collection.
“Last year I took Packer’s new Advanced Topics class in archival research, where we were given access to hundreds of boxes of the school’s historical primary sources. It was a really unique experience to be a high school student doing such intense research—being trusted to handle important documents and artifacts, some of which dated back to the 1800s. It was both exciting and somewhat nerve-racking to delve into those initial boxes…Stepping into the BHS library, and settling down with a box, I immediately felt like I was traveling back in time. Being able to spend so much focused time with just a handful of archives was a very intimate experience. For my research project, I looked at some of Packer’s curriculum catalogues from the 1950s and ‘60s, along with editorials from Packer’s student publications from the ‘60s and ‘70s on issues pertaining to feminism and freedom of expression. After just a few visits to the library, I felt like I really knew the girls whose writing I had been picking apart and analyzing, and that’s what made the research, as difficult as it was at times, that much more interesting and exciting to conduct.” Testimonial from Delilah Righter, Class of 2017
Teen CouncilIn addition to the Packer Making History course, BHS’s Teen Council also benefitted from access to the Packer records. The program welcomes 15 – 20 high school students from various local high schools to research and interpret an element of Brooklyn history. Inspired by the Women’s Marches and the importance of education for their generation, the 2017 Brooklyn Historical Society Teen Council created an exhibition called Wise Eyes: Still Woke about Brooklyn women, past and present, who’ve been active catalysts for education and empowerment. They selected two Packer alumnae to feature directly in the exhibition. Mary Ingraham Bunting Smith (1910 – 1998) was an advocate and leader for women in higher education and the sciences in the second half of the twentieth century. Lucy Burns (1978 – 1966) was a leader in the movement for woman suffrage and co-founder of the National Woman’s Party. Burns and Bunting Smith share the space with three other Brooklynites: Elsie Richardson, Esther Cooper Jackson, and Debbie Almontaser. The exhibition runs through May 15, 2018 on BHS’s 2nd floor, appropriately located just beyond the Othmer Library entrance.