The following is a transcription of one of my favorite letters I have ever found in an archival collection.  Upon receipt, perhaps Dr. Rush laughed, or perhaps he responded with sensitivity and saw signs of madness in this fellow … certainly Rush’s work with the mentally ill is legendary, and as you can can see by the final document … in the late 1700s, love COULD lead to madness!

“Dear Sir,
I am now in a most dreadfull dilemma, will you be so favourable to give me your ingenious observations on the passion of Love, it will tend to extricate me from the dreadfull Situation.
To love and be disappointed [illegible] most unhappy dreadfull state! Advise how to forget a lady whom for years (think it not recent for it has subsisted four years) I had the most ardent passion. I enjoyed every promise and privilege, save only I can say we were not united? Teach me the noble science to forget? Teach me how to conduct myself when frequently in her company, she appearing in tryumph at my mortification.

Her company an arrow dipt in poison to my heart. How must I conduct myself? Can I hate when I once so passionately loved? Can I seek revenge? Or is it the refuge of a narrow depraved mind? Will it give any satisfaction?
Think not, Dr. Sir, my subject too frivolous for an answer, for remember what Solomon the wise man says: ‘Love is as strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave, the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame, many waters cannot quench love, neither can the flood drown it, if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be be contemned.’
Now, Sir, if you will be so kind, Mr. Cary’s Museum is where I wish to read your thoughts–if you will oblige as long as life remains a student of medicine and one of your class.”

From a quick Google search, I learned a few things … Mr. Cary is Matthew Carey (1760-1839), an Irish immigrant to Philadelphia who became a prominent publisher.  His magazine American Museum is almost certainly the one in which the Student of Medicine wished to have Dr. Rush publish his response.  He is also quoting the Song of Solomon 8:6.

Not long after finding the above marvelous letter, I found a “List of Lunatics in the Pennsylvania Hospital on May 1, 1784.”  At least two of the twelve “lunatics” listed are considered to be insane/manic because of love.  Since our Student of Medicine does not give his name, and his letter is undated, who knows?  He may be included on this list! I hope not …  I hope he wrote many more letters to Dr. Benjamin Rush and they are just waiting to be found!

Right now, the  site includes ten repositories–and largely, only the collections that have been processed via the PACSCL/CLIR project.  However, each repository has the mechanism in place to add collections that are already processed or will be processed in the future.  Half of the repositories have already added additional finding aids.  The collections available for searching provide a glimpse into just a few of the amazing primary sources available in the Philadelphia area.  Topics that are best represented are medicine, religion, science and women’s history; although other strengths include business and commerce, education, family histories and genealogy, history of Philadelphia cultural institutions, maritime history, military history, and the arts.  Each and every collection is incredible … the research potential is huge and now students, scholars, enthusiasts, and genealogists can get started, using the collection guides to discover new facets of our known history.

The creation of this site actually started before the PACSCL/CLIR “Hidden Collections” Processing Project began.  The University of Pennsylvania created their site on which the PACSCL Finding Aids site is modeled.  The PACSCL Finding Aid site would not be possible without the hard work of UPenn folk Delphine Khanna, Patty Lynn, David McKnight, Rachelle Nelson, Leslie Vallhonrat and IT staff, as well as UPenn archivists Maureen Callahan, formerly of the Penn Museum Archives; Michelle Chesner, formerly of the Katz  Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, Nancy Shawcross of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library; and Jordon Steele, of the Biddle Law Library.  After their site was live, the PACSCL group began tweaking the site to suit 23 (and hopefully more) repositories.  Thanks to David Conners, formerly of  Haverford College, Margaret Graham of Drexel University College of Medicine Legacy Center, Eric Pumroy of Bryn Mawr College, Nancy Shawcross of UPenn Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and Rob Sieczkiewicz of Drexel University Archives and Special Collections who volunteered their insights, time and energy to making the site work for the unique PACSCL group.

Thanks also to our Project Team who created the finding aids for many of these collections: Courtney Smerz, Project Archivist, whose work is essential to the success of the project; student processors Megan Atkinson, Megan Good, Becky Koch, Leslie O’Neill, Laurie Rizzo, Eric Rosenzweig, and Forrest Wright, whose energy and dedication have contributed greatly to this accomplishment; and Archivist’s Toolkit cataloger Garrett Boos, whose efforts have resulted in legacy finding aids available for research.

Visit the site and start your research … I am so excited to learn more about these collections from the researchers who will use them.

As usual, at a conference, the most fun is learning what others are doing.  While I enjoyed and benefited from all the sessions I attended, the seminar on “Quick Innovations for Teaching with Special Collections” (a pet area of interest for me) reminded me of all that I love about archival materials.  Mattie Taormina, Head of Pubic Services and Manuscripts Processing Librarian at the Special Collections and University Archives at Stanford University, stated that you can get 90% of the information from a book or document when it is digitized, but 10% can only be discovered when you actually see, touch, and smell the actual item.  I was all about this … finally a justification for behaviors that many of my friends and family find to be positively bizarre–such as inhaling deeply when I walk into a room full of old stuff, sticking my nose into every book I see, and the desperate need I have to touch paper.  Really, I am just getting 100% of the book/manuscript experience.

