Digital History – Page 3 – Public History at UMass Boston

February 7, 2017Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Beyond Black & White: Exploring Black History Month

In 1976, former President Gerald Ford officially designated February as Black History Month in the U.S. Part of its purpose involved expanding the national public school curriculum to include the history of black Americans who were omitted from traditional narratives. Despite that noble intent, sometimes, the tendency to showcase important individuals and events during Black History Month can oversimplify complex historical figures and situations, diminish complicated struggles, and lead to a type of segregated history. In 2005, Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman called the idea of relegating black history to one month “ridiculous,” stating, in a TV news interview, “Black history is American history.”

The narrative of African Americans’ experiences throughout Boston’s history is diverse and highly complicated. Graduate students in “Transforming Digital Archives and History” have been exploring a critical and controversial time for African Americans and people of all colors and ethnicities in Boston: the desegregation of Boston Public Schools in 1974.

That year, federal judge W. Arthur Garrity ruled that Boston’s public schools suffered from de facto (by fact) segregation and he mandated their immediate integration. Many citizens supported the idea of school integration, but protested the manner in which desegregation was implemented–by busing over 18,000 black and white students away from neighborhoods. Leaders from both the black and white communities challenged the wisdom of busing students between overcrowded, similarly impoverished areas, like the predominantly black neighborhood of Roxbury and the Irish Catholic neighborhood of South Boston, and predicted the pairing would provoke intense fear, hostility, and violence. The decision unleashed a flood of rage and organized protests from both black and white parents for years. Some equated Boston to a war zone during this period, and both blacks and whites committed violent acts.

A number of compelling book and memoirs, including J.Anthony Lukas’s award-winning, Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, and videos have been published on the topic. Each sheds insight into how race, class, ethnic pride, the neighborhood loyalty affected the situation.

But what about the unpublished voices of everyday people? Working within various archives in the city, students are unearthing and reviewing thousands of emotionally-charged letters written to local, state, and federal officials by parents, students, teachers, clergy, activists, and community groups reacting to the decision.

Letter to Mayor Kevin White from an 11-year old student writing to Judge Arthur Garrity to criticize the judge's decision to implement busing as the means of desegregating Boston Public Schools. — Letter to Mayor Kevin White from an 11-year old student writing to Judge Arthur Garrity to criticize the judge’s decision to implement busing as the means of desegregating Boston Public Schools. Courtesy Boston City Archives.

Despite the widespread protests and violent responses to busing, archived letters reveal that the reactions to busing defy easy categorization. Some letters, like that written to Boston’s mayor, Kevin White, by 11-year old student, favored integrated schools but criticized the decision to bus students to schools outside of their neighborhoods. To minimize turmoil, this child (whose name has been redacted) proposed that teachers be bused so kids could remain in their local schools; “maybe then there wouldn’t be any more stabing [sic] & fights.”

Others who opposed busing engaged in violent attacks. In 1976–the same year Black History Month was instituted in the US–Joseph Rakes, a white teenager, lunged at Ted Landsmark, an African American lawyer and civil-rights activist, swinging a pole bearing an American flag. The attack, which occurred outside of Boston’s City Hall, was captured by Boston Herald photographer Stanley Forman.

"The Soiling of Old Glory," by Stanley Forman, 1976. — “The Soiling of Old Glory,” by Stanley Forman, 1976 (Copyright © Stanley Forman, 1976). Image reproduced here courtesy of Stanley Forman, as part of an exhibit in “Stark & Subtle Divisions: A Collaborative History of Segregation in Boston.” Further reproduction is prohibited without prior permission in writing from Stanley Forman.

Rakes’s attack on Landsmark escalated racial violence. Weeks later, two African American teenagers dragged Richard Poleet, a 34-year old white auto mechanic, from his car in Roxbury and beat him to death with paving stones. Community leaders of black and white neighborhoods alike accused the local media of biased and inaccurate reporting. Some criticized that media provoked retaliatory violence by broadcasting incidents of severe beatings and stabbings; at the same time, the local papers downplayed the terror many children faced in school each day.

