February 2018 – Public History at UMass Boston

February 26, 2018Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Branding Lowell: Collaboration, Material Culture, and Community Identity at the Lowell National Historical Park

By: Sarah K. Black

Streetcar, Lowell National Historical Park (photo by David Wilson, Oak Park, IL)

I spent my fall 2018 semester working as a curatorial intern directly under Laurel Racine, Chief of Cultural Resources at Lowell National Historical Park (LNHP). Maintained and operated by the National Park Service and spanning a full 142-acres, the park “interprets and preserves significant historical and cultural resources from the 19th-century American Industrial Revolution.” More than just a conglomerate of former mill buildings, and a locks and canal system, the Park is a hub for education and a major player in Lowell’s evolving cultural landscape and economic revitalization.

I came to LNHP in search of experience in exhibit planning and execution. I also wanted to gain a general understanding of daily museum operations since I had never worked in a cultural institution. Knowing this, Laurel brought me in to assist two volunteers who were in the beginning stages of developing a temporary exhibit. Branding Lowell: A History of Local Design was the brainchild of Mark Van Der Hyde, a graphic designer by trade and an extremely enthusiastic and dedicated volunteer. Combining his love for both logos and Lowell, he envisioned an exhibit that centered on how the city, as well as its local businesses and organizations, have designed their own symbols and how this imagery has reflected Lowell’s collective and evolving identity since its founding.

I knew that I would walk away with more experience than I had going in, but I never expected my internship to be as valuable as it was. Not only did I grow and improve my skillset in several areas including exhibitions, collections management, and museum operations, but the opportunity also offered me a chance to prove to myself that I can step outside academia and into the public sphere of the historical discipline.

Mark had conceived of a panel exhibit with the help of Tony Sampas, Senior Digital Documentation and Records Management Specialist for UMass Lowell’s O’Leary Library— and a fellow logo enthusiast. My task—shifting the two-dimensional exhibit into a three-dimensional one—required me to research, select, and interpret artifacts to create a storyline. I spent many long hours searching through the park’s databases and experimenting with storyboards, all the while trying to find objects that both fit Mark’s narrative and illumniated stories that did not appear in the panel text. But the artifacts themselves are undeniably crucial in this history. Early sketches of the logos reveal the process of branding. Branded goods and memorabilia evidenced how these symbols were disseminated to and absorbed by consumers. Taken together, these themes demonstrate just how pervasive symbolism and branding is throughout our culture.

Early mock-up of UMass Lowell’s hockey team logo. Including sketches from the artists offers audiences a glimpse into the process behind forming a logo. Circa 1994. (On loan to LNHP from artist Brian Trainor; photograph by author)

After just a few weeks on the job, I realized just how dynamic and unpredictable building an exhibit can be. With each team meeting, Branding Lowell grew in both content and thematic scope, and with it, so did my responsibilities. Hoping to put my training in public history theory and practice to good use, I volunteered to explore new content, draft panels, and introduce interactive components. Although these additional tasks certainly opened the door to practical experience in interpretation and exhibit planning, I found the collaborative component of the project to be the most valuable. Each member of our four-person team brought something unique to the table, be it curatorial experience, graphic design skills, or an extensive knowledge of the history of Lowell. Our exhibit team meetings were opportunities to share progress and problems; they were honest and productive sessions where we brainstormed, proposed solutions, and compromised. Collaborations, especially when they involve community members, are never a guaranteed success, so I am tremendously grateful to have worked alongside professionals who were both eager to share ideas and open to constructive criticism. In the end, our unique perspectives and expertise combined to ensure Branding Lowell is as content-rich, aesthetically pleasing, and engaging as possible.

Branding Lowell will open on March 24, 2018 and although my formal internship has concluded, I intend to see the project through to its completion. We still have a great deal to do, including case layouts and object mounts, text editing, and installation. I look forward to increasing my skillset even further.

