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THE (yes, THE) William Penn papers

Friday, June 24th, 2011

When our friend and co-processor Jenna heard that Michael and I were working on the Penn family papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, she was a little bit jealous. “That’s amazing!” she gushed. “But, you do realize, you have officially peaked in your careers as archivists. It doesn’t get any better than William Penn!”

Truly, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s collection of William Penn and family is unparalleled. It is a rich and vital source for anyone studying the history of the Pennsylvania colony, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), European-Native American cultural encounters, colonial administration, inter-colonial disagreements, the transition of colonial government at the time of the American Revolution, and myriad other topics. Michael and I were fascinated to find treaties upon which the Native American parties had drawn “pictograms” of their names next to the English equivalents. We were blown away by the sheer volume of records relating to the Maryland-Pennsylvania border dispute, which dragged on for many decades. I’m a bit of a Quaker history nerd, so I was thrilled to see Penn’s correspondence with George Fox. All of which is to say that from the perspective of a researcher, Jenna is right: it doesn’t get any better than the Penn family papers.

From the perspective of an archivist, however, I have to say: I hope that wasn’t the peak of my career. The Penn family papers were frustrating to process precisely because they are such an important and frequently-used collection. As an archives student I’m often told that archival processing and description are iterative processes, and this collection really brought that truth home. Almost two centuries have passed since the Historical Society was founded, and the Penn papers seemingly represent a cross-section of every fad, trend, and development in archival theory. There are huge bound volumes of collected documents, custom-size boxes for individual items, and several generations of Hollinger boxes; they are described in volume indexes, outdated finding aids, and a card catalog; important documents have been hand-copied, microfilmed, and photocopied. The collection is all over the place.

Under the auspices of this minimal-processing project, we didn’t have the time to update everything according to today’s standards and best practices. But even if we could, it might not even be desirable. Decades of scholars have used the collection as it is and cited their sources accordingly. While working on this collection, Michael and I had to ensure that nothing we did would inhibit the ability of researchers to find materials they used last week, or chase scholarly citations from 100 years ago. What processing we did was necessarily minimal, but our major objective was to create an online finding aid that would serve as an entry point to the collection. That much we accomplished, and we are pleased to make this contribution to the field. Welcome to the digital world, William Penn!

What have we learned from the experience?

Here are our words of wisdom to researchers: Come to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania! The Penn family papers are an incredible resource. We recommend you consult the card catalog on site to ensure you will have a fruitful experience.

Here are our words of wisdom to archivists: Come to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania! Maybe ask if you can get your hands dirty on an unprocessed collection instead of the Penn family papers. If you do work with the Penn family papers, allow at least 150 years to do a thorough job. At which point archival theory may have changed sufficiently that it will be time to start all over again….but you can worry about that when you get there.

Posted in All Posts, Celia Caust-Ellenbogen, Collection Processors, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Institutions, Michael Gubicza, Minimal Processing | No Responses »

Chaos to Order, in 4 hours or less

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Written by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Michael Gubicza.

When we first saw the boxes holding the Belfield papers, stacked on shelves in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, we said to each other: “Ohhh boy, I bet there’s good stuff in there!” That was our Pavlovian response: the collection was stored entirely in candy-bar and liquor boxes.

Our next response was anxiety about our 2-hour-per-linear-foot target processing speed: the collection was stored entirely in candy-bar and liquor boxes. Were these boxes packed by a child or a drunkard?

We’re still not sure who packed the boxes, but they were truly a mess. Sometimes documents were folded up and tied together in little packets, but more often the materials were just loose. The Belfield papers seemed insurmountable. But we’re proud to say that we managed to process them more or less on time. With help from Holly and Courtney we finished before our 6-week deadline was up, although if you count man-hours we clocked somewhere around 3.7 hours per linear foot. That’s not bad—it’s almost twice our target speed (2 hours per linear foot) and a bit above the project average (2.8 hours per linear foot), but it’s just under the speed Greene and Meissner suggest for minimal processing (4 hours per linear foot, and that’s for large 20^th century collections of business records). It is well under the speed of traditional processing, which can take up to 40 hours per linear foot!

