Ardra Whitney: Week 33 @ Avery Research Center

 

 

Monday, April 15^th:

I began the morning with reviewing and updating Avery’s Twitter and Facebook pages; adding pertinent posts about the Fisk Jubilee Singers concert and Color in Freedom: Journey Along the Underground Railroad—Joseph Holston’s new exhibit at Avery, which is on view now through May 20^th. While doing this I noticed that last year’s IMLS Fellow of the Maryland State Archives, Krystal Appiah’s Twitter page came up in the who to follow feed. Clicking on the link to her page, I took a look and was really impressed with the quality of her posts and retweets. Her page included posts pertaining to African American history, library and archival studies, archives of color; and museum, archives and library fellowships and scholarships for students. I recommend Ms. Appiah’s Twitter page to anyone interested in current trends and issues in libraries and archives and seeking refreshing and informative updates on what’s going on in various cultural institutions around the world.

 

Towards the end of the day, I went to post another round of updates to Avery’s Twitter page but was not able to log in. Subsequently, I went to speak with Assistant Director, Deborah Wright in her office about the problem of not being able to access Avery’s Twitter account—Ms. Wright is the primary administrator for all of Avery’s social media accounts. After several log in tries, it turned out that we had to change the account password.

 

Tuesday, April 16^th:

Graduate Assistant, Daron Calhoun II sent me and Manager of Archival Services, Aaron Spelbring an e-mail about an online directory of archival institutions in order to document black intellectual history. It's essentially a participant generated list, where you can add links to archives and archival collections that specialize in documenting the intellectual history of African Americans. The thread for the H-Net discussion concerning the directory was started by Dr. Abdul Alkalimat McWorter, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

 

I replied back to Mr. Calhoun about how much I liked his idea of including links to Avery’s collections and shared my thoughts on it with him and Mr. Spelbring. We are just waiting to hear more from Mr. Spelbring and Processing Archivist, Georgette Mayo about their suggestions on which collections from Avery’s archives they would like to see added to the directory. I also shared a link to the H-Net discussion with the rest of the fellows; since we are all performing residencies at African-American archival repositories, we all have the opportunity to contribute links to collections from our respective repositories we feel should be made part of the directory.

 

Wednesday, April 17^th - Thursday, April 18^th:

On Wednesday, I spoke with Mr. Spelbring about conducting an interview on the digitization project him and Lowcountry Digital Library Intern, Lauren Hess did for American Experience’s Abolitionist Map of America—powered by Historypin. From the moment I heard about this project I was really excited, so I wanted to touch base with Mr. Spelbring and find out about the status of the project. I am also planning to write an article on the project for the spring issue of Avery’s newsletter, the Avery Messenger.

 

On Thursday I followed-up with Librarian, Grace Cordial at the Beaufort County Library via e-mail and discussed having reproductions of former Beaufort Sheriff J.E. McTeer’s scrapbooks made for inclusion in my poster presentation.

 

Friday, April 19^th:

By Friday, I had completed processing roughly fourteen out of the eighteen proposed series and sub-series from the Virginia Geraty Papers—that included a large section of printed material and ephemera, i.e., newspaper and magazine clippings. After work, Outreach Education Coordinator, Shelia Harell-Roye was kind enough to drive myself, Mr. Spelbring and Resident Scholar, Dr. Dwana Waugh to Circular Congregational Church for the Fisk Jubilee Singers concert. I had a great time! Dr. Millicent Brown was there with her sister Minerva and complimented my hair. Brown was a plenary speaker at Avery’s Black Power Conference last year and recently gifted her collection of oral histories from her project “Somebody Had To Do It” to the Avery Research Center. Brown has been working on this project for the past several years; gathering stories from the first African-American students to integrate the U.S. school system in the 1960s. I am looking forward to hearing more about this donation in the upcoming issue of the Avery Messenger. As attendees began to pour into the church and we waited for the concert to begin, I started a conversation with the person seated next to me. He explained that he was a member of the Graves family— a noted African American family from Charleston, consisting largely of educators and Avery Institute graduates. He remarked that many of his family members were alumni of Fisk University, including siblings, aunts and uncles.

The concert was amazing! It was an absolute pleasure to hear this illustrious choral group with its rich legacy and nearly 150 year history sing so exquisitely. I particularly enjoyed the songs: “Ain’t That Good News”, “The Battle of Jericho” and “Cert’nly Lawd”, which I remembered being sung by the choir at my father’s church when I was little. The Fisk Jubilee Singers’ concert selections also included two standards and popular favorites with regards to Negro spirituals, “Old Time Religion” and an encore performance of “Wade in the Water”. The concert concluded with all the Fisk University alumni in the audience being invited on stage to sing their alma mater’s song, “The Gold and Blue”. Avery’s own Executive Director, Dr. Patricia Williams Lessane was one of the on stage participants, as she is an alumna of Fisk University.



Amanda J. Carter: Week 34 (April 22 – April 28) @ Fisk University

William McKissack Papers
By Tuesday, I had finished arranging and describing the smaller projects, so I began arranging and describing the documents for another series, “Community Involvement.”  Subseries so far include “Community Services Commission,” “American Red Cross Negro Division,” and “National Technical Association.”  There will probably be one or two more subseries for correspondence and other community involvement, but these three are the largest.   I am already on the last box so this section should be completed by the middle of next week.  Then I will work on the remaining five boxes of photographs, newspaper clippings, and other miscellaneous materials.  I should be able to work through that in another two weeks, at most, before finalizing the arrangement of the entire collection.  I cannot wait to see it all fit together!

Interesting Finds

The Community Services Commission information is particularly interesting because it seems that Calvin McKissack was in this group that was formed to study the provision of services in Nashville and Davidson County.  Not only does it include correspondence and meeting minutes, but there are two copies of the final report.  I am going to try to photograph one of them for HistoryPin.  This collection is turning out to be a valuable piece of mid-twentieth century Nashville history. 

