Ardra Whitney: Week 12 @ Avery Research Center

(Another great tune from my collections processing playlist)

 

Monday, November 19^th:

Reference Librarian, Deborah Wright mentioned developing a Wikipedia page for Avery Research Center and asked me to follow up with Public Historian, Dr. Robert T. Chase about the idea.  Subsequently, I began researching how to set up a Wikipedia account and shared some of my notes with Dr. Chase when I met with him.  After speaking with Processing Archivist, Georgette Mayo and Manager of Archival Services, Aaron Spelbring in weeks prior about how to correspond with donors regarding materials outside the scope of a collection, I drafted letter to the donor of the W. Melvin Brown, Jr. Papers to let them know that the collection has been processed and to inquire as to whether they wanted materials that were weeded out of the collection to be returned to them. In addition, I started preparing box labels for the Hollinger boxes containing the W. Melvin Brown, Jr. Papers, printed a label for the collections’ finding aid folder and uploaded images taken by Education Outreach Coordinator, Shelia Harrell-Roye of the field trip to Drayton Hall.

Tuesday, November 20^th:

I started thinking about a contingency plan for the Story Corps’ National Day of Listening post on Avery’s Facebook page after Ms. Mayo alerted me to the fact that we did not have a release for the foodways interviews we wanted to feature.  I also spoke with Mr. Spelbring and Ms. Wright about a post I prepared the night before for Avery’s News, Events and Activities blog, regarding National Day of Listening.  I had planned to post an edited version of a letter Dr. Chase had sent out via e-mail regarding Story Corps interviews conducted with Avery’s participation; however, Ms. Wright said that I didn’t need to worry about that because Dr. Chase was preparing an article about the Story Corp interviews to include in the upcoming issue of the Avery Messenger.

By the afternoon, I had completed my printing of box labels for the W. Melvin Brown, Jr. Papers and spoken with Ms. Mayo about developing a Wikipedia page for Avery.  She provided me with some informational material to use in the task. I also did my first posting on Avery’s Facebook page about the center joining Lowcountry Africana as a sponsor of Story Corps’ National Day of Listening. 

Wednesday, November 21^st:

I completed encoding the finding aid for the Edwina Harleston Whitlock Papers in EAD using NoteTab and acorresponded with College of Charleston Multimedia Consultant/ Online Video Producer, Michael Heagerty, about video editing software I’ve used on different audiovisual and media related projects.

Thursday, November 22^nd and Friday, November 23^rd:

On Thursday, I started my interview evaluation for veteran civil rights attorney; activist and educator Julius L. Chambers, and continued working on my responses for the IMLS Quarterly Survey. Chambers became the first intern of the new NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF) in 1963 and subsequently, opened his own practice in Charlotte, North Carolina in June 1964. Together with lawyers of the LDF, Chambers helped shape civil rights law by winning benchmark United States Supreme Court rulings, such as the famous decision of Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. The decision led to federally mandated busing, which helped integrate public schools across the country.

On Friday morning, I did a second post on Avery’s Facebook page for Story Corps’ National Day of Listening, featuring an interview from Mary Moultrie.  I found her interview on the Lowcountry Digital Library after Ms. Mayo told me that we did not have clearance on the interviews I was planning to use. Moultrie was among the leaders of the 113-day Charleston hospital strike in March of 1969. In her interview, she speaks about the working conditions and employee relationships at the Medical University of South Carolina before and after the strike, and details the racial tensions that led up to it.

Secession: Alex Champion's Entry 11

 

The past month afforded a few opportunities to think about a touchy constitutional subject: The Annual Tug-of-War between Annapolis and Eastport and the secession petitions following President Barack Obama’s election.  Outside of constitutional scholars, civil war historians, and unreconstructed southerners and their incomprehensibly sympathetic northerners, I probably reflect upon secession more than most Americans.  Despite the considerable baggage, both personally and in historiography, I’ve made my peace with a generally pro-Confederate interpretation of secession’s constitutionality. Arising from states rightist philosophies developing around the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions and the Nullification Crisis, it contends that the national government is a creation of the states via mutual agreement.