Most importantly, we are pleased with the finding aid we produced. We didn’t quite manage folder-level description, but we did at least provide subseries-level description. And now that everything is arranged in folders and document boxes, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania can finally grant physical access to the materials.

As much as we dreaded having to paw through the disorganized boxes of the Belfield papers, in retrospect we’re almost glad they were such a mess at the beginning. It forced us to do lots of research and explore related subject material in order to understand the collection well enough to arrange it properly. Don’t get me wrong, this was still minimal processing. We didn’t spend weeks checking books out of the library. But whenever we needed some additional context, we did hop on the computer for a quick Google search or visit to Ancesty.com. Over the course of 6 weeks of processing, we covered a lot of interesting topics. Lucky for us, the Fisher-Wister-Starr-Blain families happened to be involved in some fascinating things. We learned about Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, Colonial Dames of America, the Sesquicentennial Exposition, stamp collecting, world travel during the Great Depression, twentieth century psychiatry, and nineteenth-century industry and legal practice, just for starters. The Belfield papers will prove to be an amazing resource for researchers in these, and many more subject areas, and we are proud to say that we were able to make the collection serviceable for them—in less than 4 hours per linear foot!

Posted in All Posts, Celia Caust-Ellenbogen, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Institutions, Michael Gubicza, Minimal Processing | No Responses »

Did we process 52 cubic feet in one day?!

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

When Devin and I started working for the PACSCL/CLIR Hidden Collections project, I thought that we would at most process 7 or maybe even 8 cubic feet of materials in a single day. My assumption turned out to be very wrong. Over the course of one day in March, Devin and I processed 52 cubic feet of materials. The discovery that we had processed so much in such a short time prompted me to ask two questions: How did we do it? And, did we really process all of those materials?

Before I can answer these questions, let me give some information about the collection Devin and I were processing at the time – The Religious News Service (RNS) records at the Presbyterian Historical Society. The creator of these records, RNS (now called the Religion News Service) is a news service that has been dedicated to providing information about religion and ethics to newspapers and radio stations in the United States. Since its founding in the 1930s, the service has distributed a wide range of publications including syndicated articles, editorials, and photographs.

The RNS records contain copies of nearly every publication and photograph distributed by the organization between the late 1930s and early 1980s. During that period, RNS not only covered a wide range of subjects (e.g. World War II, the civil rights movement, ecumenical movements, evangelism and religious cults), it was also very prolific. According to our calculations, the RNS collection consists of over 600 cubic feet of materials.

Devin and I faced a major challenge when we began the RNS project, how were we going to process such a large volume of materials in ten or less weeks? Before we started the RNS project, we were told that we would not be able to use exactly the same processing methods that we had used for other collections at Presbyterian Historical Society. For example, early estimates showed that it would have likely taken Devin and me at least two months to type every folder title in the collection into the finding aid’s container list.

So, what did we do? How did we process over 600 cubic feet in a little over two months? Well, there were three major factors that contributed to the timely processing of the RNS records collection.

The RNS records collection is ideally suited for minimal processing methods. The original arrangement and folder titles of the collection were so clear that little additional arrangement was needed. Every RNS publication was organized by publication type and in chronological order. If Devin and I had wanted to find a single RNS publication for any given day between 1940 and 1981, we could easily find it. Also, if Devin and I had wanted to search for materials covering a major historical event, we could consult the collection’s series of subject files where additional copies of the RNS publications had been filed by topic.
Rather than examining the materials in every folder we sampled the materials in the collection. Devin and I pulled 8 folders from every cubic foot box and examined the materials they contained. We took notes about these materials and later used the notes to develop a finding aid for the collection. We were confident that this approach would allow us to develop a fairly accurate view of the entire RNS records because of the nature of the materials in the collection. Early in the project we discovered that while most of the RNS publications contained unique information, certain editorial patterns (e.g. the format of the publications, the kinds of subjects that were covered, the writing style) persisted throughout the entire collection. Because of these patterns, Devin and I were able to gain a good sense about the information researchers would likely find in the RNS records through our sample.
We had some help. Devin and I would not have been able to finish our work with the RNS records without the help of David Staniunas at the Presbyterian Historical Society. David sampled a large portion of the photographs and photographic negatives in the collection and shared his notes with us.

