Jessica Silver-Sharp, Peninsula School Former Parent and Archivist Consultant
Jessica Silver-Sharp is a former Peninsula School parent and Peninsula School Archives consultant. Jessica worked as an archivist in museums and libraries in California and New York. Beginning in 2012, continuing the essential collecting work of Florrie Forrest, Jessica began offering her expertise to the school as a volunteer. We are pleased to employ Jessica as a professional consultant in preparation for Peninsula’s centennial after her many years of heartfelt volunteering. Below is an excerpt from a longer piece she wrote for the Spring 2020 edition of News Notes.
The scrapbook pages are browned, brittle and acidic. World War II put a heavy burden on US supplies of basic materials like food and paper, many of which were needed abroad. To meet this surging demand, the government conserved supplies and established a rationing system. Paper rationing began in 1940, resulting in poor paper quality for civilian use and hence, the shabby state of our scrapbook. To help slow down the deterioration and balance the acid in the paper, the album pages are interleaved with alkaline paper. What can this forgotten artifact from our school archives — a beat-up scrapbook from the 1940s — teach us about Peninsula School? You might be surprised.
The scrapbook opens with black and white photographs in an envelope. Peek inside and you’ll see the Hidden Villa valley and mountains forming a backdrop to smiling kids and adults in western wear on horseback. Many parts of California, including Menlo Park and Los Altos, were truly rural then. Many Peninsula School children would have lived in the country and owned or ridden horses as a means of transportation. The album reveals this reality, dually reflecting the most popular film genre of the times, the wildly popular “Westerns.”
While not many Peninsula School documents from 1938-1947— a decade defined by rapid social and economic change — have survived, this previously overlooked artifact deserves a special place in our history. Almost 80 years old, the scrapbook tells the story of “Peninsula School Horseplay.” Before our school held annual auctions, “Horseplay,” sometimes called “Fiesta,” was Peninsula’s “chief scholarship benefit” fundraiser. In fact, documents show that by 1948, a large portion of the school budget went to student scholarships.
Read the full article about the Horseplay album in the Spring 2020 ‘Our Values’ edition of News Notes.
Interested in the archives? If you have archival donations or interest in collaborating on this effort to organize and preserve our school history, please contact us at info@peninsulaschool.org.