This interview with Dio Hernandez, Upper School French and Spanish Teacher, is one of thirty-two oral histories conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic by members of Packer's Upper School History Club with Packer staff, teachers, and students. The oral history interviews focus on narrators' experiences staying-at-home, or leaving Brooklyn, during the pandemic and how the pandemic impacted their lives. The first group of interviews were conducted from May 13, 2020 to June 1, 2020.

Packer Collegiate Institute’s history coincides with the City of Brooklyn’s social and economic transformation from the mid-nineteenth century to today as well as documents the development of women’s education in Brooklyn, New York, and changing social and professional roles of women in the United States in this same period. Originally founded in 1845 as the Brooklyn Female Academy, the Packer Collegiate Institute was established by local Brooklyn community members to provide quality education for girls and young women. Rebuilt and renamed in 1854 after its benefactors, Harriet and William S. Packer, the school was one of the US’s most respected girls schools and junior colleges for young women until 1972, when it became a fully co-educational K-12 school. It remains a prominent institution in Brooklyn Heights today. 

A finding aid to the entire collection can be found here: 

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/bhs/arms_2014_019_packer/

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