But what I loved about what she said is the reminder that these materials housed in “special” collections and “rare” book and manuscript libraries are really and truly special and rare … not only because of the content they hold, but because they are artifacts from our past and allow us to connect to the people, places and events that have made us, as a nation and a culture, who we are.

Digitization is amazing for access and the more that is available online for researchers the better.  And for those researchers who truly cannot travel to a repository, thank goodness they can find and use the amazing material that archival collections hold.  But researchers out there:  if you can get to a repository, don’t let the convenience of the online version keep you from experiencing the scents, sights and feel of the real thing …

Processing the James Bond collection at the Free Library of Philadelphia was fun—I felt like I was hobnobbing with a spy, even though the “real” James Bond was not a spy at all, but an ornithologist.  I would be lying if I said that Sean Connery’s visage did not swim before my eyes a few times, but truth be told, the “real” James Bond is pretty dashing himself.

“How 007 Got His Name” is a great story and the best part about it is that it is true!  Ian Fleming, the author of the popular novels that were adapted for film, was familiar with James Bond’s book “The Birds of the West Indies,” and apparently believed that the name James Bond was brief, unromantic and masculine.  Once his novels acquired fame, the real James Bond and his wife Mary Wickham Bond felt the effect.

This collection is actually a lot more about Mary than it is about James Bond whose ornithological papers can be found at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.  Mary, an author of quite a few novels, appears to have had quite a sense of humor and enjoyed the wacky and sometimes annoying results of her husband sharing the name of a dangerous and suave British spy.  She wrote her anecdotes in the book, “How 007 Got His Name,” followed by “Far Afield in the Caribbean” and “To James Bond with Love,” so that the story of the “real” James Bond might be told.  This collection really documents the publishing and promotion of her books—there are drafts and proofs of her writings; correspondence with her publishers; and clippings regarding the “real” James Bond, the fictional James Bond, and her books.

Two scrapbooks which she titled “James and Mary Bondiana”  span their entire marriage and are among my favorite items in the collection.  Mary collected clippings, saved invitations and memorabilia, and pasted photographs into these scrapbooks.  They tell the story of Mary and James’ careers and their marriage.  What is astounding is the scope of Mary’s career.  She founded, wrote for, and edited the Chestnut Hill Local, authored quite a few novels, and wrote poetry.  After her marriage to James Bond, she traveled with him across the world while he studied birds.  She seems to have been tireless and full of enthusiasm.  At the age of ninety, she wrote her autobiography, “Ninety Years at Home in Philadelphia.”  She and the “real” James Bond were clearly extraordinary people.

My guess is that if Ian Fleming had not appropriated the name James Bond, we would still know about James because he was a prominent and influential ornithologist.  We might not know as much about him as we do today, but his ornithological career would still be documented at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.  I am not sure, however, if we would know much about Mary Wickham Bond!  So thanks, Ian Fleming, for making it so we can learn about this amazing woman.

Fenimore Johnson owned an underwater photography supply company called Fenjohn.  He sold diving suits, cameras, tripods, exposure calculators, and turbidity eliminators, to name just a few.  And he took pictures of these products–lots of them.  He also used all of those products to take pictures of other things … fish, boats, people, underwater gardens, places he visited, animals, and oddly enough, air conditioners.  As I said, he documented his world.  Happily, he identified the air conditioner as an air conditioner, as I am not an expert on either air conditioners circa 1930-1935 or underwater photography equipment.  An interesting component of this collection is his series of test photographs in which he documents two photographs of the same thing taken with different equipment.  For someone in the know, I believe these photos would be amazing.  His use of film formats is impressive–included in the collection are prints, negatives, lantern slides, and motion picture film.

Also included are some pretty amazing scrapbooks of Fenimore Johnson’s experiences on an expedition to Matto Grosso, Brazil.  His captions are indicative of the time and are, occasionally, a little on the shocking side, but the images present a world that probably no longer exists today.

I was a little worried about minimally processing an image collection, but I had nothing to fear thanks to Fenimore Johnson and his archivist tendencies (high compliment, as you might imagine!).  He created an organizational scheme that I used for processing … every print is stapled to an index card with identification and reference to the negative number … he even provided my series and subseries titles.  As a result this collection really worked for minimal processing.

I processed this collection in a lot less time than I anticipated because it is possible that about 2/3 of the negatives in the collection are on nitrate film which is not something with which archivists or researchers should spend much time working.  How do we handle a problem like this in the minimal processing at 2 hours per linear foot world?  Well, we box them up and put them in cold storage until an expert can examine them.

