A Visit to the Archives

ABOVE: Minutes from 1940s and 1950s Board of Trustee meetings. BELOW: Minutes from Short Hills Country Day School meetings, prior to the Pingry years.

Reorganizing Records

Yearbooks, newspapers, magazines, photography, videos, and trophies are a few of the obvious, visible aspects of Pingry’s archives . . . but other internal materials are central to Pingry’s history and record-keeping. Recently, the Archives took over the School’s records management. What does this encompass? For starters, minutes from Board of Trustees meetings and Financial Committee meetings. Then, Archivist Peter Blasevick P ’24 has the not-so-small task of reorganizing and cataloging over 10,000 student records and campus documents in the Vault (a secure, climate-controlled room separate from the main Archives room) and preparing long-term storage of financial records. “The Archives program is growing. Adding records to the collection makes sense so that people have one place to go to find what they need,” Mr. Blasevick says. “Organizing internal documents is essential to helping Pingry run efficiently.”

In Pingry History

10 Years Ago Construction of Beinecke House, new home of the Head of School, reaches the halfway point.

20 Years Ago

Fiddler on the Roof is the Upper School Winter Musical.

60 Years Ago Cuban exile Serafin Menocal speaks to the student body about conditions in Cuba. 50 Years Ago The Seminars-inLearning Program is finalized, with approximately 30 courses to be offered the week before Spring Break. 30 Years Ago Chemistry Teacher Dr. Michele Parvensky introduces the Adopt a Native American Family program and Native American Club.

40 Years Ago Former Headmaster H. Westcott “Scotty” Cunningham ’38 announces he will step down as President of The Pingry Corporation.

70 Years Ago Students watch The Dupont Story, a two-part movie about the development of the Dupont Company. 80 Years Ago Pingry institutes a weekly session of military drills led by Reese Williams and Vince Lesneski. 90 Years Ago Several teachers lead weekly, voluntary cultural classes during Activities Period— topics include Spanish readings, “current affairs of history,” and musical appreciation.

To see more from the Archives, visit Pingry Flashes Back (pingry.org/flashesback). Recent posts include pingry. rg photos from the 2006 production of Urinetown, clothing accessories worn by Pingry students in past decades, and daguerreotypes of Dr. Pingry and his sons.