During the height of my secession obsession in High School I realized that a compact is built upon a promise; although the constitution does not contain provisions for exiting the union, the Constitution is essentially a contract and thus breakable only when it is violated. Since the documentary record is rich with references to slavery as the primary concern for the lower south states, the states seized or razed federal installations and captured soldiers leaving at the behest of governors, and seceded for as yet passed and imagined anti-slavery legislation from President-Elect Abraham Lincoln, I mentally entered a condition of gentle superiority in the knowledge that THEY broke the contract instead of Lincoln. It is with this perspective that I view secession here and now.

In the Land of Secesh.

On November 3, 2012 I participated in the 15^th Annual Annapolis and Eastport Tug of War. The friendly competition between Annapolis and the formerly independent city of Eastport, in which I live, is precipitated by the secessionist movement known as the Maritime Republic of Eastport. Following the repair and subsequent closure of a crucial drawbridge connecting Eastport with Historic Downtown Annapolis, the Maritime Republic of Eastport “seceded” from Annapolis and thus the United States of America to form its own micro-nation to rebuild Eastport’s spirit and support local businesses. The official reason and purpose was thus:

“The goal was to foster a spirit of independence and merriment in a manner befitting the character of Eastport and at the same time, to celebrate Eastport's proud heritage and quality of life. So the Maritime Republic of Eastport was founded on Super Bowl Sunday, 1998, when patriots residing on the Horn Point peninsula rose up in revolt against the snobbish suppression of ‘Annapolis Proper’ across the harbor. Since that time, MRE has become a force in the community, doing good for the community and having fun at the same time. MRE meetings and activities are open to all.”
 

 The MRE’s motto, “We Like it This Way” appears on its official flag. With a yellow field, the superimposed black shield depicts staples of Eastport culture: a fishing vessel and crab on the dexter, a heron and pleasure craft on the sinister, and two flanking hounds with tennis balls in their mouths.

Without guns or canons and minie ball volleys like those rebellious southern states, the Maritime Republic of Eastport and its boosters battle against the Historic Downtown Annapolis and theirs for bragging rights with the 1700 feet rope. The Tug of War competition, also known as the “Slaughter Across the Water...”

 

 

...spans Annapolis Harbor from the Chart House restaurant in Eastport to Susan B. Campbell Park in Annapolis. Naturally the harbor is closed. Also naturally, my team representing Watergate Village Apartments (a sponsor) won.

 

The re-election of President Barack Obama created the now customary slew of media coverage concerning secession. Just as Democrats did in 2000 but especially in 2004, conservative Americans decried the election of a person representing everything that contradicted their true vision of America.

 

President Obama is probably the third person to be described as a “black president.” Abraham Lincoln, a moderate figurehead of an abolition-leaning party built from a cacophonous coalition of former Federalists, Whigs, Anti-Masons, Free-Soilers, but also liberal and conservative factions within each, was often called a “black Republican” for his alleged positions on slavery. Toni Morrison once claimed that Bill Clinton, whose affair with Monica Lewinsky was treated scandalously by Republicans as if he were a black male, was America’s first black president. Whether or not she truly believed her comments, she illustrated the socio-economic gap of expectations between the common people and the political class.

 

In the blogosphere November 6^th is ancient history. Yes, America’s third black president was re-elected. Yes, Republicans are kvetching over the loss. Yes, segments of society of claim they wish to secede. My post was delayed because I hoped the discussion would continue despite the "fiscal cliff" talks and Lindsay Lohan's performance in Liz and Dick. Sadly, a rudimentary Google search for "Obama secession" yields few substantive articles beyond mid-November and virtually none drawing parallels to 1860 when the election of America's first black president precipitated the secession crisis. The articles that do get into the escoterica of "states rights" and secession are usually editorials, the print world origins of blogging, and suffer from the journalistic tendency to draw big conclusions from small examples and ignore entire facets of debate.