Having explained how we processed the RNS records, let me address the other question posed at the beginning of this post—did we really process the RNS records? I don’t know if I have an answer. On one hand, and I think everybody who has been directly involved with the collection would agree, more work could and should be done with the RNS records. For example, it would be great if we could examine every folder in the collection and describe it at the file level. On the other hand, I recognize that additional work would take a considerable amount of time and money. If we had waited until these resources became available, the collection may have remained hidden for a long time. To paraphrase what Holly has written in an earlier post on this blog, our work will ideally be a first step in the arrangement, description and preservation of the RNS collection.

These issues of course are at the heart of the debates about processing that are going on within the archival profession. I do believe that we have made a valuable contribution to the future of the RNS records. Hopefully, with the completion of the collection’s online finding aid, more researchers will be able to learn about the RNS records and soon make use of the rich and extensive materials.

Posted in All Posts, Collection Processors, Dan Cavanaugh, Institutions, Minimal Processing, Presbyterian Historical Society | 1 Response »

100 Collections Processed: Rapid Maximal Processing

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

Today is an exciting day—we have completed processing our 100th collection! And we are feeling a collective sigh of relief emerging from our lips as we become more and more certain that we will complete the project by August 31!

So … 100 collections! Over the next few weeks, I plan to write a few posts about what we have learned via the project. With a hundred collections that range across 5 centuries, 4 “types” of collections, and too many topics to name, we have enough data to really talk about lessons learned!

Today, though, I want to talk about what minimal processing has meant during the project. Thus, the first thing I am going to talk about is the term “minimal processing.” Over the last few months, I have reread Greene & Meissner’s orginal and follow-up articles. Their second article, which reinforces and further explains their first article states that an archivist must examine the resources available and then use them wisely to carry out the ethical/moral responsibilities of the profession: to make collections available to researchers. I have also reread Rob Cox’s Maximal Processing, or, Archivist on a Pale Horse. Cox’s goals match Greene & Meissner’s (to make collections available to researchers as quickly as possible), but one of the main differences in their philosophy seems to be with regard to description.

The PACSCL/CLIR project’s current approach blends Greene & Meissner’s “minimal” physical work with Cox’s “maximal” descriptive work. Like so many other institutions, we have created, from two amazing philosophies, a workflow that works for us. We have borrowed liberally from both Greene & Meissner who state that MPLP does not require or recommend a cookie cutter approach to processing, and Cox who states, “the term maximal processing is intended to frame our activities in terms of our highest aspirations—to provide the maximum support for our researchers—to emphasize what we can accomplish rather than lament what we cannot,” (Cox, page 147). If we are not minimally or maximally processing collections, what ARE we doing?

Rapid Maximal Processing:

I am going to argue that we are doing “rapid maximal processing.” We are looking at every collection individually and determining, on a case-by-case basis (as recommended by Greene & Meissner), how we can provide the maximal support for our researchers (as recommended by Cox) using the available resources (which, in our case, are bare bones). We have determined, for the most part, that we want our resources to go towards description, not physical care of the collection, and so, we ask ourselves: What series need more attention, what series need less? If we do a little more with the series that we anticipate will receive the most research, what sacrifice is made when we necessarily do a little less with a series that we think provides less unique or helpful information? Most importantly, are we using our available resources–2 hours of student processor mind and body power for each linear foot–to efficiently create the most useful and accurate guide we can?

Description in a Rapid Maximal Processing setting:

Courtney and I have seen description for the PACSCL/CLIR “Hidden Collections” Processing Project as one of the most important final products of the project. Again, we tend to lean towards Rob Cox’s Maximal Processing where he encourages his staff to “seldom skimp on description–the Velcro of the archival world,” (Cox, page 145). Greene & Meissner, however, state that the narrative segments of finding aids are less desired than the container lists by researchers—and that “extended narratives are created not for the users, but for the archivist authors,” (Greene & Meissner, page 213). I believe that this may be true, but I am not sure that the archival author should be ignored here—writing a concise and well thought-out biographical/historical note and the scope and content note is a way for an archivist to organize the knowledge and collection information that they absorbed while processing the papers and to share it with the researcher, other archivists and reference staff. I feel that this is particularly important when the bulk of processing is done by project staff who move on after the processing is completed.