Professional Development Conference Call: Gretchen Gueguen

Discussing digitization with Gretchen Gueguen was very informative, especially since there is now an expectation by researchers that libraries and archives have some form of access to digital records.  She pointed out that there is a current need for experience in the digital world since it is being integrated into libraries and archives in a variety of ways.  Ms. Gueguen emphasized project management skills and understanding everyone’s abilities so that they can all be used most effectively to accomplish digitization goals.  She also stressed the importance of working together across departments and suggested that the key to success is aligning departmental goals. 

As with most of our professional development calls, Ms. Gueguen discussed the importance of networking and being active in societies.  She advised us to gain experience in all aspects of archives and to attend webinars and lectures that are available even if the topic may not pertain to our current line of work because we may never know when we may need that information.  Ms. Gueguen also discussed the importance of understanding technology, whether that be social networking or Encoded Archival Description.  I really enjoyed hearing from her and appreciate Ms. Gueguen taking the time to speak with us about her experiences in archives.

Until next time,

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

Behind the Scenes

Just checking in. I have no clever title nor unifying theme to share with everyone. I judged for Maryland History Day on April 27 but I'd prefer to let my thoughts simmer before I publish them.

I spent much of my last two weeks performing test queries for the new mdlandrec website. The current website, commonly called “mdlandrec 2.0,” is a service provided by the Maryland State Archives to citizens and county governments. It allows persons to examine property matters in every Maryland county and Baltimore City with extensive search functionality; it is also a service by the MSA that provides significant sources of revenue from the courts. After all, it is a cost effective luxury because it minimizes expense for routine activities like verifying the content or deeds or boundaries. Testing consists of repetitive querying to discover any errors or gaps before the public does; imagine if you will, executing every possible action and combination on an interface and recording whether the results were optimal or unexpected. It is necessary behind the scenes work but also incredibly boring to share.

 My other occupation concerns case studies and preparation for a May 16 radio interview with Dr. Kay. I was given an unsolicited invitation to speak, probably the result of Legacy of Slavery in Maryland outreach on the Eastern Shore, and was happy to accept. My supervisors Chris Haley and Emily Oland-Squires suggested senior LOSIM employee Maya Davis, who has been with the program since the beginning and is well acquainted with Dr. Kay herself, join me. Although the program is based in Cambridge, a Dorchester County city, its reach extends throughout much of the southern Eastern Shore; possible discussion topics were already adequate but I decided to venture into Dorchester’s legacy of Slavery to better round out my catalog of case studies. I selected the case of Israel Coleman.

Coleman was young slave embroiled in a probate dispute between his original owner (Layton) and the husband (Collison) of the woman who inherited him. Although the Chancellor of the court ordered Coleman to be returned in 1838, I located manumission records and a certificate of freedom issued by Collison in 1848. A manumission record, whether in chattel, land, circuit court, or register of wills, states the conditions to which any given slave is or will be freed. A certificate of freedom, with which a manumission record is often confused, is simply a certified recognition of freedom; many free persons of color who were never slaves availed themselves of this. The manumission date of the certificate of freedom record was stated as January 29, 1849 and the manumission was legally recorded in 1853. This however was contradicted by a chattel record I found from 1848; this new record predated the certificate of freedom and declared on February 25, 1848 that Coleman was to be freed on December 30, 1855. I suspected that Mr. Collison passed on and willed his slave free but I cannot prove this because…

…the Dorchester County court house and nearly all its records burned in 1852. According to a well worn two part volume on the MSA circulation desk, the building was “by an incendiary act totally destroyed by fire…between the hours of 2 & 3 A.M . together with all the [long term] records and papers of this court.” Naturally other agencies were also affected and calls were made to reconstitute the records by appealing to copies and originals retained by the people. Unfortunately for me the will of Collison, and Collison’s wife’s father who bequeathed Coleman to her, is nigh impossible to find. Were Collison my ancestor I would probably wade into the un-indexed books as a Hail Mary but sadly I must leave it alone.

In the last two weeks I have also been in contact with history-minded people who became aware of my work through the blog or other publicity. A man from North Carolina asked to share notes regarding the Paca’s and my Robert Moody case study. Another person, who happens to be speaking at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Conference, read of my May 18 talk at the MSA with Tanner Sparks and Allison Seylor. I'm also delighted to report that the Capital Gazette printed a blurb out our forthcoming event in the Wednesday paper.

--Alex Champion, Maryland State Archives

Chaitra Powell: Week 33 @ The Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum

In my 33^rd week at the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum, I had a serious conversation with Larry about the end of the fellowship, managed volunteer projects, and provided support for the Black Panther Party Alumni Society event at the museum.

When I came to work on Tuesday, Larry and I sat down and discussed what I could completely finish before the end of the fellowship. I thought that I was doing a good job with managing my time and being willing to do whatever was in my power to make sure that I finished everything in time. Our conversation let me know that the items that were the most pressing to me were not necessarily the most pressing for the museum. For example, I thought that I should endeavor to get complete physical control of all of the materials that represent Mayme’s papers, but Larry convinced me that providing access to what has been identified (through spreadsheets) and finishing the front matter of the finding aid would be a better use of time. We also identified five other collections that were in various stages of completion for me to finish by the end of May. I think that the goal is pretty ambitious but processing collections is very intuitive to me, so there is nothing to it but to do it.

