Ardra Whitney: Week 34 @ Avery Research Center

Monday, April 22^nd:

In the morning I sat down with Avery’s Manager of Archival Services, Aaron Spelbring to interview him about his work on the Abolitionist Map of America project—powered by Historypin. He and Lowcountry Digital Library Intern, Lauren Hess have been digitizing images from the Craft and Crum Families, 1780 – 2007 collection, since February, to contribute to the project. Mr. Spelbring explained that he was approached by producers from the television history series American Experience about a digital project/educational resource tool they were developing in conjunction with their three-part documentary film, The Abolitionists. The Avery staff decided to use the Craft and Crum Families collection, as well as the Avery Photograph Collection, circa 1890s - 2008 because those were two collections that most closely fit the aim and objectives of the project. Moreover, the Craft and Crum Families collection was specifically chosen because it is one of the collections at Avery Research Center that most reflects the abolitionist movement in America. William and Ellen Craft were slaves who met and married on a plantation in Macon, Georgia. They did not want to raise their children in slavery, so in December of 1848 the two devised a plan to escape to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Ellen dressed as a man with her arm in a sling to avoid writing because both she and her husband were illiterate. She bandaged her face to hide her feminine voice and lack of facial hair—and William accompanied her as a servant. The couple arrived in Philadelphia on Christmas Day, where they we were welcomed and assisted in their escape from slavery by well-known abolitionists. Twenty years later, the Crafts purchased Woodville Plantation in Bryan County, Georgia, where the two opened Woodville Co-Operative Farm School to educate newly-freed slaves. But the school closed for lack of funding, and in 1890 the Crafts moved to Charleston to live with their youngest daughter, Ellen Craft Crum, until their deaths. This is the Craft and Crum families’ connection to Charleston and subsequently how their papers came here to the Avery Research Center—through their descendants. Selected images from the Craft and Crum Families collection can be viewed here: http://to.pbs.org/RXRSKf, by simply typing in “Charleston” or “91 Spring Street” in the location field.

Throughout the day, I continued my collections processing work on the Virginia Geraty Papers. I had initially decided to process the collection at the series level. However, when I shared this arrangement approach with Mr. Spelbring, he instructed me to consolidate the number of series in the collection by creating sub-series. As result the collection, now has ten series and eight sub-series.

 

Tuesday, April 23^rd - Wednesday, April 24^th:

On Tuesday, I updated Avery’s Facebook and Twitter pages with new posts. For instance our Graduate Assistant, Daron-Lee Calhoun II, who is a Morehouse College alumnus, told me about his upcoming poster presentation for the 2013 HBCUstory Symposium on Saturday, April 27 in Downtown Nashville, TN—so I posted about that. He explained that his poster examined the influence of northern missionaries on black educational institutions in the South by investigating the motivation for changing the name of Atlanta Baptist College to Morehouse College in 1913. On Wednesday, Mr. Spelbring and I drove to Florence, SC to attend the South Carolina Archival Association’s (SCAA) Spring Workshop on metadata. It was nice to get out of the office for a bit on such a warm sunny day. The workshop consisted of a webinar titled: “A Beginners Guide to Metadata” and a panel discussion featuring guest speakers from across the state who discussed digitization measures, current issues and trends, and scholarship at their respective digital archive and/or library. College of Charleston’s Lowcountry Digital Library (LCDL) Project Coordinator, Heather Gilbert, was one of the panel speakers and talked about her work in developing a custom website for the LCDL that aims to enhance user experience and facilitate digital curation.

Thursday, April 25^th:

In the morning, I worked with Administrative Assistant, Savannah Frierson and Mr. Calhoun to create and print awards certificates for the three winners of Avery’s inaugural essay contest. At half past noon, I attended a small ceremony and luncheon for the award recipients with members of the Avery Research Center staff, including Processing Archivist, Georgette Mayo; Mr. Spelbring; Assistant Director Deborah Wright and Executive Director, Dr. Patricia Lessane Williams— and College of Charleston faculty, Dr. Jon N. Hale. Second and third place winners, Austin Hughey and Michael Johnson, were presented with their awards certificates by Ms. Mayo and Mr. Calhoun and then given a few moments to briefly present a summary of their essay’s thesis and main points. Unfortunately, first place winner Civia Stein could not attend the ceremony because she was at home, tending to an ill family member in Virginia.

Later in the day, I participated in The HistoryMakers' IMLS Fellowship Professional Development Conference Call with Digital Archivist of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia, Gretchen Gueguen. I had suggested Ms. Gueguen for the call after reading about her work with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded “Born Digital Collections: An Inter-Institutional Model for Stewardship (AIMS) project at The University of Virginia Library, in partnership with Stanford University, the University of Hull, and Yale University. Over a two-year period from October 2009 to October 2011, the various partners named above created an inter-institutional framework for stewarding, processing and preserving thirteen born-digital collections of noteworthy individuals and organizations. This born-digital content was then made discoverable via Hydra, a Fedora-based solution. I appreciated Ms. Gueguen’s insights on issues concerning the digital archivist community, as well as her lessons learned from her processing and preserving born-digital collections. She also discussed the challenges of working with digital formats, such as obtaining data from 8-inch floppy disks and dealing with obsolescence. With respect to project management, Ms. Guegen talked about the importance of aligning the goals of a digital archives’ various departments in order to foster the most effective and comprehensive digital stewardship possible.

Friday, April 26^th:

I continued processing the Virginia Geraty Papers at the series and folder level; established an arrangement for the collection’s ten series and eight sub-series, and completed a folder inventory of the entire collection. I also began drafting the collection’s finding aid. Then, taking a break from my processing duties, I compressed and uploaded an audio clip from Cynthia McCottry-Smith’s oral history interview on the Phillis Wheatley Literary and Social Club to Black in the Lowcountry: Digital Photo Archive’s Tumblr page (with an accompanying photo of the women’s club, circa 1950).