Even with brief exposure to a collection, it is amazing how much the processor learns—and as a researcher, I would want to know where the gaps and the strengths of the collection exist. We have found that a well-structured scope and content note reinforces the logical structure of the physical and intellectual arrangement. When training our processors, we tell them that the container list needs to have some sort of arrangement and as they organize the collection, they should think about writing the scope note. If they cannot explain the arrangement they are imposing or that already exists, it is almost certainly not legitimate. We also remind them that the only reason to write a finding aid is so that a researcher can find the material listed therein. Having the processors justify their description is an important part of processing, especially in a rapid maximal processing setting.

Project Accomplishments … and what we could do better in a future project!

Student processors (who deserve so much credit in this project) have processed institutional/corporate records, personal papers, family papers, and artificial collections ranging from the 17th to 21st centuries at an estimated average rate of 2.5 to 3 hours per linear foot. 100 collections in, the project has processed 2,443 linear feet in roughly 6,000 hours. At a traditional processing rate (8 hours per linear foot), this linear footage would have taken 19,544 hours … which is about 9 years of dedicated processing work for a full time professional archivist.

There is no question that, with possibly 3 exceptions (to be addressed in a forthcoming blog post), the collections processed by this project are significantly more accessible to researchers despite the limited amounts of time spent on them. As I have said in every public statement (written and verbal), 2 hours per linear foot is too short a time to be allotted to collections wholesale! The amount of time needs to be assessed, along with the level of processing, on a collection-by-collection basis. For the PACSCL/CLIR project, every collection could use more work. This project is ideally a first step, although in many cases, it will almost certainly be the only step taken. Despite this, I hope that archivists and users will be able to identify the true gems in each collection. At that point, archivists can re-evaluate their available resources and make educated and use-based decisions about the best allocations for their resources.

Researchers will need to work a little harder, in many collections, to try to find the desired material—but at least they have access to the collection! Reference staff may have to work a little harder to help researchers, but again, they have access to a finding aid that will hopefully provide a framework within which to work. In the end, though, if we look at the results of the project through the researcher’s eyes and the staff’s eyes, everyone wins! The gains absolutely outweighs the sacrifices. And when I think of what collections we would have cut to spend more time on a select few—it is like Sophie’s Choice! I love them all! If we did not work at the speed we did, the unavoidable result would be that some of these amazing collections would be sitting on shelves and researchers would be unable to use them. Whenever I regret the speed at which we need to work, I remember that more than 100 collections will be available to the public by August 31 and I accept the limitations with a smile.

Sources:

Cox, Robert S. “Maximal Processing, or, Archivist on a Pale Horse,” Journal of Archival Organization, 2010 November 24.

Meissner, Dennis and March A. Greene. “More Application while Less Appreciation: The Adopters and Antagonists of MPLP,” Journal of Archival Organization, 2011 February 26.

Posted in All Posts, Minimal Processing, Project Manager | No Responses »

Things I did not expect to find in a collection of records from a safe energy advocacy group:

Monday, April 18th, 2011

A Toxic Avenger movie poster. If you’re interested in learning more about the movie, here’s a link to its imdb abstract: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0017860/

An anti-nuclear power billboard illustration that spoofs romance novel covers, in which our heroine has three breasts and our hero has a foot for a hand. (It’s called, of course “Mutated Love.”)

A political demonstration itinerary that includes the line, “Tether pig to podium by 11:30 a.m.”

Larry the Space Cat.

Folders full of materials about Leslie Nielsen.

The Safe Energy Communication Council (papers at Temple University Special Collections) was involved in the writing and production of Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear, which had an anti-nuclear, pro-clean energy message mixed in with all of its slapstick and puns. The campaign files about the movie include correspondence between the movie’s director, Steve Steveman, and SECC Executive Director, Scott Denman. The SECC was even thanked in the closing credits of the film.