 

This article from the Miami Herald, reprinted in the Kansas City Star, does an exemplary job exploring the historical angles as they concern the present day but makes no mention of the Civil War--only Lincoln's ambivalence towards the validity of secession.

Secession is a subject that I feel passionately for but sadly it is consigned to sporatic tongue-in-cheek debates or opinion pieces.

Amanda J. Carter: Week 11-12 (November 12 – November 23) @ Fisk University

William McKissack Papers

I am nearly finished processing the College Hill subseries of the McKissack Papers.   All I have left is to go back through the seventeen boxes of materials and ensure they are in a proper order, extract dates for each folder, and type up that section of the finding aid.  I foresee finishing this by the end of this week or, at most, next week.  Next, I will move on the processing the Office Records series so that I will have a location to place all general and miscellaneous office files that I am bound to find in the other project files.   

 

Oral History Interview Evaluations

This year, all of the Fellows have been requested to continue working on oral history interview evaluations that we were assigned during the summer immersion program.  Originally, the amount of time requested of me to work on this project greatly impeded my ability to finish the assigned collection at Fisk.  After some discussion, Dr. Smith and Julieanna agreed that I would work on the evaluations during the time that Fisk is closed beyond typical holiday schedules.  Fisk was closed the whole week for Thanksgiving, so I worked on the evaluations for three and a half of those days.  In that time, I was able to complete evaluations for fashion designer Precious Lashley and dentist Henry Cook.  Mrs. Lashley’s interview was somewhat difficult to follow due to medical and memory issues but there was a fascinating moment about some of her 1980 predictions for fashion at the turn of the century.  Dr. Cook’s interview was filled with stories of how he became the first person in his family and community to graduate high school and college.   

Until next time…

Amanda J. Carter
Franklin Library, Fisk University
IMLS HistoryMakers Fellow 2012-2013

Chaitra Powell: Week 11 @ The Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum

In my eleventh week at MCLM, I trained three more people on the processing of Mayme’s papers, prepared the catalog edit list from the book duplicate project, and worked on my second long distance HistoryMakers evaluation.

On Saturday, Michael, Keith and Jason offered to help me with the processing of Mayme’s papers. Jason is in the sixth grade and he volunteers with his dad, Keith, on Saturdays. Keith has a graduate degree in history and has been helping at the MCLM for several years. Michael is in his 20s, has a mild form of autism and has been inventorying CDs and albums for the past several months. I explained my process to all three of them and then gave individual assignments. Keith helped me to file papers according to the organizational schema. He also made folders for some of the biographical materials that I had identified. Jason helped me to put the Western States Black Research Center correspondence in chronological order. I told him that he was doing better than any other volunteer that I had asked to do it. The others made it way too difficult, trying to separate handwritten letters from typed letters. Jason finished one and a half folders in the 2 hours that he was there. Michael was tasked with sorting the contact cards alphabetically. He finished so quickly, I had him organize a few correspondence folders as well. All three of them did an excellent job and moved the project forward for me.

As soon as we finished compiling the list of duplicates to share with the auction, I had a lot of data to reconcile. Our volunteers noticed a lot of discrepancies and anomalies with the information from the catalog and the reality of the shelf. In some cases, the Library of Congress call numbers would be different for the same book or the same for different books. I understood that the book cataloging project has been going on for several years and not all of the volunteers may have known that the call number should reflect distinctions in publishers and editions of the same title. In cases where the books are indeed the exact same copies, the catalog should read quantity “2” instead of two identical entries in the catalog. I had three volunteers checking the shelves and making notes this week, and compiled all of their notes on one spreadsheet. I do not have the access to make changes to the catalog, but I am hoping to find some time next week to sit down with Cara, share the findings, and discuss the database in more detail. We all have a lot of tasks to complete but I believe that we can integrate this book catalog clean up into our daily workflows.     