Armed with my new directives, I sought volunteers to help me to reach my goals. Although it has been obvious throughout the duration of this fellowship, managing people is one of the most difficult things to do; throw in some well-meaning volunteers that have no experience and this fellow surely has her hands full. Now that Mayme’s Papers have been identified as a series in Mayme’s enormous collection, the accession numbers and collection name information needs to be changed for every folder that we have made so far. The other change is that some folders need to be put in other series with their corresponding titles and numbers. I explained it to two of my favorite volunteers and left them to get the work done. One had entered the information into the database correctly but did not change the information on the folder, after I explained her mistake and gave her the next box to work on I found that with those files she had labeled each folder with the wrong accession number. I am planning to explain the process better in the future, and check in more frequently. I am scheduling time to go back and fix the errors in these boxes which I figured would be more appropriate than making the volunteer go over her work again. Since cloning myself is not an option and there is no way for me to get through all of that data entry by myself, I am determined to get us all flying on the same wavelength.

On Sunday, the museum welcomed the Black Panther Alumni Association and one hundred of their closest friends and allies for a program. The event included a screening of the film, “41^st and Central”, a panel discussion from the Panthers that are featured in the film, and a keynote address from Kathleen Cleaver. The event was complete with art and incense vendors, as well as a drum circle. We had plenty of volunteers to run the check in and direct people throughout the museum, so I was pretty much free to enjoy the program. Our artist in residence, Gregory Everett, directed the film and he had loaned me a copy of it a couple of months ago when I was talking with him about the Black Power exhibit at the museum. I slipped in at the end of the panel discussion where the last comment was about how the struggle was very much alive and we should support the soldiers on the front lines. There was a quick break and then Kathleen Cleaver walked to the podium and made her comments. Mrs. Cleaver is a lawyer, a professor and the former wife of Black Panther Party leader, Eldridge Cleaver. I was impressed with how at ease she was speaking in front this crowd. Her notes seemed to be bullet points scrawled out on a legal pad, she paused and looked to them every so often but her words seemed to flow directly from her memory of events in her life. She talked fervently about young people, Algeria, and the FBI. Mrs. Cleaver kept referring to herself and the rest of her peers as senior citizens and they needed young people to continue the fight for black liberation. There were plenty of current members of the Black Panther Party dressed in black and throwing up their fists whenever they heard something that they liked. Other highlights were Larry taking on the role of auctioneer for signed reproduced prints of the former minister of culture from the Black Panther Party, artist Emory Douglas, and a brief appearance from the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Overall the event was a huge success for the museum and I am eager to learn more about the international strands of the movement, after Mrs. Cleaver’s comments.

    

Amanda J. Carter: Week 33 (April 15 – April 21) @ Fisk University

McKissack & McKissack Architects
As I have mentioned previously, the McKissacks built some of the buildings here on the Fisk University campus, such as the Carnegie Library (pictured below).  The Carnegie Library, also known as the Academic Building, was built by Moses McKissack in 1908.  It was his first major commission.  In the mid-1980s, this building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. 

Carnegie Library aka "Administrative Building," Fisk University

 
Just to the left of the doorway in the above image, you might be able to make out the historic marker (pictured below) that credits Moses McKissack III for the construction of the building.  It was only a little over ten more years after this building was constructed before the McKissack brothers would obtain some of the first architectural licenses in the state of Tennessee and begin the first African American architectural and engineering firm in the United States.     

Tennessee Historical Commission marker for Carnegie Library

William McKissack Papers
Processing of the smaller projects section was virtually completed last week.  All that is now left is to finalize the arrangement and edit the scope and content note of the finding aid.  Due to the variety of projects and limited amount of materials relating to them, I may leave this section in a more preliminary stage until I have processed the remaining six boxes.  It seems that much of the information I am seeing now can be included in the current series and subseries, so I would prefer to be able to collect all like information before finalizing the sections so that I will not need to make many more revisions or adjustments to the index and/or physical location of materials.    

Aside from the university projects I discussed last week (Fisk, TSU, University of Haiti), there are now numerous smaller projects from the Morris Memorial Building in Nashville to a plethora of individual projects across the South.  Unfortunately, little information may be deduced regarding these projects due to the limited amount of materials found.  Since these are much smaller sections, I am considering combining the “Combined or Other Memphis Projects” with these projects so that there is only one section of smaller projects covering all areas titled, “Combined or Smaller Projects.”

Of the remaining six boxes, most of the materials are of a miscellaneous sort.  Two of the boxes will probably go into a series for Calvin McKissack’s community services.  There is a box of realia, a box of photographs, and two boxes of miscellaneous materials including newspaper clippings.  I should be able to process these remaining sections by the first or second week of May.  The finalization may take another week or two because I will have to rearrange many of the projects so that they are in chronological order, finalize the blueprints series, and finish the historical and scope notes for the collection.  It feels great to see the light at the end of this tunnel!  I am VERY excited to see this collection will soon be open and available for research!  

Public Programming/Outreach: Tennessee History Day
On Saturday, April 20, I volunteered to participate in the judging of the state competitions for Tennessee History Day.  I was grouped with two other volunteers to judge the Junior Individual Exhibits.  After meeting for breakfast and an orientation for the judges, we spent the rest of the morning reviewing nine exhibits and interviewing the students.  We were asked to choose four main winners but to give constructive feedback to all participants.  It was fascinating to see the topics the students chose and how they went about researching those topics.  It was amazing to see how these projects added to the students’ level of information literacy.  I wish all the best for them and hope to see some again next year!           

Public Programming: Susten8, Lynchburg, VA
Unfortunately, I just received word that my public program on sustainable communities has been postponed until July so it will no longer qualify as one of my public program requirements for this fellowship.  The good news is that it is still happening so I am excited to help make it as successful as possible.