For your viewing enjoyment, here’s a clip from Naked Gun 2 1/2: http://www.youtube.com/embed/dtSYbGKv7v4

Of course, everyone at SECC was incredibly excited about this. Scott Denman’s handwritten notes about Naked Gun 2 1/2 from board of directors meetings include multiple underlinings and exclamation points. The SECC sent out invitations to a private screening of the movie to politicians, both pro- and anti-nuclear energy, with a “highly energy efficient and renewable” party at the National Museum of Natural History afterward. Oddly enough, the pro-nuclear power politicians seem to have mostly declined the invitation. The SECC also sent copies of the movie to politicians (perhaps those who couldn’t make it to the screening), some of whose replies are in the Naked Gun files. A few replied by indicating that they do not accept these kinds of gifts, while others reported that they found the movie both hilarious and informative.

When I started drafting this blog post, there was a paragraph here about how nuclear energy wasn’t at the forefront of anyone’s mind anymore and hey, isn’t it weird how this 90’s paranoia about nuclear power has gone away? But on March 11^th, an earthquake, tsunami, and series of powerful aftershocks happened on the other side of the globe. The earthquake and its aftereffects have damaged several nuclear reactors and thus brought the risks of nuclear power back into the American consciousness. Once again we’re seeing discussions of nuclear power similar to the ones present in SECC media campaigns, in which nuclear energy is depicted not with scientific detachment, but with emotional rhetorical appeals. For all the science that’s present in the SECC papers (and it is there), most of the media campaigns and published material use emotional rhetoric, like the pictures of injured and dead animals in their Licensed to Kill publication. This was a smart and successful attempt to appeal to the average Joe, who wouldn’t have or want the knowledge required to understand the technical aspects of nuclear power.

One of the interesting aspects of the debate about the safety of nuclear power happening on the internet is the availability of information from both anti- and pro-nuclear power camps. It’s not uncommon to read online articles or blog posts arguing for for or against nuclear energy, and to see someone supporting the opposing case in the comments or in a rebuttal that links back to the original piece. Perhaps this availability of information will prevent public opinion from becoming as strongly anti-nuclear power as it was in 1991, when these discussions that created a culture in which nuclear weapons and power were so obviously evil that they could be involved in the evil machinations of a bad guy in a slapstick comedy movie.

Posted in All Posts, Minimal Processing, Sarah Newhouse, Temple University Special Collections | No Responses »

Whose Bird’s Nest is This?

Monday, April 4th, 2011

Like most archival processors, Brian and I are quite used to working under crowded conditions. For the past seven weeks or so, we’ve been squeezing around stacks of record center cartons, contorting our bodies around tables and book trucks, and performing feats of gymnastic wonder through the stacks, all so we can write “F13” in the upper right-hand corner of an acid-free folder. But I can honestly say that, until this collection, I’ve never had to compete with a horseshoe crab for processing space.

Before we even embarked on this emotional journey through the Armistead Browning collection, we were fascinated by the conspiratorial whispers surrounding two mysterious boxes in the corner of the room. “Just wait till you get to ‘Teddy’s Treasures,’” we were told. “Oooh, treasures…” I had breathed, eager for the day I’d be running my fingers through a pile of Spanish doubloons.

Of course – because nothing in archives ever goes quite as planned – those boxes were NOT filled with treasure. At least, not the kind of material I would consider valuable. Where I expected gold coins, a rope of pearls, and perhaps a tiara or two, we found rodent skeletons, birds’ nests, and owl skat, among other such precious items.

That’s right. Owl skat. And pellets, of course. And did I mention the rocks? I really should, because there were a lot of them. Yep. Rocks.

Our disappointment (or rather my disappointment, and Brian’s fascination) grew with every bottle of dirty unidentified liquid we discovered. In trying to fit all of the rocks, feathers, and horseshoe crab shells in acid free boxes, it became clear that certain items would defy standard archival housing.

Take, for example, Browning’s birds’ nests. There were two, and he cut them from the tree along with the branches that held them. Unfortunately, the nests must’ve been built in some evil twisted thorn bush, because the branches that hold them are peppered with thorns. We had a hard time finding a box to fit them, so the nests stayed out (and in the way) for a few days. During this time period, it was not uncommon to hear a shout from whoever was working in that corner of the room. “Ouch! What the hell! WHOSE BIRD’S NEST IS THIS?!”

