About Me!

Hi! My name is Aracely Rivera (pronounced R-ra-sell-lee) and I am currently a Senior History major at SUNY New Paltz. My love for history, especially public/local history goes far back, but if I were to pinpoint it, I would say as far back as 2006; when my brothers used to work at the Adriance Library in Poughkeepsie, my hometown. As my brothers completed their shifts, I would get lost in the archives, specifically the yearbooks from Poughkeepsie High School. The oldest yearbook dates back to the nineteenth century! Overall, this experience definitely sparked my interest in history. This semester I am interning at Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie, where I am digitizing photographs and documents for the School of Nursing. VBMC has a very rich history, so you can only imagine how excited I am to be involved in such an important process! The skills that I have gained so far will have a significant impact on public history, and history in general. Overall, this is a great experience, and I hope other students will consider VBMC for an internship!

Check out the recent photographs that I have uploaded to HRVH! https://www.hrvh.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/vbmc