I continued my work on the Virginia Geraty Papers by removing
the metal spiral bindings from the collection’s 227 notebooks and foldering them
individually. On Tuesday afternoon, I attended Avery’s weekly staff meeting
where we discussed: collection and historic property assessment grants, opportunities
to present on Avery’s archival collections, developing a free people of color and Philip Simmons walking tour app in partnership with Lowcountry Digital Library,
educational tours and visits, Avery’s summer internship program, hanging the Cox
family plaques for public viewing, recent acquisitions to Avery’s archives, and
the deadline for Avery Messenger submissions—the
Center’s quarterly newsletter. Before concluding my day, I contacted James
Auclair at WBGH Stock Sales to inquire about using a screen shot of the
Abolitionist Map of America as part of my Archivists and Archives of Color Roundtable (AACR) Newsletter article submission.
Wednesday, May 1st -
Friday, May 3rd:
In the latter half of the week, I updated Avery’s
Facebook and Twitter pages with posts pertaining to African American history,
culture and current events. For example, since May starts off graduation season
in the U.S., I shared an article on Facebook about Architect, Philip Freelon—lead
designer for the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African-American
History and Culture in Washington, D.C.—delivering the commencement address at his
alma mater, North Carolina State University. I also continued drafting
the finding aid for the Virginia Geraty Papers; researching Library of Congress
subject headings and filling in the collection arrangement section. On Friday,
I submitted the article I had written on my interview with Manager of Archival
Services, Aaron Spelbring and his digitization work for Abolitionist Map of
America project to the AACR Newsletter
Editor, Stacie Williams. A day prior to e-mailing the article, I
took a few snapshots of Mr. Spelbring in front of Avery’s digital scanning
workstation to include with the submission. After the photo session (lol), I had
the pleasure of viewing the tribute book from the Craft and Crum Families collection, which Mr. Spelbring had mentioned during our interview. I asked to see
it because he said it contained the signature of noted abolitionist and author of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe.When he showed me Stowe’s signature, I was in
awe. The opportunity to observe this important and valuable piece of history reinforced
for me how truly awesome and rewarding it is to be an archivist.
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 23rd -
Wednesday, April 24th:
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 Symposiumon 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 Collegeto 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 25th:
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 26th:
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).