Ferrin & Parker "Boots and Shoes" nineteenth century business card — The Branding Lowell exhibit will feature an array of nineteenth-century business cards. This one is from 1890. (LNHP collection; photograph by author)

The internship requirement for the public history program had haunted me since the evening I received my acceptance letter. I came into the program with no experience in a museum (or even a comparable institution), and feared that my lack of experience in the field would ultimately cast me as the inexperienced underdog in both academic and professional networks. But this is exactly why our time as interns is so essential. No matter how little or how much experience a student has, there are always new skills to learn, most of which have to develop outside of the classroom. I was fortunate to be mentored by a museum professional with tremendous experience in the field and a desire to create a positive and productive environment. Laurel not only took me under her wing to teach me about collections management and museum operations, but she also granted me a great deal of freedom with the exhibit content and development. At the end of the day, I will leave my internship with something even more valuable than an improved skill set: the knowledge that I left my mark on a truly dynamic and collaborative project, one that tells the story of a city’s identity in a unique and interesting way. As an aspiring public historian, I can think of no place better suited for professional and personal growth than the Lowell National Historical Park.

February 18, 2018Heidi Gengenbach 1 Comment

Transparent Faces & Hidden Mothers: Processing Tintypes at Historic New England

By: Caroline Littlewood

This portrait of a woman and child contains white lines. Note the oval mark where a frame or mount used to be. Historic New England, Library and Archives.

She found them at flea markets. Hundreds of painted tintype photographs—colorful portraits of anonymous Americans—caught Dr. Diana Korzenik’s eye, and, over the years, she amassed an impressive collection. The tintypes range in size and vary in appearance. Some are so thickly coated in color that the original photographic image is obscured. Others have one or two pigments to make a face blush or a necklace sparkle. But each tintype is evidence of another time, when photography was young. Invented in the 1850s, tintypes preserved likenesses of working class Americans who could not afford daguerreotypes. Whether once hung on a wall for all to see, or sent through the post as a token of affection, these historical artifacts are important records of a time past.

Only within the last couple decades have collectors come to value painted tintypes. For years, they were more interested in the antique frames that encased them. But Dr. Korzenik saw value where others hadn’t and sought to preserve them, along with smaller, unpainted tintypes of working-class women and children. To promote the continued study and appreciation of tintypes, Dr. Korzenik recently donated her substantial collection to Historic New England.

I began by surveying the collection. At first, the tintypes looked very similar. — Historic New England, Library and Archives

As the Historic New England intern responsible for processing Dr. Korzenik’s donation, I sought to convert this personal collection into an archival collection that would be accessible to researchers. I began by surveying and researching my materials. I dove into classic works like Taft’s Photography and the American Scene: A Social History which helped me to understand what I had before me and formulate a processing plan. I researched rehousing and preservation recommendations then tallied the contents of the collection to order the appropriate sleeves and boxes. When I had these archival materials in hand, I set to rehousing and describing each item. By the end of my internship, I had processed over 520 individual tintypes at the item level, produced a finding aid and helped digitize a portion of the collection.

The experience was thrilling and rewarding, but it was not without its challenges. I hit my first obstacle early on as I surveyed the collection. Dr. Korzenik had numbered and grouped her tintypes, but I had no understanding of her organizational schema. The collection was an indecipherable mix of subjects, painting techniques, and plate size. Some categories described the physical manipulation of the tintype: “thick paint, white lines, black lines,” “hand-painted tintypes powder/gold jewelry/white lines/black lines,” and—my favorite—“transparent faces”.

This portrait of a young woman was categorized as a “Transparent Face.” Historic New England, Library and Archives

Tintype close-up — Some tintype portraits are more intricately painted than others. Historic New England, Library and Archives

Others described the portrait subjects or size: “children and couples,” “hidden mothers,” and “carte de visite-sized”. Why did she make these distinctions? What did they mean? When I spoke to Dr. Korzenik, she explained that the labels are meant to draw one’s eye to the compositional aspects of each photograph. The average person sees a photograph as an image meant to reflect reality.