Our adventures in archiving nature, while memorable (Me: Ew, it’s dirty; Brian: What the hell is wrong with you) also raised some questions as to how one should archive material like this. First of all, should we have even kept “Teddy’s Treasures?” What research value do thorny birds’ nests have? It also brings up storage-related issues. Is an acid-free record center carton, shelved right next to Browning’s papers, really the best way to store these items? In a minimally processed world, these procedures probably hold up. But are they necessarily the right procedures?

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Posted in All Posts, Collection Processors, Institutions, Jenna Marrone, Minimal Processing, University of Delaware | No Responses »

An Archival Quandary at PHS

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

When Frank A. Brown (1876-1967) retired in 1949 following a four-decade career as a Presbyterian missionary to China, he didn’t just sit back and enjoy “those happy golden years.” Between 1949 and his death in 1967, Brown remained active in a number of ways: writing articles, letters to the editor, and books, including a biography of his late wife titled Charlotte Brown: A Mother in China; serving on boards and committees of both religious and secular organizations; and lecturing on his experiences in China.

Brown also stayed busy in his later years by selecting for and arranging his personal papers—a fact that became quite clear to me and my processing partner, Dan, as we began to survey the Brown papers at Presbyterian Historical Society. At least one box of the less-than-three box collection had been pristinely ordered by Brown, complete with descriptive folder titles like “Retirement Years” and “Carville Hospital Experience” (a particularly interesting file of materials—including press clippings from several newspapers—documenting Brown’s bout with leprosy in the 1950s and early 1960s).

It struck me almost immediately that there might be some intellectual problems associated with this collection—a collection consciously selected and arranged for posterity by the creator of the papers. Could personal bias have entered into the collection, either consciously or unconsciously? Couldn’t the creator have left out certain materials—materials he didn’t want to bequeath to future generations, for instance, because they might make him “look bad”? Will researchers be misled by such a collection, if archivists don’t warn them of the potential problems? Will they be put off by such a “flawed” collection if the archivist discloses the problems? How can an archivist detail the intellectual limits of the collection without firing off wild and potentially baseless accusations about the motivation of the collection creator? What is the archivist’s responsibility to this kind of material?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any easy answers to these questions. In fact, my response is tempered by my dual identities: as archivist and as public historian. As an aspiring archivist (and current archival processor), I have the daunting responsibility of consciously, critically, and carefully cultivating and preserving one small corner of the intellectual heritage of our society—the responsibility, to put it another way, of cultivating a cultural memory. But as a public historian-in-training, I also have a responsibility to the public, which includes collection creators and their family members.

I think, therefore, that we need to walk a fine line in these situations: being transparent and honest with potential researchers, and maintaining appropriate respect for the creator of the collection. We don’t want to obfuscate intellectual problems from our researchers, nor do we want to dissuade them from using a particular collection because of potential—and unavoidable—embedded bias. (After all, no collection is perfect—all are, in one way or another, shaped by imperfect humans.) And at the same time, we need to respect our collection creators and not hastily accuse them of attempting to white-wash their legacy. (We don’t want to get a reputation, after all.)

In the end, Dan and I added just a short blurb to our finding aid—enough to let future researchers know about the provenance so they can draw their own conclusions about the potential intellectual problems of the collection: “The series title ‘Life and Letters’ appears to have originated with Frank Brown, whom it seems originally arranged these records.” Hopefully, researchers will recognize that Brown’s legacy doesn’t just live in the papers and pictures arranged in the boxes; his legacy also lives in the arrangement itself.

For permission to use images of items from the Johnson papers, please contact the Presbyterian Historical Society.

Posted in All Posts, Devin Manzullo-Thomas, Institutions, Minimal Processing, Presbyterian Historical Society, Training | No Responses »

Robert Pierre Johnson: Man of Mystery

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

“This is ridiculous!” I cried, throwing my hands up in disgust.

From across the table, my processing partner, Brian, reluctantly looked up from his work. “What’s ridiculous?”