Interested in learning more about the complicated reaction the decision to integrate Boston Public Schools? Each week over the course of Black History Month, we’ll share findings from online exhibits that graduate students in History at UMass Boston created about this tumultuous era. To learn more about the history of de facto segregation in Boston Public Schools, the link between adulterated meat products and civil rights in Boston, how students and teachers felt about busing, and how this issue transformed local mothers into outspoken activists and politicians, stay tuned!

Sources

Ronald P. Formisano. Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s. University of North Carolina Press (2nd Revised edition), 2004.

J. Anthony Lukas. Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families. Vintage Books, 1986.

Michael Patrick MacDonald. All Souls:A Family Story from Southie. Beacon Press, 2007.

Ione Malloy. Southie Won’t Go: A Teacher’s Diary of the Desegregation of South Boston High School. University of Illinois Press, 1986.

Jim Vrabel. A People’s History of the New Boston. University of Massachusetts Press, 2014.

February 1, 2017Heidi Gengenbach 4 Comments

#BlackHistoryMonth: My Outreach Internship in Archives

By Monica Haberny

In fall 2016, I completed internship early at the Boston City Archives (BCA). My project combined research, access and outreach. My goal was to identify and digitize interesting material related to African American history and women’s history in Boston, then create a few compelling posts for Black History Month (February) and Women’s History Month (March). I loved this project so much I ended up writing one post for every day of each month (read my posts on BCA’s blog every day!) To read more about my experiences each week, check out the class blog for internships: Archives In Turn: Interns in Archives.

On my first day, Marta Crilly, the Archivist for Reference and Outreach, gave me a tour of the BCA and introduced me to the collections. During that first month, I began making connections and “discoveries.” I unearthed the story of Julia Harrington Duff–a teacher who fought for the rights of Irish-American, female teachers–in the teacher qualification records. But I also found info about Julia in the city documents, as she served on the Boston School Committee in the early 1900s.

In September, I encountered a few research dead ends. I’d hoped to write an in-depth post on Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first African-American woman to become a physician in the United States. Crumpler lived in and operated an office in Beacon Hill in 1869, and moved, with her husband, to Hyde Park in 1880. Searches for her tax records (using her maiden name, her husband’s name, a mention of a black doctor, female doctor, or any combination) returned no information. But by the end of the month, I’d made progress in other areas. I wrote a compelling post on William Monroe Trotter, a newspaper editor and civil rights activist, listed in Hyde Park’s graduation exercises from 1860. I wrote posts on seven other African Americans who shaped Boston’s history.

girls-high — Closing Exercises of the Boston Girls’ High School, 1918, Graduation Programs, Collection 0400.004, Boston City Archives.

In October, I utilized three tricks to help me track down people of interest in Boston’s past.

First, I searched for alumni of Boston Public Schools. I found well-known individuals from the high schools of South Boston, Girls’, and Hyde Park. Some graduation records were missing, but it was helpful to know who attended which school. I used photos and documents from the schools’ records to enhance blog posts about alumni who went to those schools, like community and civil rights activist Melnea Cass who attended Girls’ High School. Cass remained remained active in many community projects and volunteer groups in the South End and Roxbury and helped found the Boston local of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

Second, I used digitized photographs on BCA’s Flickr page as documents or sources of valuable information. The John F. Collins album provided a wealth of rich material and allowed me to write about Bobbi Gibb and Katherine Switzer, the first women to run the Boston marathon, and many more topics and persons of interest.

The third trick I learned entailed using records of city officials to uncover material about individuals or topics. In November, Marta and I found folders in the John Collins’ papers that documented key events from the civil rights movement. These documents included Collin’s reaction to violent attacks on civil-rights demonstrators by state police outside of Selma, Alabama; letters from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) about housing inequality in Roxbury, and documents from the NAACP. I learned that, in some cases, searching records from mayors uncovered far more information than looking for topics directly.

eunice-shriver — Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Mayor Raymond L. Flynn. circa 1984-1986. Mayor Raymond L. Flynn records, Collection #0246.001 Boston City Archives.

There were some surprises in my research. For instance, I found the eulogy for Melnea Cass and documents from Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s Special Olympics in Mayor Kevin H. White’s records. I also found significant material pertinent to women’s issues in White’s records.

4320-001-box1folder1912-1914-2 — Application from the Housekeepers League, January 7, 1913, Box 1, Petitions to use Faneuil Hall 1912-1914, Applications to use Faneuil Hall 4320.001, Boston City Archives.

