In 1941, Dean Laura Campbell organized a memorial service in honor of the students who lost their lives in the war. The memorial service program, a newspaper article about the service and a few of the letters from parents to Dean Campbell stating if they could attend or not, and if so how many tickets they required are included.

An online version of the exhibition titled, “Scholars Who Served: A History of Drexel’s Veterans” is now available!

The materials from the Evening College records can be seen in the World War II section or in a list format following this link.

It was wonderful to see how our work with minimal processing made a collection immediately useful for the archives and its patrons.

The project team consists of Project Archivist, Courtney Smerz; Student Processors Leslie O’Neill, Laurie Rizzo, Eric Rosenzweig and Forrest Wright; and me, the Project Manager. We worked with a wide variety of collections which span the 18th to 20th centuries and cover, at the broadest level, the topics of Quakerism, colleges and universities, and medicine. These collections include institutional, family, and personal papers.

As proposed in More Product, Less Process by Greene and Meissner, institutional records do work best. On average, these collections, largely at Drexel University, were processed at an average of 2.18 hours per linear foot. Personal papers, at Drexel University College of Medicine and Haverford College, were the next easiest, and these were processed at an average of 2.25 hours per linear foot. Family papers are, by far, the hardest, taking significantly more time per collection. Our average for processing family records is 4 hours per linear foot (which is still in the minimal processing range, as suggested by MPLP). The issues that make family papers difficult, to name just a few, are the number of family members contributing to the collection, the time span of the collection which often crosses several generations, and the fact that a good deal of the correspondence is not actually addressed or signed with a person’s name. Quite frequently, letters are sent to “Dear son,” or signed “Your loving mother.” When working with one person’s records, this is not quite as daunting as when you have 4 or 5 potentials for the “mother” and an endless number of possible “sons.” The 19th and 20th century Quakers, the main source of our family collections in this first semester, have a few truly delightful quirks which made processing their collections just a tiny bit trickier. For example, they consistently name their children after relatives … so it is entirely possible to have several Jane Rhoads in one collection. Moreover, in these collections, once they married, in-laws became “mother,” “father,” “sister,” and “brother,” making even the most general identification of senders and recipients virtually impossible in the minimal processing world.

We also discovered that there are some downsides to minimal processing, particularly in the description of collections. Moving through a collection at the rate this project demands means that absorbing content is really difficult. For the first semester, I created processing plans (Courtney is taking over for the rest of the project) for the collections on our list and wrote biographical/historical notes. I think minimal processing at 2 hours per linear foot without the processing plans and rough notes would be absolutely impossible–sometimes the physical processing cannot be done in that time frame.

At this point in the project, I am not sure that I would recommend minimal processing at 2 hours per linear foot–it is just too fast. 4 hours per linear foot, I think, would be a completely different story. Minimal processing, of which I am a fan, really does work and more importantly, it makes the collection available to the researchers long before it could be if we demanded full processing. Although I have not had the luxury of trying minimal processing at 4 hours per linear foot, I am convinced those additional two hours would result in more content and more thorough and accurate biography/history notes and scope and contents notes. My biggest fear with our notes is that we don’t know enough to let the researchers know that the collection contains the material they are seeking. Time will tell once researcher discover these previously hidden, and now “unhidden” collections!

Following, a list of collections processed, the project timeline from June to December, and looking forward:

Collections Processed
18 Collections
255.5 linear feet at an average of 2.84 hours per linear foot

Drexel University

Drexel University College of Medicine

Haverford College

Looking forward:

The MPLP processing went well. To begin, we reevaluated our processing plan and established a different set of series than originally intended. We also had to decide what to do with a third of the collection that was previously processed at the item level, but not in an intellectual order. It took some time to decode the collection, but once we had a good plan of action, the documents all fell into place. It was fun having the opportunity to read through the collection. Librarians, so I have found, have a wonderful sense of humor.

