Davida Blakeslee Images
Images of Blakeslee with friends that were placed in an envelope in her scrapbook. Views include Roberts Avenue area, Fairfield Hall, Old Main and the roof of Fairfield Hall.
1928-1929
Crabtree, Davida Foy
photoprints
2 x 3"
Davida Blakeslee Scrapbook
The scrapbook is a two ring binder with heavy paper hand decorated with photographs, booklets, flyers, and other memorabilia pasted into it.
1929-05-01
Crabtreee, Davida Foy
MS057
1928-1929
Scrapbook
9 x 12, 20 pgs [not including inserts]
Images from the Blakeslee Scrapbook
Details
Individual scans of images included in the scrapbook.
1929
MS057
Photoprints
2.5 x 4.5"
College Days
22 minute promotional film for the Danbury Teachers College. Produced ca. 1940-1941.
Promotional film produced by Danbury Teachers College which follows the life of a student through one year at the college. Appearances by Ruth Haas and Truman Warner.
1941
35mm, color, silent
22 min, 22 sec
Old Main, recently completed
3 x 4.5" print
1906
Glass Slides, 1930s
3.25 x 4" slides (image size 2 x 3); b&w
Glass slides of images used for promotional materials of the time. Student gathering, Fairfield Hall?; Literature class, Old Main? ; Students, Field Club; Students, Nature Trail; Students, Volley Ball in Gym Suits
1930s
WCSU Photographs and Miscellanea, RG 8
Esposito, Dr. Bill part 1 (tape #4 side b)
Tape stock length: 90 min
Running Time: 45min
Dr. Esposito relates stories about his personal relationship with students, and conveys the great sense of pride he felt and still feels for graduates of WCSU. reminiscences about students focuses on those students that have left WCSU and become noteworthy in one way or another
Label Contents: 12/1/1976
1976
Friel, Jack
Esposito, Dr. Bill
Running Time: 45min
0-10 Min: he was a class adviser; retired in June of 1975; 1968's political climate and how the WCSU student body reacted to it; his relationship with the student body; students desire to protest the Vietnam war, with minimal impact on WCSU; affects of changing the name from Danbury state teachers college to western Connecticut state college; changes in nursing program, one of the first programs to have Saturday classes;
10-20 Min: personal relationship between Mr. Friel and Dr. Esposito, met on a golf course in 1968; specific projects completed under the do-day era; Dr. Esposito's story of how he came to be at WCSU; was offered a job in the science department by Dr. Haas or Dr. Cook, Science was still a general department when he started in the fall of 1948; faculty, when he started, would meet in entirety once every two weeks;
20-30 Min: foundations of summer programs; Higgins opened for classes in the summer session of 1950; tunnels under WCSU and their use by students vs their intended purpose of housing heating pipes; what Old Main was used for in 1948 and what it was referred to then; the student building, Curly Hall, which was a quonset hut, and its many uses;
30-40 Min: the various changes of WCSU and how it happened, does not elaborate on the change itself; first WCSU graduates to get accepted to other graduate programs and the pride he felt; Dr. Haas and athletic programs; other notable students;
40-50 Min: quality of music program and its students; spring weekend, with a float parade, skit night, king and queen, singing competition
Warner, Mrs. Llewlyn parts 1/2 (tape #21 sides a/b)
Tape stock length: 60 min
Running Time: 60 min
Mrs. Warner recounts the experiences of being a teacher at 18 in the first half of the 20th century, as well as talking about being a resident of Danbury for such a long time and what changes she saw during that time.
Label Contents: 11/03/1976
1976
Friel, Jack
Warner, Mrs. Lewlyn
Running Time: 60 min
0-10 Min: first teaching job in Wilton; recalls taking correspondence classes in order to get her teaching certificate from WCSU; began teaching when she was just 18
10-20 Min: discussion of the teacher supervisors and their functions; how she got from Bethel to WCSU every day; remembers that when she got shifted from a 5th grade position to a 6th grade position that she demanded more money to teach the higher grade; remarks that she has lost respect for teachers due to their current day ability to strike, feels that they are losing sight of why they became teachers and doing a disservice to the children;
20-30 Min: Old Main was simply referred to as the Teacher's College, as that one building was the entire campus; all of her children went to WCSU; personal banter;
30-40 Min: personal banter about Mr. Friel's family; the location of Danbury High School was not originally White Hall but rather Fairfield Hall;
40-50 Min: personal banter about Mr. Freil's completion of his master's degree; discussion of Mr. Higgins personality and his abilities as a professor at WCSU; recalls him setting up a program for which rural area schools could get a kit with basic chemistry supplies and experiments for the children to do; she did her student training at the Locust Avenue School; during student teaching period the students did not report to the Normal School, with the exception of getting books from the campus; recalls the various penmanship courses and the fact that by the end of it a teacher had exquisite hand-writing at the cost of individuality
50-60 Min: When she began teaching children were legally obligated to attend school until fourteen years old; discussion of the ethics of skipping children ahead and sectioning children off based on academic abilities; discussion of the philosophy of methods of teaching and the discipline of students; became a teacher because she liked to learn, and that was one of the few ways she could pursue a higher education; recalls the possibility of a single man that graduated from the normal school with her, but cannot recall the name; possible name was Ralph Castleton;
O'Connell, Corrinne parts 1/2 (tape #27 sides a/b)
Tape stock length: 90 min
Running Time: 90 min
Mrs. O'Connell talks about her educational background and how she came to be a member of the WCSU faculty; She talks about the difficulties she faced in teaching as a married women in the first half of the twentieth century
Label Contents: 11/17/1976
1976
Friel, Jack
O'Connell, Corrine
Running Time: 90 min
0-10 Min: 1929-1930 WCSU catalog she was a teacher at the Balmforth Avenue school; in 1950s she was an assistant professor of teaching; 1964 catalog lists her as assistant professor of education; started at the Balmforth Avenue school as a substitute in 1925-1926;
10-20 Min: all of her initial experience in people management came from New Britian Normal School;
20-30 Min: got her start in Danbury school system due to the lady who owned the boarding house she was living at knew the superintendent of Danbury schools; her employment through the town of Danbury was an odd arrangement in that she was contracted on a yearly basis and paid less because she was a married women; unfortunately for her most towns in the area were not hiring married women;
30-40 Min: remembers Dr. Higgins being very much of the mindset that children are better seen than heard; was a man who insisted on a good firm handshake despite his frail physique and weak constitution;
40-50 Min: Mrs. Riley, the cook at Fairfield Hall , but she was much more than that she would throw parties for every student in the dorm;
50-60 Min: noticed a difference, while supervising in Norwalk, in the teachers relative to where they were raised; such as vocabulary, attitude, speech patterns etc; the dorm life during the 1920s was very structured; girls were expected to be present at every meal time, and were not allowed out after dark; the girls needed permission to leave the dorm even for church;
60-70 Min: praising of Dr. Haas's accomplishments during her tenure as president; her ability to see and make compromise happen within the state to further the state college system; gives vague time-line for when Old Main changed from being called the administration building to the current name of Old aMain; the change occurred around the same time as a do-day when the faculty built a sidewalk by the building;
80-90 Min: extension courses in Torrington for teachers who were working on their bachelor's degree;
Old Main, White Street, Danbury
3.5 x 5.5", color postcard
View of Danbury Teacher's College on White Street in Danbury
1950s