My favorite aspect of my internship was the sleuthing it allowed me to do. For instance, I found the name, “Ida M. Hebbard” on an application to use Faneuil Hall from the Housekeepers League, a group for which she served as president. I discovered that the league consisted of wives and mothers who were concerned about the prices of household goods in the 1910s. Hebbard was an early advocate of consumer rights and led the group in boycotting goods to protest unfair pricing. Their potato boycott helped lower the cost of of potatoes from 70 cents to 35 cents a peck. The League advocated for the Bob Veal Bill, which prohibited the sale of calves weighing less than sixty pounds. Hebbard also called attention to violations in the way cold food was stored in Boston. Though extremely influential in Boston at the time, Hebbard is, today, barely remembered by Bostonians. The fact that I brought back her memory is something I’m extremely proud of.*

Grace Lorch(left) with Elizabeth Eckford (right), one of the Little Rock Nine. From clipping, Max Brantley, “Lee Lorch, a figure in Little Rock’s ‘57 crisis, dies at 98.” Arkansas Times, March 02, 2014, in Mayor Kevin H White records, Boston City Archives.

I found inspiration in my research into the men and women of color in Boston’s history. I learned about the creator of the Drop-a-Dime hotline, Georgette Watson and the first Black female firefighter, Karen Miller. I also discovered the teaching record of Grace Lorch who was a white escort for the Little Rock Nine.

One of my favorite items and most interesting discoveries came from the Town of Dorchester records: the military enlistments from the 5^th Regiment Massachusetts Colored Volunteer Cavalry during the Civil War.

Massachusetts had three African American regiments during the Civil War: the 54^th Infantry Regiment, 55^th Infantry Regiment, and the 5^th Colored Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. The 1989 movie Glory starring Mathew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes and Morgan Freeman documents 54^th Infantry Regiment–a Massachusetts military unit that was one of the first units in the Union Army composed entirely of African-Americans. The records for the 5^th Colored Cavalry are lesser-known but fascinating! Included among the enlistees from Dorchester were Stephen Jacobs and Betsey Smith. Jacobs and Smith enlisted together but his form said he had originally come from Virginia, whereas Smith’s listed her home as Africa. I found out that she went into the war as a private and left with the rank of private.

1100box18folder118-2 — A list of some of the recruits for the 5th Regiment Massachusetts Colored Volunteer Cavalry. Lists of Recruits, March 1864, Box 18, Folder 118, Town of Dorchester records 1100.001, Boston City Archives

Marta told me that she had expected me to write two or three blogs per week for Black History Month and Women’s History Month, but by the end of my internship I had written a post for every day in February and March to honor the admirable men and women of our city in Black History and Women’s History Months.

While working at BCA, I monitored the research room, so I gained experience watching researchers and making sure everyone handled documents correctly. I also had the chance to answer some reference queries. I realized while doing these tasks that I really enjoyed acting as a bit of a detective for the public.

By working at the Boston City Archives, I learned how to become a better writer, what working in an archive entailed, and how to serve the public. I began to see myself there and enjoyed going there. While the idea of what career I want is still foggy, I do know that wherever I end up working needs to involve archives or some aspect of it.

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* These are some published articles about Hebbard:

“Coal Dealers Put the Blame on Mine Men.” Boston Evening Globe, May 29, 1917.

“15,000 Women Banded in Fight Against H.C.L.” The Boston Globe, May 12, 1917.

“Potato Boycott by Housekeepers.” The Boston Globe, January 27, 1917.

“To Start Probe of Cold Storage Foods.” Boston Post, December 5, 1916.

“Watch on Legislators.” Boston Post, March 17, 1917.

“Women Who Let Fight For ‘Bob Veal’ Bill” The Boston Globe, February 22, 1917.

January 17, 2017Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Fighting Fire & Segregation: A Semester at the Boston City Archives

By: Connor Anderson

hphs-busing_02 — Officers from the Boston Police Department standing beside school buses. Photo from the 1975 Hyde Park High School yearbook.

I decided to complete my internship at the Boston City Archives (BCA) in West Roxbury thanks in part to the experience I had there during our Digital Archives class in spring 2016. In that class, we worked with Marta Crilly, the Archivist for Reference and Outreach, to create exhibits for the class’s Omeka site, “Stark and Subtle Divisions,” which explores the desegregation of the Boston Public Schools.