“This guy,” I replied, shaking my head in frustration. I was referring to the Reverend Robert Pierre Johnson, creator of the collection we were processing at the Presbyterian Historical Society. Though it was a relatively small collection – less than three linear feet – I was experiencing some problems with it.

My archivist-angst was not directed at the collection itself. Indeed, from an organizational perspective, it was a minimal processor’s dream. Johnson’s correspondence, sermons, notebooks, and a few subject files came to us fairly well organized. Nor did I have an issue with Johnson. In fact, he seemed like a truly amazing person. He lived from 1914 to 1974, and led an exceptional life. He was a Presbyterian minister, and the first black man to be elected to the position of Executive Presbyter of New York City. He held pastorates in both Pennsylvania and Washington D.C., and was a prominent religious authority in D.C. during the March on Washington and the passing of the Civil Rights Act. In addition, Johnson had high-ranking positions on a number of national Presbyterian organizations. Because of these positions, he was drawn into two notable incidents of the 1960s and 70s: James Forman and his Black Manifesto, which demanded financial reparations for African Americans from white churches, and the situation involving Angela Davis, a fugitive whose legal fees were paid for in part by a Presbyterian organization.

Wow! One thinks upon hearing this brief bio. This guy was in it! Golly, I bet he had a ton of stuff to say about all of this drama!

Except that he DIDN’T. This is where my frustration with the collection lies. For all of Johnson’s proximity to important historical events, as well as his own history-making role within the Presbyterian Church, he left us with little personal information. We know almost nothing about how he felt regarding or reacted to these important incidents. A quick scan of his correspondence reveals that he was an excellent pastor and a respected member of his organizations. And yet, they reveal little of Johnson himself. His folders on James Forman and Angela Davis are filled with third-party material – nothing that immediately reveals his active role within the events.

Over the hours we processed, I grew increasingly frustrated with the collection and Johnson’s mysteriousness. “Look!” I said to Brian at one point, waving a paper in the air. “It’s a list of all the articles he had published in major news publications.” I gestured to the folders piled between us. “And none of it’s here! We have all these letters and stuff, but I still feel like we know nothing about what he thought or what he believed in.”

“That’s true.” Brian leaned forward and tapped on a book filled with Johnson’s sermons. “But I think it’s all in here.”

Surprised, I stopped to consider Brian’s words. It was certainly possible that Johnson’s personal beliefs could be found in the numerous books and folders containing his hand-written sermons. Isn’t this something that a pastor, particularly one who seemed so dedicated to God, would do? For example, Brian asserts that Johnson was a huge supporter of civil rights, almost from the beginning of his career. His passion for equality was merely couched in the religious rhetoric he preached to his congregation. This is apparently only one of many such examples. Whether Johnson deliberately left so little of himself behind, or whether he had a personal preference to express himself predominately in sermons, we cannot know.

This mysteriousness – and the answers that can be found in Johnson’s writings – tells us two things. One, that perhaps this collection was not as good a minimal processing candidate as we originally thought. Though it came to us fairly well organized, it would require more processing time to pull out the interesting facts that make it unique. It also raises the interesting point that, perhaps Johnson’s papers don’t contain enough critical information to warrant a high research value. I’m willing to bet that Johnson, with his birds-eye view on some fascinating moments in history, had plenty to say that he just didn’t tell us, and there is a good bet that it lurks within his collection.

For permission to use images of items from the Johnson papers, please contact the Presbyterian Historical Society.

Posted in All Posts, Collection Processors, Institutions, Jenna Marrone, Minimal Processing, Presbyterian Historical Society, Training | No Responses »

It’s All Greek to Me!

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

It is not uncommon, when processing collections, to hear an archivist cry out in frustration: “What is this?!” Oftentimes we are stuck holding a non-descript, third party-created slip of ephemera and wondering what the heck to do with it. Not only do we have to decide where it goes, but we need to figure out the basic fact of what to call it. And when it comes to foreign language collections, oh boy!