But as a professional artist and educator, she also saw tintypes as artifacts that had been painted, tinted, highlighted, outlined, scratched, and solarized. Categories based on subject or size also shared composition traits. Her “hidden mothers”—portraits of young children with the adult presence concealed—are small and unpainted; “children and couples” are large and painted. Once I saw these layers and distinctions, I could better describe Dr. Korzenik’s materials and preserve the expertise that shaped her collecting activities.

This is one of roughly 200 “hidden mothers.” Historic New England Library and Archives

The collection also challenged me to manage my time carefully. Early on, I realized that I was dealing with a miraculously growing collection, which had somehow ballooned from my estimated three hundred tintypes to over five hundred, plus a few non-tintype materials. I was eager to get started, but I had to wait for supplies to arrive. Once they arrived and I began rehousing, I struggled to standardize my descriptive language. But I used my time waiting for archival materials to work on my finding aid and produce a detailed spreadsheet. I asked my supervisors for help and examined finding aids from similar collections when I struggled with description. When I travelled to Historic New England’s Haverhill facility to work on framed tintypes, I documented my work carefully so that I could continue it offsite. And when I came to a tintype that warranted further investigation, I set it aside and continued with my work, assembly-line style.

Smaller tintypes often came in paper sleeves or mounts. Historic New England, Library and Archives

Before I knew it, my time was up. I no longer think about tintypes most of my waking (and some of my sleeping) hours. But I know that my work will facilitate access to a historically rich and unique collection. Each tintype can be so many things. It can be a fashion plate, a genealogical record, and evidence of early photographic props, poses, and conventions. Furthermore, each painted tintype illustrates the relationship between young photographic technology and a traditional painted portraiture. Despite the challenges, I’ve helped to make these materials visible and accessible to the general public, and I don’t know if there is anything more rewarding than that.

February 12, 2018Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Finding One’s Path on the Road of Research: An Intern’s Journey

By: Nina Rodwin

Originally published by the Center for the History of Medicine on December 5, 2017: https://cms.www.countway.harvard.edu/wp/?p=14583

Nina Rodwin, UMass Boston Public History Student

When I started my internship at Harvard’s Countway Library of Medicine, my project adviser, Joan Ilacqua, project archivist for the Archives for Women in Medicine, and I decided to investigate digitized journals between 1900 and 1920 from the Medical Heritage Library’s State Medical Society Journals project to uncover the effects of the 1910 Flexner Report on women’s medical education. The goal of the project was to create a digital exhibit about the state of medical education before and after the Flexner Report to better understand how women medical students and physicians were influenced by Flexner’s recommendations. However, as I conducted my research, I found that this topic connected to multiple issues beyond the question of women’s education in the medical field. These new avenues opened the exhibit to larger questions regarding sex, class, gender, and race during the early 20^th century.

In 1908, Professor Abraham Flexner was hired by the Council on Medical Education (a branch of the American Medical Association) to travel to each American medical school and evaluate the overall institution; from curriculum, to the number of faculty, to the condition of laboratories and libraries. Flexner’s findings were unnerving and the quality of medical schools varied wildly. Flexner recommended that schools with financial means should emulate the quality of education seen at Johns Hopkins University, one of the first medical schools affiliated with a teaching hospital that also required laboratory experience for all its students. Flexner strongly recommended that schools which could not afford such expensive upgrades be closed.

Modern analysis of the Flexner report shows that his decisions meant that most women’s and Black medical schools were closed, as these institutions often had fewer funds. While medical students in the early 20^th century were more likely to learn the latest medical techniques from prestigious institutions, many women and Black medical students were barred from these opportunities, as many schools (including Harvard) openly refused to admit them or admitted them in minuscule numbers. When I began this project, I assumed that these issues would be reflected and discussed in the state medical journals of the time.