The good news is that I currently have a schedule to process my remaining HistoryMakers interviews before the end of the fellowship. The bad news is that I am already behind in the submission of my second one. My second long distance interview is Dr. Ella Mizzell Kelly. She is a social science researcher in the pediatrics department at Howard University. Dr. Kelly is very intelligent and the majority of her interview is about her school experiences and her career. The last thirty minutes is essentially a public service announcement about sexual responsibility as a result of her research on adolescents and the AIDS epidemic. Dr. Kelly cites many of her peers and partner organizations which made me pause and rewind the video often, to pull out the details. When Dr. Kelly talked about the perceived risks that she has taken in her career, she says: “I’m supposed to be smart, I can figure this out, if all else fails, I can always type”. I agreed whole-heartedly and it speaks to the confidence that a quality education can give a person. It has been over a month since I have completed an evaluation, hopefully my pace will pick up in the next few weeks.

Ardra Whitney: Week 11 @ Avery Research Center

Monday, November 12^th:
On Monday morning, I spoke with Manager of Archival Services, Aaron Spelbring about developing a preliminary finding aid/inventory for Avery’s oral history collection, which is comprised of hundreds of interviews relating to the African American experience in the Lowcountry. The collection’s strength is in documenting the civil rights movement, as well as education in Charleston, and Gullah culture. During the day, I followed up with Public Historian, Dr. Robert T. Chase regarding clips from his oral history interviews with Robert Barber, owner/manager of Bowen's Island Seafood Restaurant; Victor “Goat” Lafayette, who was employed by the restaurant for many years and procured its seafood; restaurant patrons, Fred Wichmann and Steven Hoffius; and Samuel Backman of Backman Seafood Company. We are planning to feature some or all of the interviews on Avery’s YouTube channel and Facebook page as part of Story Corps' National Day of Listening.

Tuesday, November 13^th:

I attended an enlightening workshop on socioeconomic class inequality led by College of Charleston’s Director of Diversity Education and Training, Kristi Brian. After the workshop, Ms. Brian showed me the Diversity Education and Resource Center Library and we got into a conversation about library management systems (i.e., software, barcode printers and scanners) that would work well for the resource center’s small library. In addition, I submitted articles on the Between the Tracks at 25 Symposium held at Trident Technical College, Palmer Campus last month; and on recently processed collections: W. Melvin Brown, Jr. Papers, and Edwina Harleston Whitlock Papers, for the Avery Messenger.

Wednesday, November 14^th:

I participated in a field trip to Drayton Hall; along with Education Outreach Coordinator, Shelia Harell-Roye and Curator, Curtis J. Franks and Avery’s graduate assistants. Drayton Hall’s main house is over 265 years old and is the “oldest surviving example of Georgian-Palladian architecture in the United States.” The purpose of the tour was to acquaint our group with the do’s and don’ts of conducting historical tours, as well as providing us with useful information on architecture, the Drayton family, decorative arts, African-American history and historic preservation.

Thursday, November 15^th:

By Thursday afternoon, I had completed my interview evaluation for Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. I still cannot get over her outrageous and funny stories about being a foul-mouthed soap eating “wild child”, while growing up in Kansas City, Missouri. I touched base with Reference Librarian, Deborah Wright about making edits to the articles I submitted for the Avery Messenger. I look forward to reviewing her comments and feedback next week. Ms. Wright also suggested I contact Professor Susan Millar Williams at Trident Technical College in order to get some photographs to accompany my article on the Between the Tracks at 25 Symposium.

Friday, November 16^th:

I corresponded with Professor Williams via e-mail and thanked her for sending pictures from the symposium-- she sent some really wonderful shots from the program and of Ms. Harell-Roye. In addition, I completed encoding my first finding aid for the W. Melvin Brown, Jr. Papers using NoteTab.

Events: Alex Champion's Weeks 9-10

Despite Annapolis' small size, and the proximity of cultural and economic centers like Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, there are plenty of amusements and edifying activities if one seeks them out.