 
Until next time,  

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

Chaitra Powell: Week 32 @ The Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum

In my 32nd week at the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum, I attended an LA as Subject meeting at the Huntington Library, worked on Mayme’s Papers, and facilitated a Collections Advisory Board meeting. On Tuesday morning, I broke from my normal routine; instead of driving west to Culver City, I headed north towards Pasadena for my first LA as Subject meeting. I knew about the LA as Subject group from last October’s Archives Bazaar, but this was the first meeting that I was able to attend. The Huntington Library is nestled on acres of botanical gardens in the ultra-elite residential community in San Marino, California. While I was waiting for the meeting to start, I engaged in a conversation with a young woman who was very familiar with MCLM and I gave her all the updates. The world of archives is a small one. After the committee updates, we were treated to three presentations from member institutions who were utilizing HistoryPin in their home institutions. The archives staff at Pepperdine University is asking community members to bring their pictures in for scanning and upload to their channel. In the Santa Ana Public Library, librarians asking the youth to take pictures of the downtown areas and posting them on HistoryPin to document the evolution of their communities. The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority has taken full advantage of the application because their images are perfectly suited to the geotagging elements of HistoryPin. I remember listening to a presentation from Queens College at the SAA conference last year but these three examples gave me a better sense of its potential benefits and drawbacks. Overall the application is best suited to outdoor images with dates and precise locations, and just like any other social media program it takes a consistent presence to keep adding content, create tours and connect to other contributors. This week, I was able to give two full days to working on Mayme’s Papers. I looked through every box to be sure that folder names made sense and the headings were written correctly. I divided the content of folders that were filled with too many papers. I introduced new boxes when the current boxes had folders crammed inside of them. I went through the entire contents of the “trash”, “duplicate”, “catalog”, and “office supplies” boxes in the room and put the contents in their respective places. This involved making a few trips to the big dumpster and setting materials aside for Lloyd Clayton to assess. I also brought all of the miscellaneous materials that volunteers had questions about from around the room and from my office to be dealt with, once and for all. I spent the last few hours tagging documents with my little notes on where they belonged within the collection. Some volunteers indicated that they appreciated this effort because they would not have to decide where to put it and it helped them get better acquainted with the existing folder names. I don’t mind doing it because I can move through the piles quickly without getting up to file papers. Although I did not get to open any new boxes because I was resolving all of the “old” issues, the time spent was valuable because it gives me a better sense of how much progress we have truly made. On Saturday morning, I conducted my third Collection Advisory Board meeting at the museum. Keith and S. Pearl who have attended every meeting, Larry, and a music professor that I was finally able to meet in person, Hansonia, were all in attendance. I always prepare agendas and we always seem to jump around the discussion topics in the meeting. The board approved of my progress with the Dr. Mayme A. Clayton Collection of African American History and Culture and my work toward placing all of the museum’s collections in a specific place with accession numbers. We had a funny tangent about how award plaques can be the worse part of archiving manuscript collections. Hansonia wished that groups would honor someone with a donation to his or her favorite charity instead of giving them a plaque. S. Pearl stated that her friends donate their plaques to local artisans who work with wood materials. The group was not all fun and games. They were not at all satisfied with our plan to use interns to work on our website; they questioned who would supervise the interns and what happens when the interns leave. I understood their concerns and conceded that the issue was not resolved and implored them to help us seek other solutions. In the week before the meeting, Larry and I discussed how to make the board feel empowered to take on projects and report back to us. Anything from finding someone who will help us write our grants to spending a few hours a week running our bookstore are all ways that the board can contribute to our organization. I put all of the action items in minutes that I typed up; time will tell if I have any takers.

Ardra Whitney: Week 32 @ Avery Research Center

Monday, April 8^th - Tuesday, April 9^th:

I sent Mr. Thomas McTeer a thank you note for my visit to his home in Beaufort, SC. In the note I expressed my enjoyment in having the opportunity to learn about his father, Sherriff J.E. McTeer’s experiences with the practice of Voodoo and Hoodoo in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, as well as my appreciation for the free copy of his father’s memoir he gave me. I also e-mailed librarians, Grace Cordial and Charmaine Seabrook, at the Beaufort County Library to request a follow-up visit to complete my research on the library’s collection of materials pertaining to Hoodoo.

Wednesday, April 10^th:

In the morning I posted an announcement to both Avery’s Twitter page and Not Just in February Blog, calling for papers and panels for the Fall 2013 Conference and Symposium, “Unleashing the Black Erotic: Gender and Sexuality—Passion, Power, and Praxis”. This year’s conference and symposium seeks to provide a forum where participants can articulate the wide, varied, and expansive nature of gender and sexuality, and the performance of both. It also aims to teach African Americans how to understand, embrace, and harness the power, beauty, and essence of the erotic as a key to their positive evolution as people. The conference and symposium is inviting proposals from across disciplines, but is most interested in proposals that address aspects of: black bodies in popular culture; black sexuality in television, film, and literature; queering the black body in art and performance studies and iconic black queer motifs; sexuality and black faith; black women and the politics of respectability; black erotica, romance novels and comic books; the black body and public health; hip hop and the hypersexuality of black women; alternative modes of black love and family; and the politics and economics of porn.

In the afternoon I created a favicon, using PowerPoint, for Black in the Lowcountry (BIL): Digital Photo Archive’s Tumblr page and also posted a second round of photos to the page. According to Wikipedia, a favicon— also known as a shortcut icon, Web site icon, URL icon, or bookmark icon— is a file containing one or more small icons that is associated with a particular Web site or Web page. “Browsers that support a tabbed document interface typically show a page's favicon next to the page's title on the tab.” For BIL’s favicon I decided to go with a digital artwork titled, Uncle Remus Triptych (2011). The work features images of three characters from African-American folklore: Uncle Remus, Brer Rabbit (Brother Rabbit) and Tar Baby. I chose this work because while processing the Virginia Geraty Papers, I came across manuscripts and printed drafts for children’s books by Geraty featuring the animal trickster, Brer Rabbit. Geraty’s translated versions of popular African American folktales reflect the rich storytelling tradition of the Gullah people; that too were influenced by African and Native American oral traditions and include stories about the antics of animal tricksters such as Brer Fox, Brer Bear, Brer Wolf— in addition to Brer Rabbit. And in the same way that these folktales impart meaningful lessons to their listeners, I want BIL to teach viewers to see the value and historical significance of the African-American experience in the South Carolina Lowcountry.