I imagined discovering blustering editorials, where the authors would be offended at the very the idea of women entering the medical field. However, I struggled to find any editorial that even mentioned women, yet alone any that excoriated them for being in the field. I found many articles and editorials that dryly reported the progress of medical education and criticized the Flexner Report for its negative conclusions, but none discussed what these changes would mean for women medical students. Finding little evidence connecting the Flexner Report to women’s education in medical schools was particularly important– it demonstrated that many physicians in the early 20^th century were no longer outraged by the idea of women practicing medicine. The research showed that the question for women physicians in the early 20^th century was not a debate surrounding their abilities or rights to practice medicine, but was rather a debate surrounding which kinds of medical fields were best suited for women.

The Woman’s Medical Journal, Vol. XV, No. 4. April 1905.

In fact, women physicians during the early 1900s went to great efforts to prove sex discrimination was a relic of the past. This belief however, was often countered by their own experiences, as seen in editorials from The Woman’s Medical Journal. These editorials were especially interesting when compared with editorials from state medical journals, as both used cultural ideas about women, motherhood, and women’s natural abilities to argue for or against women in certain fields. As my research progressed, I was especially drawn to the differences between the Women’s Medical Journal (WMJ) and the Pennsylvania Medical Journal. (PMJ) While both journals contained medical articles, the WMJ also had a social justice slant, advocating for women’s medical education across the world, endorsing a woman’s right to vote, and demonstrating that women physicians were just as capable as their male counterparts. Both journals portrayed women in the medical field, but PMJ often emphasized traditional ideas about a “women’s place.” For example, there are many articles in the PMJ, including this toast given in 1907, about the self-sacrificing wives of male physicians, but no mention of the struggle women physicians faced balancing their social, professional and domestic roles.

My research found that the fields of anesthesiology and lab work were seen as ideal place for women physicians. Public health was especially popular for women physicians, as its focus

Caption from “The Doctor’s Wife,” a speech given by H.J. Bell, MD in 1907.

on the household, parenting, dieting, and children’s health were considered extensions of a woman’s natural role as caretaker and mother. However, white women physicians in the field of public health in the early 20^th century often advocated for eugenic practices, including limiting marriages to those considered “fit” and the sterilization of those considered “unfit.” So as white women advocated for equality in the medical field, they also encouraged policies that targeted and discriminated women from marginalized groups. While this topic is quite disturbing, I have found this section of my research the most interesting, as the concepts advocating for White Supremacy are very similar both in the early 20^th century and today.

I believe that making historical connections to modern events can be a great tool to help connect today’s audiences to the past. The issue of discrimination against women in the workplace is still very relevant today, especially in the medical field. The decisions made by the Flexner Report still affect medical education today. Although women’s enrollment in medical schools was almost evenly split with men in 2016, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), and rates of minority student enrollment has increased over time, Latino and Black students only comprise 20% of incoming medical students nationwide although these statistics do not break down minority applicants by gender. Furthermore, women in the workforce still struggle with societal expectations of motherhood and marriage, making the balance between their personal lives and professional lives much harder. Although my research evolved from a project specifically on the Flexner Report to an analysis of women in medicine in the early 20^th century, I hope my forthcoming exhibit can shed light on how far women have come, while reminding my audience that many obstacles remain. I look forward to completing the internship and presenting my findings.

February 5, 2018Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Down in the Crypt: Interview with an Asher Jackson, Archivist, Fitchburg State University Archives

By Maddy Moison

As we descend down a long, forgotten hallway we come across an area of the building seldom visited. Large wooden tables with warm desk lamps stand guard over the old books that line the walls. The lamps do little to cut through the cold air that permeates the room. The climate controls kick in with a gentle hum in the background, the only noise in the room. I have ventured into the proverbial crypt of history. Few have dared to walk this path and even fewer have returned to tell the tale. Why have I risked life and limb you ask? Well, dear reader, I have managed to secure an interview with a rare species. No, not a vampire…. an archivist.

Asher Jackson, archivist, Fitchburg State University

Trapped below ground in Fitchburg State University’s archive I am stuck by how new everything looks; no cobwebs or dust bunnies here. Asher Jackson, the archivist in question, comments that the university has undergone many renovation projects in the past four years, one of which was the creation of a new archive. What wasn’t anything more than a large closet with boxes stacked unceremoniously in piles when I attended Fitchburg State is now a brand new archive. The reading room is small but has enough seats to hold a class of students.

