Museum & Archives
Museum & Archives Overview
The Rochester School for the Deaf Archive Center had its beginnings in the late 1950s. Pat Zwick (wife of teacher and later superintendent, Leonard G. Zwick) began collecting daily papers, calendars, and other items to get acquainted with her husband's new job. By the 1970s, Pat had accumulated so much information that Superintendent Zwick designated a room in Perkins Hall as the "history room" and the materials were moved there.
In 1997, Mary Mowl (Archives Chair), Pat Zwick, Peter Simpkins, and Allis D’Amanda began organizing the materials info a formal archive center. Their work resulted in the establishment of the Carolyn White Siegfried and DeFois Hathaway Siegfried Archive Center at RSD in 2001.
On January 30, 2006, the RSD Board of Directors, recognizing the importance of preserving the history of the school and its role in the education of children who are deaf and hard of hearing, voted to approve the mission statement and officially establish the Carolyn White Siegfried and DeFois Hathaway Siegfried Archive Center at RSD.
Since 2006, the Archive Center has had the joy of welcoming several volunteers who have helped identify and organize the many items being stored.
The center is open to members of the RSD community, researchers from academia as well as interested individuals from the private sector.
Please contact the archive center if you wish to visit the center and/or describe the nature of your inquiry to arrange a time.
The archive center’s mission is to collect, hold, care for, and make available for research, historical documents, photographs, artifacts and other valuable records of Rochester School for the Deaf.
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The center is open to members of the RSD community, researchers from academia as well as interested individuals from the private sector.
Research at the Carolyn White Siegfried and DeFois Hathaway Siegfried Archive Center at RSD can support a wide variety of activities, such as:- school projects
- family research
- marketing efforts
- deaf history research
- local Rochester, New York historical projects
Research may be conducted by appointment only. Since the archive center operates with part-time and volunteer staff, hours are limited. Please contact the archive center in advance of your desired visit and describe the nature of your inquiry to arrange a time.
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Volunteer
We welcome you as a volunteer to the archive center to help us preserve RSD’s past for the future. Together we can be creative partners.
If you’d like to share your RSD alumni stories and/or help archive center staff to identify people and events in photos, please contact us.
Donate to Our Collection
Thank you for considering a donation. Please contact us with specific details of the item(s) you would like to donate.
Rochester School for the Deaf
Archive Center, Perkins Hall
1545 St. Paul Street
Rochester, NY 14621
E-mail: RSDarchives@rsdeaf.org
We will evaluate items offered to the archive center for acceptability into our collection. Since our staff is small, the evaluation process can take several weeks to complete. Providing us with detailed information about the history of the item(s) will aid the evaluation process. If we accept an item into our collection, you will be notified and provided with an agreement transferring ownership of the item to the Rochester School for the Deaf. If an item is not accepted into our collection arrangements will be made to return it to the donor.
History of the Rochester School for the Deaf
Rochester School for the Deaf (RSD) was founded on February 3, 1876, and opened to students on October 4, 1876. It was originally named the Western New York Institution for Deaf Mutes. The school’s name was changed to Rochester School for the Deaf in April 1920.
The story of RSD starts with the Perkins family. Mr. and Mrs. Gilman Perkins were among the outstanding citizens of Rochester. It was through their generosity, and their loving concern for their deaf daughter Carolyn, that a school for children with hearing loss was established in Rochester. RSD was one of the nation’s first schools dedicated to the education of children who are deaf and hard of hearing.
Zenas Westervelt, a teacher at the Maryland School for the Deaf, had been gathering names of deaf and hard of hearing children in Western, New York who were not in school. Mrs. Perkins became aware of Mr. Westervelt's project and suggested that he move to Rochester to open a private school supported by Mr. and Mrs. Perkins, and other members of the community, for Carolyn and other children in the community with hearing loss.
By the end of his second year in Rochester, Mr. Westervelt, worried about his students’ ability to make proper use of the English language, discouraged students to sign. He urged them instead to use the manual alphabet with speech. This method of teaching became known as the "Rochester Method."
Edmund Lyon, a friend of the Perkins family, became interested in the formation of the school and in teaching deaf and hard of hearing children. Mr. Lyon invented a system of communication to depict the sounds made in speech that could be indicated by the hand...a manual, phonetic finger alphabet. In July 1891, the Lyon Phonetic System was unveiled at the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf (now called the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing).
Since its very beginning, RSD has been an international leader in the innovative education of children who are deaf and hard of hearing. Today, RSD is a private state-supported school under section 4201 legislation. The school serves a 21-county region of New York and has an average enrollment of 140 students. It serves deaf and hard of hearing children up to age three and their families in their homes and in school on the RSD campus from age three to twenty-one. RSD programs provide for the diverse educational needs of students with hearing loss and varying capabilities.
Our Collection
The Carolyn White Siegfried and DeFois Hathaway Siegfried Archive Center at Rochester School for the Deaf holds two primary collections: Documents and Audio-Visual records. These two collections include photographic prints, negatives, motion picture films, books, newsletters, and much more. Items in these collections span more than 130 years. Some items date back to the founding of RSD in 1876 and encompass over 100 cubic feet of historical materials.
Our Archive Center is on the second floor of Perkins Hall at RSD and includes an archival storage area, a research room, and a small museum; a second, larger museum is located on the first floor. Our museum areas display an interesting assortment of RSD items, including photographs, dance clothes, old printing equipment, a long hearing tube, wooden ice skates, and many other objects.
The center is open to members of the RSD community, researchers from academia, as well as interested individuals from the private sector.
Research may be conducted by appointment only. Since the archive center operates with part-time and volunteer staff, hours are limited. Please contact the archive center at least two weeks in advance of your desired visit and describe the nature of your inquiry to arrange a time.
Included below is a sample of the subjects our collection covers:
- School Programs: Academic Bowl, Adventures in Education, vocational classes, Close-Up, Space Camp, Outward Bound, leadership retreats, PRIDE (supported employment program), RASA@RSD (Rochester After School Academy at RSD), and RSD’s Residential Treatment Program with Hillside Children's Center.
- Events: Proms, graduations, spring festivals, school plays, theatre performances, dramatic presentations, anniversaries, awards, foreign trips, and historical events.
- Sports: Basketball, soccer, volleyball, cheerleading, softball, physical culture, boxing, and wrestling.
- People: Alumni, Board of Directors, Deaf presenters, Deaf Artists in Residence, Founders, Superintendents, Staff / Teachers, Helen Keller, and Alexander Graham Bell.
- Student Organizations: Yearbook Club, Student Council, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Jr. NAD, Lambda Phi Phi, and the Optimist Club.
- RSD Campus: Buildings and dorm life.
- Rochester Method of Communication
- Classes: Cooking, sewing, carpentry, printing, biology, and dance.
Available online:
- We are pleased to announce that the Rochester Advocate books (now including 1881-1991) and many early RSD photographs are available online.