Some fun finds were:

A leather bound gold gilded book from the dedication of the W.W. Hagerty Library in October 1983.  In an acquisitions policy binder, there was a memo that read:

“Whoever finds this book: Well, this thing is so out of date that it is past the point of being laughable, therefore, we have decided to put it out of its misery by shelving it up here. And here it stayed until you picked it up, you dummy!!! Disregard anything and everything written in this book. The only reason we have not given it the heave-out is the basic librarian-like urge to preserve and protect all defenseless books.”

There were several issues of what must have been an internal newsletter titled, “The Call Number,” that contained a series of humorous articles. One folder contained several buttons with library related slogans on them — one read: “Librarians get paid weakly.” Also, one of the library directors, Richard L. Snyder, made his Annual Reports to the President enjoyable by inserting humorous chapter headings, amusing anecdotes, playful commentary, and laughable stories. All of which demonstrated his main points of the report, in what only must have been considered a refreshing change of pace for the president of the university after reading one dry annual report after another. Some of the directors were much more formal, stating: “I hereby take the pleasure in presenting the (insert year) annual report of the Drexel Institute of Technology Library.”

The Library records were both challenging and fun to process and Drexel University has been a wonderful repository to work at. We would like to thank both the Drexel University College of Medicine Archives and the Drexel University Archives and Special Collections for hosting us. Now we’re off to the next archive . . . The Wagner Free Institute of Science!

Somehow, in a just a short time, I was on a first name basis with LeRoy A. Brothers, who served as Dean of the College of Engineering from 1958 to 1969. Approximately a third of the collection was his files, with his original order and folder titles, and a bulk of the entire collection was created during his administration. I was thoroughly impressed by Dean Brothers, even though his choice of folder titles sometimes perplexed me and other members of the processing team. His efforts working with the faculty and outside business community to constantly improve the curriculum demonstrated a high level of devotion to the students, their education, and the community at large.

Conveniently for me he kept carbon copies of his responses stapled to the letters he was responding to, so it was easy to follow chains of events. I did eventually come across a handwritten note of his, and noticed why he typed most of his letters, even his personal correspondence. Needless to say, his handwriting was not the best (neither is mine, so we have that in common).

There was one series of letters that I found particularly touching. When Brothers’ predecessor, Dean Harry L. Bowman, died it was several years after his retirement. The student newspaper, the Triangle, published a short obituary. In response, Brothers wrote a letter to the editor as a tribute to his colleague, mentor and friend. Brothers states that he wrote it because after seeing the brief front page story, it occurred to him that perhaps many were unaware of the contributions of Dean Bowman to Drexel and goes on to outline Bowman’s impressive career. Brothers writes that his own relationship with Bowman was a unique one; “I have often thought that I had all of the advantages of being his son without the disadvantages that sometimes go with the relationship between father and son.”  There are letters from President James Creese, Bowman’s daughter, and other faculty thanking Brothers for writing the tribute. Creese writes, “Aren’t we lucky to have been his friends and worked with him?”  President James Creese, President William Hagerty, and faculty members Larry Mains, Jack Kolb and Brothers were all pallbearers.

Perhaps because I have never worked someplace for more than a few years, it surprised me that someone’s pallbearers would be their co-workers.  After thinking about it, I realized that these people worked together for twenty, thirty years and were at this time more than colleagues, these people cared deeply about each other, they were friends, confidants.

Although this particular series of letters are not characteristic of the entire collection, which contains mostly professional and academic correspondence, these letters gave me a different perspective on the College of Engineering. It was interesting to see another side of these gentlemen and it gave me a sense of the connection between the individuals as I read their correspondence and annual reports. It exposed a personal side of these professionals.

In real life, processing the Evening College records with Eric has been a great experience. While becoming familiar with the collection we uncovered many significant events in the program’s history.