Mr. Jackson is the only trained archivist on staff. He gently moves a cardboard box off of our table so that we can see each other. Mr. Jackson found his way to this quiet reading room through a series of seemingly coincidental and haphazard choices. After dropping out of college and getting a job at a law firm in their records management department he spent his time wondering why arranging the files was such a difficult task. Paperwork was lost all the time, never to be found unless by happy chance. “I didn’t know it then but I was working in a sort of archive. I kept asking: if libraries could do this why was this so hard?” After a bit of research Mr. Jackson found himself applying to go back to school, this time for library and information science at Simmons College in Boston. He found the archives track and finally fit all the puzzle pieces together. After a stint in the muggy climate of Delaware, working at the University of Delaware, he made the move back to Boston. Soon after, he moved to Fitchburg with a friend, an organ player at a local church (I will keep my vampire speculations to a minimum, dear reader, I promise).

What makes Mr. Jackson’s job unique is his interactions with students. It’s the most rewarding part off the job for him. The differences between a job in university archives and one in a historical society or museum is the opportunity to interact with students. Of course, many students on campus don’t know what an archive is or that there even is one on campus. However, as Mr. Jackson points out, “People in university communities understand what primary resources are, and they understand the important uniqueness of that.” Here in the basement of the student center, classes are brought in to conduct research. Jackson’s favorite project every year is working with a writing class on a paper about the origins of superstitions. He helps them find resources, showing them how to navigate an archive for source material. At the completion of the project, each student designs a gallery exhibition to display their research. This ‘crypt,’ as it turns out, is a livelier place than I had anticipated.

Cover, "Homeland" — R.A. Salvatore, author of the “Dark Elf” trilogy, is among those whose collections are held in the archives at Fitchburg State

Among its many treasures, the archive holds the papers of Robert Cormier, author of The Chocolate Wars, as well as those of R.A. Salvatore, creator of the Dark Elf trilogy. Both lived and worked in the Fitchburg area and attended Fitchburg State University. As Mr. Jackson enthusiastically shows me around the archive, he singles out Cormier’s old typewriter. With unabashed joy, he holds the typewriter and lets me touch the well-worn keys.

As he talks, Jackson makes it very clear that he understands the importance of FSU’s archives to the city of Fitchburg. “Fitchburg is one of those places that is overlooked as a working man’s town… I want to force people to look and see that you can live here and be successful. Look at all the amazing things that were happening here.” As a part of his work with the Salvatore collection, Jackson worked closely with the author to create a welcoming space for fans. He points out a number of pieces from the collection, including fan art and letters Salvatore sent back asking permission to include them in his collection. “I wanted to make this place as accessible as possible so everyone can come and look at all of this.”

Main Street, Fitchburg, MA; c.a. between 1930 and 1945. Image is in the public domain.

All of this outreach and work comes at a cost and Jackson, a realist, is quick to point out that his situation at the University is rather precarious. Fitchburg, for instance, does not provide him with his own budget. Consequently, he chips away what he can from the library’s budget. With money tight, he does what he can to minimize time spent on certain activities, “I could either take out all of these paperclips or actually or

ganize [the collections].” When he is not helping students or going through a new collection, Jackson is on call at the local historical society, lending a hand whenever questions arise. He is the only trained archivist in the area; yet, there are limits to his ability to help. He admits, for instance, that his preservation skills are not where he would like them to be. Nevertheless, the prohibitive cost of outsourcing preservation work means that he has to make do with his own skills. As such, he wants to learn more about preservation tactics to do more in house repairs.

I thank my host for sharing his time and make my escape back to the world of daylight and warmth to reflect on my time in the archive.

There was such a vast array of information there to be unearthed and helpful staff there to walk you through your excavation. Such a hidden world should not be left unexplored. Dear reader, I encourage you to seek out your local archivist. I promise you, the archive is not as scary a place as you might think.