Four Rivers Run Deep

Authorized by an act of the Maryland legislature in 1996, the Maryland Heritage Areas Program fosters tourism and education through eleven certified heritage groups. The Four Rivers Heritage Area group refers to the brackish "rivers" of southern Anne Arundel County that feed into Chesapeake Bay. On October 25th the FRHA held a showcase of area heritage programs and institutions such as historical societies, museums, sailing clubs, and archives. 

It was appropriate that the showcase was held in the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, a repurposed school, since the program specifically targeted teachers.  The Legacy of Slavery in Maryland project and the Maryland State Archives' Office of Interpretation teamed up for a table and handled the day with two shifts. I arrived at 3:30 and was immediately struck by Maryland Hall's similarity to Little Theatre of Owatonna and the Owatonna Arts Center in my home town; like Maryland Hall, Little Theatre and the Arts Center reside in repurposed institutional facilities in a part of Owatonna known as West Hills. Maryland Hall has the happy distinction of simply being a former public school whereas West Hills was a former orphanage with dorms, farm fields, a school (the theatre) and a church (the arts center). Since my father was active in Little Theatre and West Hills is presently the administrative center of town, I visited the area quite often. 

At 4 o'clock  I took over for David Armenti, the stellar education coordinator for LOSIM. Maria Day, the deputy special collections archivist (who nicely drove me there) replaced Alex "Sasha" Lourie, curator of the Commission on Artistic Property. Sasha's preference for the traditional Russian nickname for "Alexander" delights me since I studied Russia extensively in school. But I digress...




 Barney, a Democratic Republican, received an officer's
commission in Federalist Maryland

There were only a handful of visitors to the booth during David and Sasha's time but this was compensated for during my shift. After 4 o'clock, school was already out and teachers completed...whatever it is teachers do when school ends but before they go home...and they descended upon our booth. Maria, who conducts tours in period dress and character on the weekends, succinctly spoke about the Maryland State Archives presence and services in the various historic and governmental sites in Anne Arundel County. The highlight of her spiel was a scaled down sample of an in-progress mural by Frederic painter Richard Schlecht. It depicts William Bedford Barney atop the Annapolis State House rotunda as he spied the distant British fleet with his "excellent glass" as they sailed north to Baltimore, thereby sparing Annapolis; their action initiated the battle that Francis Scott Key witnessed and inspired him to write The Star-Spangled Banner. I casually suggested that the Office of Interpretation should consider, if they had not already, selling the prints at the mural unveiling party to raise additional funds. Maria agreed and said she would share my idea with them just in case.

For my part I gave away much of the same material that I did for the Kunta Kinte Heritage Festival: The standard LOSIM book, pamphlet, and Friends of the Maryland State Archives reader. What was different this time was a CD containing samples of slave runaway ads and primary document analyses forms compiled by a collaboration between the Maryland State Archives and the Maryland Historical Society. It was exciting to engage with teachers even though my voice grew hoarse from repeating lines such as these: "This [CD] is just a sampling of some of the information we have on our website...", "the website address is located at the bottom back of this pamphlet...", "yes, you can have the CD", and "using our website in class or for resources in class will help you meet the CommonCore Standard for social studies."

 

“So I say, ‘What’s Juneteenth got to do with it?’”

 

 Matthew Cole - The Capital

November 1, 2012 marked the 148th anniversary of the MarylandConstitution of 1864's adoption. Five employees of the Maryland State Archives attended the commemoration of its adoption at the Banneker-Douglass Museum in the Historic Downtown Annapolis. The document was only in force for three years but the circumstances of its creation reflect the place of slavery in Maryland during the Civil War. In a contentious two decades in the middle 19th century, Maryland adopted new constitutions in 1851, 1864, and 1867. The 1864 Constitution, a heavily partisan document that disenfranchised Marylanders fleeing to the Confederacy, is primarily famous for creating the position of Lieutenant Governor. In those humorous twists of history that make their way into the public consciousness, this position was abolished in 1867 and reinstated via an amendment in 1971. 