The Evening College is one of Drexel University’s original programs and still exists today. The program went through several changes as it progressed from simply offering coursework at night, to offering vocational certificates, then diplomas and through much effort the program became accredited to award bachelors degrees in 1950. The alumni wanted the courses to either be transferable towards a degree or become an official degree program. The faculty and alumni worked very hard to make this a reality. The Evening College administration put a lot of effort in easing the transition which was the most difficult for previous graduates.

One piece of interesting ephemera was a twenty year long history of the career of Howard W. Benfield who was head of student activities. Benfield’s written account covers the Evening College history from 1950 through 1970, which is when a bulk of the materials within the collection were created. Benfield also provides detailed information about the Evening College’s active student life, of which he oversaw and his experience as a counselor during the significant transition from a diploma school to awarding degrees.

Because of this project, the collection was immediately accessible and useful for the Drexel University Archives. Two folders of news clippings included information about Evening College students who fought in World War II. Among the news clippings was a program for a memorial service held by Drexel, news clippings about the memorial service and several letters addressed to Dean Campbell from the families of those being honored. The correspondence expressed appreciation to Dean Campbell for organizing the Memorial Service and how many tickets they would like. One letter stated that their son was very proud to be a student at Drexel. A few of these letters, the service program and the newspaper clipping were included in a recent exhibition in honor of Veterans Day.

I think the materials that interested me the most and slowly solidified my waking life obsession with the collection were the various materials related to the 1956 Tidewater Granary explosion that destroyed the Student Union Building. The explosion occurred at 8:03 p.m. while Evening College courses were in session. 1800 students and 78 faculty were evacuated from the building, although there were several injuries sustained by Drexel affiliates, none were serious. However, the loss of the building meant the college needed a new place for student activities and classes. The Student Union Building was owned by the Day College and access for the Evening College was rather limited. The Evening College actively participated in the planning of the new building. In 1962 the Drexel Activities Center opened and was later renamed the Creese Student Center. When the Drexel Activities Center was completed the Evening students were given space for the Evening College’s Student Council and for the Evening College student newsletter publication Drexel Evening Dragon.

It was amazing to see the development of the collection from an unknown pile of boxes to an organized series of materials that tell a story. The collection is a great addition to preserving the institutional memory of Drexel University.

In training, we covered an overview of the project, basic processing theory, minimal processing theory, pre-20th century paleography, biographical and historical notes, scope and content notes and abstracts, the Archivists’ Toolkit, and hands-on processing. This seemed like a lot to accomplish in a three day period.

We planned for two days in the electronic classroom and one day for hands-on processing, but we quickly found that the two days in the electronic classroom was too much. So, on Tuesday evening, I placed a call to the remarkably flexible Drexel University crew and asked if we could start hands-on processing Wednesday afternoon instead of Thursday morning. Already, we learned that the hands-on work is where the real learning happens—across the board: photographs, writing notes, deciphering handwriting, and the Archivists’ Toolkit. ESPECIALLY the Archivists’ Toolkit! Because we finished the other training earlier than I anticipated, I attempted an explanation of the Archivists’ Toolkit without examples, and it was a dismal failure. The next day, however, our processors entered faux container lists into the Archivists’ Toolkit and every topic I had tried to explain the day before was made obvious.

The same thing happened with hands-on processing at Drexel’s off-site storage facility. The environment is terrific for group processing: a huge table on which to spread out a collection, chairs all around, and not a soul to disturb with conversation about the best way to process. With Drexel University College of Medicine’s George Hay collection before them, our student processors started asking all the right questions and, with a little guidance, answered them. The collection was not processed at the rate of two hours per linear foot, but we talked about issues and made certain that our processors are prepared for working next week!

The “Hidden Collections” Project has processed its first collection! A sincere thank you to Drexel University’s wonderful staff, Rob Sieczkiewicz of Drexel University Archives and Margaret Graham and Lisa Grimm of Drexel University College of Medicine, for helping to make our first hands-on training session possible and successful!