My internship included many small projects but, primarily, I focused on digitizing materials from the desegregation collections housed at the City Archives, and inputting metadata onto their digital repository, Preservica, for future use. This project builds upon the work of Lauren Prescott, a recently graduated student from our program.

I started off in September digitizing materials from the Mayor Kevin H. White records, specifically feedback notes from the various “coffee klatches” the Mayor held throughout the city. Some of these notes mentioned the residents’ concerns about the busing situation. I then moved onto some materials from the Louise Day Hicks papers and the Fran Johnnene collection, two ardent opponents of desegregation, or “forced busing,” as they dubbed it.

9800015-002-012-002.pdf — A map of neighborhood schools with accompanying geocodes found in the Louise Day Hicks papers.

The Louise Day Hicks material featured interesting content that Marta thought researchers would love.

I was really hoping that I would have the chance to scan images while at the BCA. I am familiar with digitizing still and moving images from my internship in the audiovisual archives at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, and I really enjoy working with that medium. So when I heard that there were some negatives in the Kevin H. White records that needed scanning, I immediately jumped at the opportunity. We encountered some setbacks and I ended up only scanning a few negatives. In hindsight, that’s good since there were many other projects for to do.

After working there a few weeks, Marta mentioned that some of the materials from the Cocoanut Grove Night Club fire needed scanning.

In November 1942, Cocoanut Grove, a night club in Boston, caught fire. The blaze claimed the lives of almost 500 people making it the deadliest nightclub fire in the world at that time. The Boston City Archives has three collections which contain material about the fire: the Boston City Hospital collection, the Law Department records, and the William Arthur Reilly collection. The materials are fascinating, with items ranging from death certificates to samples of the fabric that caught ablaze (see below).

0700007-008-005-002.pdf — A sample of fabric that caught fire at the Cocoanut Grove Night Club Fire.

This detour turned into one of my favorite projects of the semester, and I learned more about the privacy restrictions of some collections. The biggest issue we faced with this material involved HIPAA regulations that protect the privacy of medical records. After consulting with an attorney for the City of Boston, we were cleared to publish the names and other information about the victims online, because (long before HIPPA was enacted) the Boston Post had already published the names in a “List of Dead.”

7020001-028-035-023.pdf — A page from the *Boston Post* featuring names of the victims of the Cocoanut Grove Night Club fire.

The materials in these collections reflect the fire’s immediate impact on the city and its long-lasting national legacy. For instance, the Boston City Hospital (BCH) records document procedures and treatments used on Cocoanut Grove fire victims. The approaches and practices used at BCH established a modern treatment of burn victims that hospitals across the country soon followed. The materials from the Law Department document the city’s creation of new safety and fire codes. Many of the codes Boston created in response to Cocoanut Grove were later adopted nationwide.

After scanning materials related to the Cocoanut Grove Night Club fire, I returned to desegregation, this time focusing on yearbooks. I focused on two high schools in neighborhoods which busing significantly affected: Charlestown High and Hyde Park. I soon found out, to my surprise, that Hyde Park High School already enrolled a number of non-white students before busing started in the Fall of 1974. Charlestown High School, on the other hand, enrolled very few non-white students prior to the Fall of 1974. This began a troubling trend of white Charlestown residents sending their children elsewhere for school.

firefox_screenshot_2016-10-28t19-29-54-148z — A Hyde Park High School Senior sporting some groovy hair.

In total, I scanned twenty-three yearbooks between the two high schools. Needless to say, the fashion trends of the 1960s and 1970s puzzle me after going through the yearbooks.

MODS metadata — Some lovely metadata using a MODS template by yours truly.

For each object I scanned, I needed to complete the metadata on that object as well. In my internship, I created metadata that provided detailed information about the digitized content. Marta set up a Google spreadsheet to organize all of my metadata, which was a huge help since I scanned almost 350 objects. The metadata I was responsible for were–Title, Record Identifier, Date Created, Creator Name, City, Neighborhood, Description, Collection Name and Number, Location of Originals, Type, Language, Conditions Governing Access, Conditions Governing Reproductions, Library of Congress Subject Headings, Description Standard, Pages.

