John Shearer: Bright School’s Large Archives Collection Includes Photos, Letters

Over in a large cabinet in Bright School’s Kilbride Enrichment Center sit several non-descript boxes and a few other items.
 
Once opened, however, the collection presents a vivid and rich look at the school’s past, including when the center where they are stored served as two kindergarten rooms.
 
The multi-box collection includes scrapbooks of old photographs and newspaper clippings, as well as vintage films, letters, grade books and note cards, among other articles. For those who have had a connection to Bright School in some way, it is literally a treasure trove of interesting memorabilia.
 
And despite the big picture the items collectively give, they also reveal an up-close look.
 
“What our archives do is reveal the personal side of things,” said Bright headmaster O.J. Morgan during a recent examination along with Elizabeth Davis, Bright director of marketing and communication. “They show how things have changed, but also how the school has remained committed to its mission. It has stayed true to Miss Bright’s vision.”
 
Bright School was founded as an independent school in 1913 by former public school teacher Mary Gardner Bright, who had a philosophy of educating the whole child and wanted to make school a place to which youngsters wanted to come.
 
After being at multiple locations on McCallie Avenue initially, the school moved in 1924 to a new building on Fortwood Street. In the 1950s, a new addition was made to the R.H. Hunt-designed facility.
 
In 1963 Bright moved off Hixson Pike in Riverview to its current campus, which has been enlarged several times over the years.
 
All this information is told in various eye-catching and easy-to-understand ways in the archives, and because of that, Mr. Morgan believes the material is very important.
 
“We want to make sure we preserve everything and organize it where it is accessible to everybody,” he said.
 
How to go about that is not so clear, officials added. While the school is hoping possibly to scan and digitize many of the items as time allows and display them at a place like the school website, the staff is still working on the best way to do that.
 
One step the school undertook in recent years in connection with its centennial was to scan original class pictures that had hung in frames and make them part of a new display in the hallway, where the older photos had been.
 
One day recently, as a couple of boxes were being opened and examined, the past, and not the future preservation possibilities, was the main focus, however.
 
Besides a 1938 film of the school and some old photographs, a couple of letters drew interest. One was from George H. Patten, the president of the school’s board of trustees, who was writing parents in June 1931 at a time when many families in Chattanooga and beyond were struggling due to the onset of the Great Depression.
 
After careful consideration, the school had decided to reduce annual tuition 10 percent to $180 for a student in grades one through six and $135 for one in kindergarten. Mr. Patten wrote, “The school should endeavor to adjust itself to these changes and do its part in helping to tide over this trying period.”
 
Another letter was one the school received from the Hunter Gallery of Art, as it was then known, and the connected Chattanooga Art Association after Miss Bright’s death in 1967. The dual group was praising her for her efforts to support the museum and organization in its early days in the mid-20th century, as well as for promoting art through her school’s curriculum and by donating pieces for the museum from her collection.
 
“The prestige of her backing, as well as the helpfulness of her advice, gave solid support when needed to a beginning organization,” the letter said.
 
Mr. Morgan, who has headed the school since 2004, said he has enjoyed learning about Miss Bright’s life over the years. “I wish I had been able to meet her,” he said.
 
Some note cards and other items in one of the boxes tell of the death of a national figure – President John F. Kennedy. After news of his assassination reached Bright School during the early afternoon of Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, then-school head Dr. Mary Dalton Davis held a school assembly.
 
Helping conduct a makeshift memorial service were students Randy Weinberg, Stuart Folts, Dan Chambliss and Dr. Davis’ husband, who lived with her in the upstairs apartment of the North Chattanooga school.
 
“We are assembled today to pay our respects to the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy,” wrote Dr. Davis in cursive in outlining her brief remarks, no doubt more shocked and saddened than the straightforward writing indicates.
 
Most of the items in the archives tell of happier times and include students smiling or taking part in plays or other important aspects of school life. One photograph shows teacher Ms. Adele Baker in her classroom with her students. A calendar on the wall in the background of the photograph says March 1977.
 
One of the numerous newspaper stories that were clipped dealt with students in teacher Betty McElhattan’s class burying a time capsule in connection with the return of Halley’s Comet in 1987. Among the students featured are Rodman Lau, Lyn Harlin, Bindu Bareddy, Angela Darhling, and William Jackson.
 
The article by longtime Chattanooga Times/Times Free Press writer Mark Kennedy said it was to be buried in the courtyard, which was also known as the quadrangle. However, that capsule’s exact whereabouts in subsequent years were lost, Ms. Davis said.
 
“We had people with metal detectors come and we have still not been able to find it,” she said. “It’s a big mystery.”
 
Needless to say, school officials have meticulously marked the exact locations where later time capsules have been placed, Ms. Davis added with a laugh.
 
Fortunately for Bright alumni and others interested in the school, the archives are easily accessible.
           
Jcshearer2@comcast.net