These exhibits represent a small selection of the rich and varied sources available in the Deerfield Academy Archives. For more information about these and other related collections, please email archives@deerfield.edu.
Radio Club/DRB,
1940s - 1981
From the 1940s Radio Club to DRB (Deerfield Radio Broadcasting) in 1967, to WGAJ in 1981, to the current streaming station Deerfield Academy Radio, Deerfield Academy has, in one way or another, been riding the airwaves and streaming the Web.
WGAJ/
Deerfield Academy Radio,
1981 - present day
The WGAJ call letters were retired in 2009, but streaming is alive and well. Tune in to Deerfield Academy Radio for the latest podcasts, music, and talk shows.
100 Years of Hockey
The first Deerfield Academy hockey game was played on January 18, 1922, against the “Aggies” at M.A.C. (Massachusetts Agricultural College). Deerfield won 2-1. The program continued to thrive, with an indoor rink (known lovingly as “The Barn”) coming in 1957, and undefeated teams in 1952 and 1960. New England Championships were won in 1984, by the girls team in 2001 and the boys team in 2003. Many DA players went on to have successful hockey careers, such as Gene Kinasewich ’60, Paul Hurley ’64, Lou Reycroft ’68, Craig Janney ’85, Marty Reasoner ’95, Ty Hennes ’98, Jamie Hagerman ’99, Katie Guay ’01, Chad Kolarik ’02, Ben Lovejoy ’03, Molly Schaus ’06, Alex Killorn ’08, Kevin Roy ’12, and Sam Lafferty ’14.
Highlights from a century-long devotion. Watch for both boys’ and girls’ OT wins in the NE quarterfinals, 2003 and 2001. Both teams went on to be New England Champions.
Footage from the late 1920s – 1960s. Look for Coach Bobby Merriam ’43 and students at work shoveling the outdoor rink, and helping with pipes for The Barn!
Herbarium Parvum, Pictum, 1817–1821
Orra White Hitchcock taught natural sciences, painting, and drawing at Deerfield Academy from 1813-1818. It was during this time that she created the painted herbarium, a 64-page album of watercolors depicting roughly 175 local flower and grass specimens. The herbarium is based on her husband Edward Hitchcock’s (Deerfield principal, geologist, and third president of Amherst College) native plant collection.
“She rendered these with the directness of a trained scientist, seeing them freshly as natural forms that she observed objectively. Her flair for the decorative made her alert to the way a drawing fits on a page while exposing a plant’s parts crisply and lyrically… Orra’s drawings are not pieces of folklore, nor are they clumsy attempts at fine art rendering. Rather, they are skilled work of a unique kind. She became a professional who was proficient in her own manner. Orra merged perceptual objectivity with the flattened spaces of a decorative artist, the work of a scientific illustrator intent on providing visual specimens.” — from Orra White Hitchcock, An Amherst Woman of Art and Science, by Robert L. Herbert and Daria D’Arienzo
For more on Orra, see the finding aid for the Orra White Hitchcock Collection in the Deerfield Academy Archives and Edward and Orra Hitchcock, Archives and Special Collections, Robert Frost Library, Amherst College.
Color Slide Collection
This collection contains Kodak Ektachrome and Kodachrome color slides, primarily from the 1960s – 1990s. These slides capture everything from athletics to the classroom, and general campus life to major school events.
Scrapbooks and
Photo Albums
Because of their uniquely personal nature, these volumes are some of the most valued items in the collection. The Archives holds approximately 35 scrapbooks and photo albums, dating from 1903-1975. Displayed here are selections from the scrapbook of Harriet Harris ’08, photo album of Robert Agard ’34, the Peter Ray ’71 Photograph Collection, and the David Beisler ’65 Photograph Collection.
Scrapbook of Harriet Harris '08
Photo album of Robert Agard '34
Vietnam protest in Greenfield, MA, 1971. From the Peter Ray '71 Photograph Collection
Dave Biesler '67 Photograph Collection
Archivist's Choice
Irish poet Seamus Heaney visits campus in 1996, a year after he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Enjoy this audio clip from his reading that day, the poem St. Kevin and the Blackbird.