Thankfully, the Boston City Archives has a set of controlled vocabulary to help with the process. I also found that a lot of the Library of Congress Subject Headings, dates, creators, and locations could be repeated. Still, it took me around 15 hours to complete all of the metadata alone during my internship.

I benefited a lot from my semester at the Boston City Archives. I learned technical skills that I will use in my future career and also got a view of how a municipal archive operates. Some of these skills include redacting documents, digitizing documents, different metadata formats, and working with a digital repository. There are many more that I probably do not realize I acquired yet as well. I am excited to take the valuable experience and these skills with me as I begin my career! To read more details about my experiences each week, check out the class blog for internships: Archives In Turn: Interns in Archives.

May 20, 2016Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Digging Into Digital Preservation & Outreach at Boston City Archives

By: Lauren Prescott

This semester I completed a digital archives internship at Boston City Archives with archivist Marta Crilly. Established in 1988, in an old school building in Hyde Park, the archives (now located in spacious location in West Roxbury), holds documentation of the history of Boston from the 17th century to present. Some notable collections in the archive include documentation of Boston’s role in the Civil War, immigration records, city council records, and Boston Public Schools (BPS) desegregation records. My interest in digital archives, as well as my experience in History 630, the digital archives class working with Boston Public Schools’ desegregation records, made this internship a perfect fit for me.

Desegregation

0405004-001-004-001 — A report from the Massachusetts State Board of Education on the racial imbalance in schools, circa 1965.

In 1961, the NAACP met with the Boston School Committee in an attempt to get the committee to acknowledge the racial imbalance of Boston Public Schools. The School Committee refused to acknowledge the presence of segregation for over a decade. In the 1971-1972 school year, enrollment in the public schools totaled 61 percent white, 32 percent black, and other minorities comprised the remaining 7 percent. However, 84 percent of the white students attended schools that were more than 80 percent white, and 62 percent of the black pupils attended schools that were more than 70 percent black. Also, during this time, at least 80 percent of Boston’s schools were segregated.[1]

Eventually, the NAACP filed a lawsuit in Federal district court in 1972, known as Morgan vs. Hennigan. The case came before Judge Wendell Arthur Garrity Jr., who made his decision on June 21, 1974. He found that “racial segregation permeates schools in all areas of the city, all grade levels, and all types of schools.”[2] The court ordered that the school committee immediately implement a desegregation plan for its schools. Garrity’s decision met with a myriad of responses from hostility and protest to submission and acceptance. Parents, teachers, politicians, and even students voiced their opinion in various ways; many sent heartfelt letters to Judge Garrity and Mayor Kevin White.*

Digital Preservation

0245001-003-015-020-page-001 — A letter sent to Mayor Kevin White urging him to ask Senator Barry Goldwater for help regarding desegregation and busing.

In the digital age, archivists face challenges of acquiring and preserving electronically generated records. In addition to this, archives are constantly under pressure to make their collections more accessible, through online finding aids or digitizing collections.[3] Some repositories use Institutional Repositories (IRs) for “collecting, preserving, and disseminating the intellectual output of an institution” in digital form.[4] Boston City Archives has recently begun using Preservica to keep their digital files safe and share content with the public. Preservica does not necessarily constitute an institutional repository; but, as digital preservation software, it keeps digital files safe and accessible for institutions. Preservica contains Open Archival Information System (OAIS)-compliant workflows for “ingest, data management, storage, access, administration and preservation…”[5] In addition, Preservica allows institutions to share this digitized content with the public.

Desegregation Records

For my internship, I began the process of digitizing the Boston City Archive’s desegregation records. Because the archive contains a plethora of desegregation records spread through numerous collections, I was not able to digitize everything. This semester I worked with the School Committee Secretary Files, the Mayor John F. Collins Records and the Kevin White Papers. Not every single document can be digitized, so I was responsible for choosing records that are important to understanding the desegregation of Boston public schools. In some cases, I digitized only a few documents in one box, and in others I was digitizing entire folders.

An important part of the internship involved writing metadata. Metadata is “data about data” and provides descriptive language about a record, “such as proper names, dates, places, type, technical information, and rights.”[6] Metadata constitutes a critically important piece of digitization; without it, digital objects would prove inaccessible and futile over time. If archives presented digitized images without identifiable information, researchers could not, with certainty, understand the context surrounding the document’s content!