Brian and I recently came across this particular problem while processing the Karl Wolfgang Böer papers at the University of Delaware. Böer was a professor at the University for years; he was also a super-star physicist who was instrumental in developing solar energy. A native of Germany, Böer did not immigrate to the United States until 1962. As a result, some of the materials in his collection are written in German. Neither Brian nor I can speak or understand German. So when we came across a paper entitled, “Raumladungserscheinungen in Halbleitern bedingt durch die Feldabhӓngigkeit der Beweglichkeit,” we stared in open mouthed astonishment. We compensated for our lack of knowledge by counting the letters in the long words. “Twenty-nine characters!” we’d exclaim. “That’s more than our alphabet!” We felt justified in having no clue as to what papers like this were actually about.

But eventually, Böer moved to the States, and with relief we moved on to process his English-language materials. Our confidence rapidly deteriorated, however, as we came across titles like, “Transitions between Class I and Class II Crystals Induced by Heat-Treatment, Oxygen De/Adsorption and Electron Bombardment,” and “Trap-Controlled Field Instabilities in Photoconducting CdS Caused by Field-Quenching.” Now, Brian and I were fairly certain that these titles were, in fact, written in English. But we were also aware that it was some peculiar brand of American dialect known as scientific. It is particularly ironic how something can be in English, but so filled with technical jargon that it is almost as incomprehensible to us as something in another language.

As archivists, then, what do we do with materials like this? And as minimal processors, how does it affect our work? It is true that the only people who will benefit from papers in another language are, obviously, researchers who speak that language. The same is true for the more technical aspects of the collection – there were some titles that would only be comprehensible to scientists. Foreign language and technical materials do, I think, work well with minimal processing. Instead of agonizing over folder titles, Google-translating every other sentence, or calling up our scientific friends to beg assistance, we simply make note of the folder title and leave the rest in the hands of the researchers. Thus, though we felt a little intimidated by certain aspects of the collection, it did provide a good subject for minimal processing. Verstehen Sie?

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Lacy LeGrand Little papers

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

With the start of 2011, PACSCL has taken on a new group of processors to work in area repositories. For our training project, our group (Garrett Boos, Bruce Nielson, and Sarah Newhouse) arrange a collection of photographs and papers belonging to Lacy LeGrand Little, a Presbyterian missionary to China in the early 20th century. This collection is housed at the Presbyterian Historical Society, along with many other collections from missionaries serving during the same time period and in various countries.

Most of the photographs are of unidentified groups and individuals, which presented some problems in arranging and using minimal processing (especially for those of us using minimal processing for the first time). We wanted to label folders with names when possible, so searching for names and dates became a process that took more time than we intended. We ended up dividing the photographs into formal and informal (posed portraits and snapshots), and within those categories, into photos of individuals, pairs, groups and locations. Within those groups, we had categories of identified and unidentified photos. As always, with minimal processing, time was our main concern, but we were also concerned with balancing our allotted time with the desire to create the most informative finding aid possible.

Among the unidentified photos were several of a man whom we were pretty sure was Lacy Little, but lacking any identifying information, we hesitated to assign his name to those photos. After we had processed the collection and created the finding aid, our project archivist, Courtney Smerz, mentioned that she had seen an identified photo of Lacy Little in another collection being processed during training. Thus began a frantic, but brief hunt thorugh the collections we had pulled for processing, trying to find this labeled photograph that we knew was in a photo album or scrapbook with black pages. The photo was found, we identified our man, and everyone was happy.

The primary value of this collection is in the snapshot it provides of life in the 1920s and 1930s China, especially the life of a tourist or missionary. Many of the photos are of unidentified groups and views, including a series of photos of classes from the school run by the Jiangyin Mission. Some of these, however, have a list of all the students on the back, but no additional information, such as year, instructor or location. The most interesting photos were two long, rolled photographs of landscapes. One was the view of a harbor, with small fishing boats mingling with imposing battleships.

This collection fits into a larger narrative and documentary history about American missionaries moving into the rest of the world, but it is surprisingly short on quantitative data and the details of a missionary’s life. The photographs, however, provide tiny windows into Little’s life and travels, giving us a sense of what was interesting to a missionary encountering China through Western eyes.

For permission to use images of items from the Little Papers, please contact the Presbyterian Historical Society.