By comparison, in a full processing world, I would have gone through all the negatives, identified the negatives that were absolutely NOT on nitrate film, and processed them.  Fully processing this collection would have included removing the negatives from their original sleeves and placing them in mylar sleeves, at which point the processor would have looked for the the magic words: “safety film.”  Even with unlimited time, boxing up the potential nitrate negatives and placing them in cold storage would probably be the best temporary solution.  Nitrate film is highly unstable:  it is flammable and can explode with a shock … so if you have a box of nitrate negatives and you accidentally set the box on the table a little harder than you intended or if you store it near a heat source,  you could have a problem.   One piece of nitrate film is a problem and this collection contains almost 4,000 negatives, about 2/3 of which I anticipate could be nitrate.  That is a lot of nitrate.

Despite putting roughly half the collection in cold storage, researchers still have full use of the content of the collection, arranged quite tidily via Fenimore Johnson’s organizational scheme.  The only reason a researcher really would need access to the negatives is for reproduction.  We don’t know that the negatives are on nitrate, we just are not sure …  and experts say that if you are not sure, you should treat the film as nitrate.  We know that these negatives are all from the “right time” for nitrate film, that very few have any kind of markings (certainly not the “safety” designation), and that Fenimore Johnson used nitrate film–one of his motion pictures was recently saved by reformatting.  Clare Flemming, archivist at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, plans to seek help from a film expert, so if our fears prove unfounded, the rest of the collection can be processed.

Hartman was primarily involved with radium. Over the years, he owned two companies which provided radium supplies and dealt with both the mining companies and the users. As one might suspect, since the papers are housed at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, a lot of these users were of a medical ilk. The collection contains tons of materials on the benefits doctors foresaw for radium, especially in treating cancer, etc. But Hartman also saw–and studied–the ways in which this great new product could do damage. As a result, the collection is a balanced and fascinating study of radium from the early 1900s to the 1970s. Based upon this collection, radium seems to have affected almost every aspect of life from commerce, to energy, to medicine, to wars, and to public health, to name only a few.

The processing of this collection was very successful. It had originally been housed at the Holy Family Archives and someone there partially processed it before transferring it to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. I needed to folder and arrange the last series, but a lot of the really hard work was already done. I processed this collection in exactly the time allotted (always a happy moment) and I think it is really ready for research. I cannot wait for someone to really look at the Radium Diary.

I will say that the number of amazing collections being revealed by Mellon and CLIR is fantastic–these papers/photographs/poster, etc. deserve the attention they are finally receiving. Check out CLIR’s “Hidden Collections” page for a glimpse of what is being done nationwide.

Out of all that was said at the conference, Courtney and I were both most impressed by John Hebert of the Geography and Maps Division of the Library of Congress. He said that when he thinks of “unhiding” a collection, it means more than just making it available. In fact, it means making it available to users who never would have thought to use it. Map people will come to the Library of Congress regardless of how hidden a collection is, but what about different types of users? How can we make people interested in a topic aware that these amazing resources exist? Courtney and I both commented on this in our notes from that session and agree that it is one of our many goals. So, we are trying to figure out how to let users of all types know about the value of learning about radium, underwater photography, Quakers, prison reform, women’s studies, and free science lectures as well as the ways in which these studies can impact their lives today.

Thank you CLIR for an excellent opportunity to meet, talk to and learn from others who are doing such great and innovative work in this field!

This year, approximately 700 students, 6th to 12th grade, entered a project into this competition. This year’s theme, “Innovation in History: Impact and Change,” was a good one for Philadelphia students looking for local primary sources since Philadelphia is home to so many amazing innovations. In addition to checking out some pretty great projects, I learned some new things about this city and about American history. These students are fabulous!

Next year, I hope some of our previously “hidden” collection are used by National History Day competitors. Courtney and I already have some good ideas for our website and for liaising with the NHD folk at the National Archives. Next year’s theme, “Debate & Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences,” is another really good fit for students in Philadelphia looking for local primary sources!

On top of having a really wonderful day at the Constitution Center, one of the students I spoke to at National History Day re-justified this whole “Hidden Collections” project for me. To paraphrase: the more we look into history, the more we can reinterpret what everyone considers the “truth.”

Some of the incredible stuff in this collection includes information about Wagner’s early career as a supercargo with Philadelphia’s Stephen Girard, years’ worth of correspondence about Wagner’s specimen collections, details about Wagner’s divorce from Caroline and subsequent marriage to Louisa, and Wagner Free Institute of Science operations.

This collection was NOT processed in 2 hours per linear foot. It took a little less than 5 and a half hours per linear foot. I spent a fair amount of time trying to determine what went with what, and in the end, I think the finding aid is fairly successful.

On thing is certain, the Robert Chambers collection is a kind of “highlight” collection. To get the whole story on any part of the collection, other related collections will have to be consulted. That doesn’t take away from the fun of checking out a list of the books purchased by the Library Committee in 1903! This collection is a great starting point if you are interested in the natural sciences, the Wagner Free Institute of Science, William Wagner, divorce in the 1800s, or Stephen Girard’s shipping business!