I wrote metadata for each document and included information such as title, unique identifier, date created, creator, city, neighborhood, description, collection name and number, box and folder location, type, language, access condition and Library of Congress subject headings (LCSH). Inputting the metadata was easier than expected, thanks to last spring’s Digital Archives class.

0245001-002-024-008-page-001 — An angry letter sent to Mayor Kevin White from a resident of South Boston who does not believe that the mayor should have “interfered” with the School Committee. The letter has been redacted.

Redaction of sensitive or private information constituted another major component of the internship. I primarily redacted letters written to Mayor John F. Collins and Mayor Kevin H. White regarding desegregation of Boston Public Schools. John F. Collins served as Boston’s mayor from 1960 until 1968. While he played no official role in the desegregation of Boston Public Schools or the subsequent busing of students in the early 1970s, Mayor Collins still dealt with the problem of racial imbalance during his term. Since many of the letters expressed hostile and, in some cases, racist views, the archivist decided to redact the names and contact information of the authors. Documents written by politicians, federal and local government employees and other public figures did not require redacting.

The majority of the documents I digitized came from the Kevin H. White Papers. Kevin White served as the mayor of Boston from 1968 through 1984; this period spanned the desegregation of public schools. Documents digitized from this collection included police logs sent the mayor’s office, departmental communications, statements from the mayor and a plethora of letters, both against and in support of the mayor.

I worked with the Kevin H. White papers last semester when I created an online exhibit for class, so I was familiar with the collection; but, I still felt surprised by some of the letters I read this semester. Many of the letters Mayor White received in the 1970s were hostile and racist. Mayor White did not just receive letters from angry Boston parents, he also received letters from people in the South who had already experienced desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as several letters from other countries.

IMG_20160506_113833 — Hand-drawn covers containing letters from fourth and fifth grade students at the Maurice J. Tobin School in Roxbury.

Letters written by children were my favorite documents.

Students of all ages had opinions of their own and even offered suggestions to Mayor White. Click here to learn more about students’ responses to desegregation and read a sampling of letters written by students at the time. Letters poured in to Mayor White’s office from students in Boston and all over the country. Most students were against busing, but mainly because they were afraid of potential violence. I digitized some letters from the advanced fourth and fifth grade classes at the Maurice J. Tobin School in Roxbury. The students were worried that the administration would remove advanced classes during Phase II of desegregation and wrote to Mayor White to express their concerns.

My internship at Boston City Archives was one of the best I have had throughout my academic career. Working directly with professionals in the field on an important project is gratifying. The purpose of the project was two-fold: digitally preserve documents relating to an important time in Boston’s history, and to share these desegregation documents with a wider audience. Not everyone can go to an archive and spend time doing research. The project to digitize Boston City Archive’s desegregation records is not over. I have digitized only a portion of the records and others will continue where I left off.

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*For more information about the letters sent to Mayor Kevin White, see the finding aid to: the Mayor Kevin H. White records, 1929-1999 (Bulk, 1968-1983) at Boston City Archives; to learn more about the the letters sent to Judge Garrity, see the finding aid for the Papers on the Boston Schools Desegregation Case 1972-1997 at UMass Boston’s University Archives and Special Collections, in the Joseph P. Healey Library. This collection contains the chambers papers of Judge W. Arthur Garrity, Jr.

References

[1] School Desegregation in Boston: A Staff Report Prepared for the Hearing of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Boston, Massachusetts, June 1975. Washington: Commission, 1975, 20.
[2] Ibid., 71.
[3] Christina Zamon. The Lone Arranger: Succeeding in a Small Repository. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2012, 39.
[4] Ibid., 45
[5] “Preservica.” How Preservica Works. Accessed May 13, 2016. http://preservica.com/preservica-works/.
[6] The Lone Arranger, 47.

March 25, 2016Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Books & Maps & Photos, Oh My! An Afternoon at the NEDCC

Amanda Maloney showing a a rare megalethoscope print and discussing the preservation process. — Graduate students in the Archives program learning about megalethoscopes from Amanda Maloney, Associate Photograph and Paper Conservator, at NEDCC (left).

