Oral history of Clarkson Schoolhouse compiled

In 1956, one of the last one-room schoolhouses, The Clarkson Schoolhouse, closed. Now, 50 years later, the narratives of the schoolhouse are being told by the students who attended it. The Clarkson Historical Society has teamed up with students from SUNY Brockport's cultural anthropology research methods class to help reconstruct the schoolhouse's history.

Students Vanessa Porter, David Langley, Patrick Alexander and Jennifer Packard collected research from multiple sources. The students visited the Clarkson schoolhouse, collected background information from the Drake Memorial Library Archives and conducted interviews with four former students who attended the Clarkson schoolhouse. The four individuals who were interviewed attended the schoolhouse from 1926 to 1956, they provided first-hand narratives of what it was like to attend the schoolhouse and what life was like in Clarkson.

The end product will be an oral history of the Clarkson schoolhouse. What was it like to attend the schoolhouse? What was life like outside the schoolhouse? And most importantly, how did their experiences at the schoolhouse affect their lives? Hopefully, this will be a continuing collaboration with the Clarkson Historical Society and SUNY Brockport until all the students that attended the schoolhouse who wish to tell their stories are interviewed.

(Submitted material: Students from Margaret Blackman's Anthropological Research Methods class at SUNY Brockport.)

May 7, 2006