Thursday, April 11^th - Friday, April 12^th

A little after 9AM, Graduate Assistant, Daron Calhoun II and I entered into a wonderful conversation about the books: Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook: An Ex-slave’s Recipes for Living by Lisa Foster and Mary Lou Coombs and The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 by James D. Anderson. We also spoke about the history of African American Higher Education in the South, the founding history of Morehouse and Spelman College, the Hampton Model of Normal School Industrial Education, and the fundraising efforts of Marcus Garvey and Booker T. Washington— specifically Garvey’s appeal to the Klu Klux Klan to fund his UNIA-sponsored movement for repatriation to Africa and Washington with his U.S. fundraising tours, which allowed him to finance court cases that challenged the disenfranchisement of blacks in America.

During the latter part of Thursday, I had a chance to complete and return my poster presenter agreement form for the 2013 SAA Conference via e-mail. Throughout the week I continued processing series from the Virginia Geraty Papers and by Friday I had completed work on approximately fourteen of the collection’s eighteen proposed series and sub-series. These series included: educational and instructional material, ephemera, literary productions and manuscripts, lists, maps, oral history materials, and documents pertaining to the production of Geraty’s Porgy: A Gullah Version, which was performed at Charleston’s Garden Theater in 1995.

Amanda J. Carter: Week 32 (April 8 – April 14) @ Fisk University

William McKissack Papers
Processing of the less-documented projects continued last week.  While there are fewer records for many of the remaining projects I am now arranging, the process remains slow and steady as I discover materials for previously processed projects and series as well as newly added projects.  When I find information for previously arranged projects or series, I am either adding folders to the arrangement or including the documentation in folders that already exist.  When I add folders, it is necessary to adjust the folder numbers in the finding aid.  This is a simple enough process as long as it is completed accurately.  While it can be easy to overlook, I am careful to record on the finding aid any additional folders added and to change the remaining folder numbers, if necessary.  All of the information for previously unlisted projects will go into a subseries of “Smaller projects.” 

There are three boxes within this section remaining for processing, aside from the six boxes of other materials, so I am still on schedule so far.  Documentation for the following projects was found last week: Lincoln Park Housing in Gadsden, Alabama; National Baptist Training School in Nashville, Tennessee; Mound Bayou Hospital [Taborian Hospital] in Mound Bayou, Mississippi; Royal Fellows’ Club in Tyler, Texas; Texas College in Tyler, Texas; Miles Memorial College in Birmingham, Alabama; and about six more residential projects.  Upon researching the background on these locations, I was able to find some National Register of Historic Placesrecords that will prove beneficial when writing the scope and content and biographical and historical sections of the finding aid.  (To find the documents through the link, go to the advanced search and type "McKissack" in the box for architect/builder/engineer under Keyword.  Of the thirteen results, only about two are not applicable.)

Blueprints
Volunteer Evelyn Jones and I finally finished dusting, flattening, and recording the metadata of the McKissack blueprints.  They are now under weights until I finish processing the nine remaining boxes.  The blueprints were in slightly better condition than we thought, so the process did not take as long as previously estimated.  Unfortunately, little of the information on these remaining four sets of blueprints led to the assumption that they were for McKissack projects.  One set of blueprints was for a service station that appears to be located in New York.  One was prepared by Donald Southgate, a name I have not seen in any portion of this collection so far.  Another blueprint appears to be a residence but contains no identifying information.  Only one of these drawings seemed to possibly relate to the McKissacks.  

Interesting Finds
While no identifying architects are listed, another document we unrolled was a hand-drawn map that shows downtown neighborhoods in Nashville during what appears to be the mid-twentieth century.  This is assumed to be related to the McKissacks since it includes areas where they had worked on some of their projects.  It is one page of waxy paper with the Cumberland River and select neighborhoods south/west of the river included on the drawing.  Fort Negley, Meharry Medical College,   Hubbard Hospital, City Hospital, City Wharf, City Hall, State Capital, Union Station, Pearl High School, and Fisk University among other landmarks are all located on this map.  It may be interesting to note that Meharry Medical School is located further into town than its current location across the street from Fisk.  Also located on this map is New Walden site, Stevens Sanitarium, and Ward Belmont.  There appears to be only one bridge crossing the river downtown.  This is a unique document not only because it is hand-drawn, but because of the locations documented on the map.  It may be my favorite find, yet!  I hope to be able to include it on HistoryPin.      

Challenges
The biggest challenge at the moment is the heat in the building.  As with many campuses, the air conditioning is turned on according to a schedule that does not necessarily correspond with the weather.  It has been particularly warm over the last week or so but the air conditioning is not on yet so the building has been extremely hot.  Some measured have been taken, such as opening the doors and using fans throughout the building.  This has helped to keep the temperature somewhat tolerable for those of us working and I have even gone to work downstairs when the temperature was over 90° on the third floor, but the heat is particularly challenging for the documents as well as for the electronics.  We are all hoping for cooler weather and/or the change to air conditioning very soon.  

 
Until next time,  


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

Unreconsructed or, Who Won the Civil War?