Matthew Cole - The Capital

The secondary reason the Constitution of 1864 is remembered is the emancipation of slavery. Since Maryland did not secede, it was unaffected by the Emancipation Proclamation. Since Maryland was not above the sectional conflicts that built up to the Civil War, the Constitution of 1851 included new provisions barring the state from passing interfering between slaves and their owners. Until 1851, owners could not legally manumit slaves passed 45 years old because--their best years behind them--the slaves would be burdens on the community.

David Sommerville portraying a USCT
soldier writing to his family:
Matthew Cole - The Capital 

Juneteenth? Juneteenth!
Matthew Cole - The Capital

The Mayor of Annapolis, Joshua Cohen, a city councilman, a representative of Governor Martin O'Malley's office, Chris Haley, and Janice Hayes-Williams spoke at the commemoration. Chris Haley burrowed into the language of the Constitution, the history of its development, and its legacy. Hayes-Williams spoke passionately about the uniqueness of Maryland's emancipation in the traditional narrative that celebrates the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, or worse yet, Juneteenth. Hayes-Williams leads the city commission responsible for organizing the sesquicentennial celebration of emancipation in 2014  and is pushing the state government toofficially recognize the day; this partly explains why an anniversary that doesn't end in "0" or "5" is given so much attention.In her impassioned defense of November 1st she defied historical narrative with rhetoric: “So I say, ‘What’s Juneteenth got todo with it?’” Although June 19th, 1865 marks an important time in the history of Texas and for--it would not be a stretch--the rest of the old Confederacy, is has no foundation within Maryland; this state abolished slavery by law, not the point of a gun, nearly eight months earlier.

 

Ardra Whitney: Week 10 @ Avery Research Center

 

Nothing New to Report (NNTR)

Amanda J. Carter: Week 9-10 (October 29 – November 9) @ Fisk University

William McKissack Papers

Processing of the McKissack Papers is a detailed process.  Over the past couple of weeks I have continued to arrange the invoices, bills, and payroll records for the College Hill Apartment and Housing project.  Most of the work consists of removing staples and alphabetizing or arranging the records chronologically.  Fortunately, I am still on track to have this section of the collection complete before the end of the semester in December. 

College Hill Apartments and College Hill Housing, Nashville, TN

In the mid-twentieth century, Moses and Calvin McKissack were contracted to build apartments and houses for African Americans near Tennessee State A&I College (now Tennessee State University) in Nashville, Tennessee.  This appears to be the largest project for which we have records.  Most of the records that I have encountered are from 1949-1951 while the project was being constructed.  It was a large project so there are many construction records that can lead researchers to the various types of construction businesses in Nashville during that time.  The accounting and payroll records are interesting pieces of history because it demonstrates their methods of accounting.  It is fascinating to witness the development of this project through the various records in this collection.  Daily, I develop a much better understanding of the methods used in construction projects of the mid-twentieth century. 

Challenges

The largest challenge right now is the level of detailed processing that is needed for this project.  It is easy to be inconsistent in alphabetizing and chronologically arranging such a large number of records, yet consistency is imperative in order to lead the researcher more easily to their topic of interest.  As the number of filed records grows, I will occasionally find areas where I have misfiled which is somewhat frustrating but understandable.  I have to be careful to ensure that all of the records are easily obtainable and located in logical areas for the researchers to find.

Another challenge is to ensure the removal of the staples.  While staples can occasionally be left in a collection if it will be appropriately housed to reduce corrosion of the metals, one must consider that there is never a guarantee of permanent proper housing.  Therefore, removing the staples and metal paper clips further ensures sustainability of the collection.  I find particularly interesting, and somewhat frustrating at times, the overabundance of staples in each group of papers.  It is quite difficult to remove staples that cover other staples that cover other staples.  Should I ever need to staple again, I will always remember to use as few staples as possible for whatever bundle of papers I am binding.    

Until next week…

Amanda J. Carter

Franklin Library, Fisk University

IMLS HistoryMakers Fellow 2012-2013