By: Corinne Zaczek Bermon

Recently, graduate students in “Archival Methods and Practices,” a history course taught by professor Marilyn Morgan, entered the exciting world of conservation and preservation at the New England Document Conservation Center (NEDCC). Located in Andover, MA, the NEDCC, the premier center for conservation, provides treatment for rare books, oversized maps, photographs, historic documents, scrapbooks, illuminated manuscripts, audio recordings, movings images, and other rarer formats. Working with archival repositories, museums, and individuals, NEDCC aims to preserve records in their original format. They save tangible pieces of history.

Upon our arrival, Julie Martin, Marketing and Public Relations Manager, and Eva Grizzard, Preservation Specialist, provided a warm and informative introduction to the NEDCC and led us to the impressive main work laboratory. The vast room held several enormous tables at which conservators painstakingly attended to various projects.

While the conservators concentrated on their work, Michael Lee, the Director of Paper and Photograph Conservation, discussed the processes involved in paper conservation and explained the vital importance that advanced knowledge of chemistry and manual dexterity play in conservation work. He expertly described one process that used water baths to refresh the cellulose of delicate paper advertisements.

Michael Lee explaining paper conservation. — Director of Paper and Photograph Conservation Michael Lee (left) explains that paper conservation requires advanced knowledge of chemistry and manual dexterity to Lauren Prescott, Paige Kinder, Rebecca Carpenter, Laura Kintz, Connor Anderson, Corinne Bermon, Patty Bruttomesso, and Dorothy Clark.

Mary Patrick Bogan, Director of Book Conservation, displayed books, scrapbooks, and illuminated manuscripts in various states of deterioration. She described some treatments in book conservation including stabilizing the bindings, boards, and spines of books.

NEDCC_books — Mary Patrick Bogan explains how to treat an early 20th century scrapbook to Maryrose Grossman, Connor Anderson, Lauren Prescott, Laura Kintz, and Paige Kinder.

As she highlighted the difference between conservation and restoration, she explained that, as a conservationist, her primary goal entailed preserving the books to prevent further damage.

Amanda Maloney, Associate Photograph and Paper Conservator, discussed the conservation of megalethoscope prints, a rare style of photography invented by Carlo Ponti between 1861 and 1862. Megalethoscopes used special translucent albumen photographs that were colored, pierced, and backlit from an internal source to create dramatic effects. Maloney demonstrated how she preserved the albumen prints and their support structures.

In NEDCC’s digital imaging area, Terrance D’Ambrosio, Director of Imaging Services, and David Joyall, Senior Photographer, demonstrated the significance of digital photography in preserving oversized items. Using stationary overhead digital cameras enabled them to photograph pieces of extensive works, such as the wall-sized historic map below. They then virtually stitched together the digital images to recreate a readable map online.

NEDCC_maps — Terrance D’Ambrosia (left) and David Joyall demonstrate to Corinne Bermon and Dorothy Clark how digital photography can be used to preserve oversized items such as this extensive map.

Lastly, Julie Martin introduced a fascinating machine: IRENE (Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc.) that operates within NEDCC’s audio preservation center. Physicist Carl Haber won the MacArthur Genius Award for inventing this process in which cameras photograph the grooves in fragile or decayed sound recordings. Then, using software that knits those digital images together, the IRENE creates an unblemished image file and reconstructs the sound recording by converting the images into an audio file.

Julie Martin, Marketing and Public Relations Manager, explains the functioning of IRENE.

Haber’s IRENE is revolutionizing audio preservation. Sound recordings on older formats, such as wax cylinders or lacquer discs, are too delicate to be played back with traditional equipment. Without the non-invasion method of preservation that IRENE provides, unique voices, such as Alexander Graham Bell, and early obscure recordings of artists, like Woody Guthrie, would be lost forever. You can read more about NEDCC’s work with IRENE on their blog or listen to some digitized recordings NPR.

Maryrose Grossman, Patty Brutomesso, Corinne Bermon, Lauren Prescott, Laura Kintz, Connor Anderson, Paige Kinder, Marilyn Morgan (professor), Dorothy Clark, and Rebecca Carpenter at NEDCC.

Our archives class walked away from the NEDCC fascinated by the different facets of preservation work and intrigued by the use of modern science to preserve our history.