 In my freshman or sophomore year of high school a classmate in my American History course asked an unusual question: "So, who WON the Civil War anyway?" Since then I've held this example as the peak of historical ignorance whenever sharing it with like-minded people; that was how I used it recently this past Wednesday. A colleague talked of a peer who chronologically misplaced iconic War of Independence and Civil War battles. I would not begrudge this person's ignorance but it is certainly an acceptable mistake for the average person; he assured me they were a student in an upper level undergraduate history course. Ouch. As I responded with my above-mentioned high school story I remembered my recent first visit to Washington, D.C. With my new found insight into the sights and scenes of our nation's capital and capitol, I realized my classmate's ignorance was simply confusion--and legitimately so.

 So who DID win the Civil War?

Unquestionably the Union won militarily. Although the eastern theater was hardly decisive until Antietam and Gettysburg in 1862 and 1863, Union forces closed most Secessionist ports, occupied strategic islands and cities like the Sea Islands of the Carolinas and New Orleans, controlled the Mississippi, and pushed the Confederate Army from the American Southwest. The Confederacy was reintegrated successfully and no sectional conflict has since divided the nation so thoroughly.

Unquestionably the Union won the argument. Then, as it is today, secession is a panicked, fanciful notion whenever states believe national power is encroaching on their rights and privileges. South Carolina seceded following a legitimate election of a man who favored only maintaining slavery in states it existed and a Congress and Supreme Court that likely would never let him restrict the interstate slave trade. South Carolina, the least democratic state in the union, which applied a similar 3/5ths rule to its own state representation and used that said legislature to vote for President of the United States, saw the writing on the wall seceded first. As someone who takes history internally with food and a glass of water this secessionist attitude offends me to my core. My favorite original argument, which I am sure scholars have seized upon or discredited, is that even if the Constitution is a revocable compact (a word foreign to the document) one can unilaterally dissolve a contract with a provision indicating such or if the other party violates it; the secessionists would have stronger legs to stand on if Lincoln or Congress violated the compact and the Supreme Court backed them up.

Unquestionably the war was about slavery. The primary source evidence is too numerous for description. My preference is to simply refer to the declarations of causes for secession by Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. Although economic issues like protective tariffs are common, the overwhelming focus as to the causes of secession is slavery. Texas does a fair job outlining nullification and interposition on the part of free states to counteract the Fugitive Slave Law; I would argue however that these free state and local officers of the law would also feel violated since blacks were provided slave-style justice in court even while demonstrating their innocence.

 But whatever...

Another interesting source regarding the motives of the Confederacy is Charles B. Dew's book Apostles of Disunion, which examines the records and propaganda of secessionist agents campaigning across the south following Lincoln's election. SPOILER ALERT: They mostly talked about issues related to slavery. Unquestionably the Confederacy started the war. The fact that Fort Sumpter was bombarded before any kind of negotiated peace or political trade was established is evidence enough. For an examination of pre-Sumpter incidents such as seizing federal munitions, and the particularly memorable collusion to capture U.S. soldiers marching out of Texas at the request of the governor, read Edward S. Cooper's book Traitors: The Secession Period: November 1860-July 1861.

How are these facts represented in our united nation's capital/ol? How, despite all this evidence to the contrary, is the history of this failed experiment styled as the Confederate States of America so mottled? As I talked with my co-worker I realized our capital must represent all peoples, synthesizing our differences into a shared history and narrative; it was the perfect place to examine this synthesis.

In The Crypt in the Capitol is a compass rose, which divides Washington into quadrants. The home of the strongest branch of government, in a room intended to entomb George Washington, splits the capital into four distinctive and recognizable regions. The capitol is not centrally located so these regions vary in size. After clearing Capitol security, visitors enter Emancipation Hall; this may well be the largest room of the Capitol Visitors Center. Between Emancipation Hall and the exhibit hall is a reproduction of the cast used for the statue Liberty, which stands atop the Capitol dome.
There, on a display, two other proposed versions of Liberty are shown. Although I very much enjoy the third and current version, I preferred the second. In the latter's description it claimed this version wore a "liberty cap," a hat worn by freed Roman slaves and a symbol of the American Revolution. The display subtly explained that then Secretary of War Jefferson Davis objected to this design because it may offend free born persons; he probably also did not want slaves to have another cause celebre. The exhibition hall's exhibit A More Perfect Union: Compromise and Conflict was something of a surprise.

Apart from exhibits pertinent to the construction and aesthetics of the Capitol, most displays concerned slavery. Lincoln, John Quincy Adams and the gag rule, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, and Benjamin Butler were featured and slavery was interwoven with the legislative history of the United States.

 The section "Common Defense" displayed documents regarding the Mexican War, which exacerbated sectional differences. "Unity" displayed documents of compromise between free and slave states that stalled the war.. "Freedom" connected women's suffrage and slave emancipation/suffrage, even "General Welfare" explained the Homestead Act 's passage was only possible when southerners (and therefore many Democrats) retreated to their upstart governments. During my early education in a state that never had slavery its blight seemed regionalized. Slavery was something the South had and we fought a war that ended it. Done and done. These exhibits emphasized the champions of anti-slavery and handled the pro-slavery side abstractly without over-emphasizing popular villains like John C. Calhoun and Preston Brooks. Consequently, slavery felt like a national problem rather than a sectional one. The imagery of the Civil War continued into the capitol and the District of Columbia. I was pleased to finally see The Apotheosis of Washington by Constantino Brumidi.

A fresco painted in 1865, it mixes mythological allegories for war, science, water, commerce, mechanics, and agriculture with contemporary triumphs of the United States; the laying of the transatlantic telegraph cable, ironclad warships, and the McCormick Mechanical reaper to name only a few examples. Seated alongside Washington are thirteen maidens representing the original colonies; I’ve heard that several maidens are depicted with their backs turned, representing the seceded states that abandoning the country Washington created, but I counted only three such maidens whereas there would be four if it were true. I was most disappointed however when the tour continued into the old House of Representatives Chamber, which serves as a central exhibit area of the National Statuary Hall Collection. There, in the western edge of the room, stood Jefferson Davis.

Many years ago I was offended to see a map of Virginia and spot Jefferson Davis Highway; across the river from our nation’s capital was a principal road named for a traitor. I even loathed sitting in an airport shuttle that drove on it! And here, in the very building his volunteers and conscripts attempted to capture in a war he started in the name of slavery, stood Mr. Davis; my blood boiled. Ironically cast in the color of the people he enslaved, President Davis was donated to the gallery in 1931. In my shot glass collection sits an item reading: “Lee Surrendered—I didn’t.” This statue is a subtler manner of expressing the same unreconstructed sentiment.

Generally, states choose two types of persons for their allotted statues: An influential state leader who is little known outside their state or a nationally prominent figure who made the state their permanent home. Maria Sanford of Minnesota, an educator and orator, fits the former whereas Ethan Allen of Vermont suits the latter. Many figures in early United States history were important to states and the national scene, especially in New England and the mid-Atlantic, but the aforementioned pattern holds true. Jefferson Davis was a Congressman and Representative who never completed a whole term and a soldier who did not earn a rank comparable to statues representing men with the names Jackson, Grant, Eisenhower, and even Garfield. With such an unsatisfactory record relative to other greats in state history who fill Statuary Hall, this leaves his nationally prominent activities; namely his career as Secretary of War and, you know, his treasonous years as the head of a foreign government actively levying war against the United States.

That person in my high school history course did not know all these facts about the Capitol, Statuary Hall, the highway, or other specific things about Washington, D.C. and neither did I. These conflicted and contradictory actions exacerbate an ignorance of the consequences from the war and thus the war itself; a contradiction also manifested in the house of government. People continue to debate the legitimacy and causes of the war, a cottage industry of revisionists paint this rebellion as the Second American Revolution, and generations of whites see Army of Northern Virginia’s battle flag affectionately; the rag is an identifier of their southern heritage at best or a symbol defying a government that puts down white men in favor of blacks and, as is often the case, Jews, Catholics, foreigners, and other non-whites at worst. Perhaps I’m the one who is unreconstructed. The country has mostly moved on from the war; a reconstruction of history and the mind. From the exhibit in the Capitol, to the highway in northern Virginia, no one appears to wish harm to the memory and legacy of Mr. Davis. Am I the only person left who wishes we indeed hanged Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree? Alas, I must take solace in knowing that Abraham Lincoln remains one of the most revered men in our history and the Battle Hymn of the Republic is adapted from John Brown’s Body.

E pluribus unum

Ardra Whitney: Week 31 @ Avery Research Center

Monday, April 1^st:

With Monday being April Fool’s Day, I took to Twitter posting a link to Google Nose BETA, which I had read about in an online article from the Huffington Post. I thought it was such a well thought out; well executed and hilarious practical joke, and I really enjoyed the premise of it. Throughout the rest of the day I continued working on the Virginia Geraty Papers—processing the collection’s biographical and professional material series.

Tuesday, April 2^nd - Wednesday, April 3^rd:

I began the day by reblogging photos which I had collected for the Black in the Lowcountry: Digital Photo Archive project. I was really pleased with the outcome and look forward to perhaps receiving more submissions to post to the projects Tumblr page. On Wednesday, Graduate Assistant, Daron Calhoun II and I shared our thoughts on the inaugural undergraduate essay contest submissions. He explained that the announcement for the winners would be going out at the end of the week—and so I should finalize my decision by Thursday.

Thursday, April 4^th:

By the end of the day, I completed processing two more series from the Virginia Geraty Papers: correspondence and drawing/illustrations. Additionally, I reviewed and ranked essays provided by Assistant Professor, Jon Hale for Avery’s inaugural undergraduate essay contest and e-mailed my decision to Manager of Archival Services, Aaron Spelbring. While waiting for my bus home to arrive, I received a call from Thomas McTeer, son of J.E. McTeer, a famous Lowcountry Sheriff and Witch Doctor. He was returning my call about visiting him and also answered my question about the best way to get to his home in Beaufort, SC.

Friday, April 5^th:

I had been planning Friday’s trip to Beaufort since March, in order to conduct research for my SAA poster presentation on the African American folk magic tradition of Hoodoo. Renting a car from a nearby Avis, I drove in the morning to the beautiful and culturally rich town of Beaufort—my first stop was Mr. McTeer’s home. Mr. McTeer was very nice and had a free copy of his father’s memoir, Fifty Years as a Low Country Witch Doctor, waiting for me; along with a small collection of his father’s belongings. The collection included a medium sized tin containing roots his father had removed from people who had been hexed, a carved mandrake root which symbolized his father’s power and potency as a witch doctor, and scrapbooks containing news clippings his father collected during his work as both a local sheriff and Hoodoo practioner.

After speaking with Mr. McTeer about his father’s collection, he graciously directed me over to my next stop— the Beaufort County Library (BCL). There I met with librarians Grace Cordial and Charmaine Seabrook of the Beaufort District Collection, who brought out several vertical files, books, correspondence and news clippings on the practice of folk magic in the Lowcountry for me to look at and take notes on. I am planning a return trip to the BCL, so that I can review its collection of scrapbooks from J.E. McTeer, as well as literary productions on microfiche pertaining to the topics of Hoodoo and African-American folk magic.

Chaitra Powell: Week 31 @ The Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum

In my 31^st  week at the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum, I organized Room #13, gave an orientation to our new HistoryCorp intern, and worked on the Antoinette Culpepper finding aid.

After all of the stress and multi-tasking of the Audio Assault Exhibit and the Roses and Revolutions Listening Party, it is now time for me to focus on the deliverables of my fellowship. I have to ask myself what tangible things will I have done by May 31^st that leaves the museum in a better position than I found it. I had put together several documents over the last three months that describe how we should accession new materials, label boxes and identify processing priorities but I had not really put these ideas in action yet. My goal for creating these documents was three fold; to make sure that every group of items had a logical place in our collection hierarchy (with respect to provenance), every item could be retrieved quickly, and we would have a greater idea of the extent and scope of our collection.  

Room #13 is the locked room where we house all of our small to medium sized un-processed collections. Up until this week, the collections were placed on shelves haphazardly and their labels corresponded to a database that is currently unavailable to us.  I posted my accession chart on the door and had two volunteers help me label all of the boxes with the appropriate accession numbers and shelve them in accession order. About half way through, I realized that we were not leaving enough space for the collections that were in other parts of the museum and there were more boxes on the ground than on the shelf. The volunteers had left for the day, but I stayed for an additional two hours, moving things around until the spacing made sense and the room was neat. Throughout this process, I questioned whether I was re-inventing the wheel because I didn’t have the patience to try to understand what had already been done, but I have spent six months trying to see patterns and procedures and have come up with a blank. Based on the encouragement from my executive director, I think the museum was waiting for someone with some initiative and tenacity to apply some order to the well-meaning collecting habits of the museum.  

On Friday, I welcomed Liz, a member of our new crop of HistoryCorp interns from UCLA. Since these two months are my last shot at finishing the Mayme Papers, it qualifies as an acceptable internship project. I am excited to have an extra person give me an additional 8 hours per week on the project. My attention has been shifted to other projects lately, so it was good for me to go over the goals and strategies for tackling Mayme’s papers with Liz. I was able to show her the entire finding aid which includes the posters, serials, books, and other series. I encouraged her to be aware of items that could supplement the biographical/historical note on Dr. Clayton. The plan to get all of Mayme’s materials into the same room is helping me to refine what it is that makes Mayme’s papers a series unto themselves. Liz caught on really quickly, and she could not have come on at a better time in the process.  

I also spent time this week wrapping up the work done by one of last quarter’s UCLA interns. Kathy was able to get all seven boxes of the Antoinette Culpepper Collection rehoused and labeled according to her own organizational schema. She went above the requirements by writing a short biography of Culpepper with citations to the facts and challenges of being a black female architect in the 70’s and 80’s. I am formatting Kathy’s work into a DACS compatible finding aid, and asked one of our volunteers to enter the container list into an excel document. This finding aid will be one of several items that will expose the wide breadth of material types and content here at the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum.  

    

Amanda J. Carter: Week 31 (April 1 – April 7) @ Fisk University

William McKissack Papers
Last week I have processed materials for a few more McKissack projects: the Cotton brothers, Fisk University, A & I State College [Tennessee State University], and the University of Haiti.  I was able to process these projects more quickly because there is much less documentation for these than for the previous ones.  While there are a number of projects yet to be processed, the limited amount of information will result in my finishing this section of the finding aid tentatively by the end of next week or the beginning of the week after next.  Once all of these less documented projects are processed, I will then move on to the final six boxes that include information pertaining to community services, photographs, and realia.  That should take approximately two weeks at which point I will then finalize the blueprints series. 

After the information for the collection has been thoroughly recorded, I will make a final, slight rearrangement of the collection which will result in fewer boxes.  Currently, I have most of the projects separated into their own boxes so that it will be easier to arrange all of the projects chronologically once the dates have been determined.  Once the projects have been arranged chronologically and merged together to save space, I suspect that I will be able to slightly reduce to total number of boxes containing the collection.  The final steps in processing after finalizing the arrangement will be to print and apply labels, shelve the collection, report it to the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collection (NUCMC), and deposit a copy of the finding aid in Special Collections while another CD copy is placed in the vault. 

Interesting Finds
I made a fascinating discovery while processing the University of Haiti proposal records.  Correspondence in the University of Haiti file includes a memorandum to Father Jean Baptiste Georges and a letter to President Francois Duvalier dated early 1959.  I was having difficulty finding any background or history on the university itself, so I decided to research these names in the hopes of finding a little more information.  While I did not find information about the university, I did discover a fascinating political struggle involving both men.  Apparently, a few years before this letter was written, Duvalier was in hiding from ruling Haitian regime.  Right before Duvalier came to power as president, Georges hid him out in his house for a while.  However, the very year the McKissacks wrote their proposal, Duvalier exiled Georges from Haiti.  A few newspaper articles I found suggest that years later, in the mid to late 1960s, Georges was a part of a rebellion that attempted to overthrow Duvalier.  Had the rebellion succeeded, Georges was to take Duvalier’s place as president.  What a fascinating story!  These serendipitous discoveries are largely why I love processing collections so much. 

Blueprints
On Monday, volunteer Evelyn Jones and I spent the morning flattening, dusting, and recording metadata for the blueprints.  We made it a little further than originally anticipated because many of the blueprints that we thought were in extremely poor condition were only in poor condition and thus could be handled a little more easily.  Fortunately, we were able to finish flattening all blueprints positively identified as belonging to the McKissack collection.  We will spend one more morning together to flatten, dust, and record metadata for about four sets of blueprints that cannot be traced directly to the McKissack collection other than by their proximity to the McKissack blueprints when I arrived. 

Interesting Finds
We found more blueprints for Fisk University’s Scribner Hall.  On these blueprints and on a separate aerial drawing of campus, an interesting discovery was made.  The consulting architect was none other than Paul R. Williams, a famous African American architect.  Dr. Smith had asked me previously if I had seen any collaboration between the McKissacks and Williams, so I was happy to be able to report this information when we found it. 

 
Until next time…

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