Week 20 at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

All of the cataloging goals that were set have been met or exceeded.  All the inventories are complete and I have volunteers working on the inventorying of ethnic ads and other recent accessions.  The ethnic ads we have are interesting, ranging from can labels to post cards.  Most of the ads date from the early 1900’s to the 1940’s.  The inventorying process is necessary so all the materials within our collection are accessible.  

The access to MCLM's collection will be improving with the launch of our new database.  I have become the acting database manager and I'm very excited to see the new database launch successfully.  I believe that this online, searchable database will greatly increase MCLM's presence as an African American library and museum.

 

Alyss Hardin
IMLS Fellow, M.L.I.S.
Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

January 16 - 20th, 2012 @ Fisk University

Hello all! Another busy week!! As I continuously processing the S.L. Smith collection (section II), I am finding more and more organizations he was involved with, but, nothing on a date of death yet. But, patience is a virtue and I will surely take that trip over to Peabody College, where he was an active Provost. I am sure they posted something in the University's press about his passing.
    This week, I also started working on the Black History Month presentation. This year's theme is Black Women. So, I decided to focus on women and civil rights, beginning with the slavery era up to Fisk's very own Diane Nash (freedom rider). 
    On Friday, I traveled to Atlanta, Georgia for a workshop on Identification and Preservation of Photographs held at the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library. It was a day filled with professional development and networking with other Archivists. I am actively seek learning and professional development opportunities outside of the fellowship, which is supported at Fisk. I have written more detail about this week on my blog. Feel free to venture over. 

    Side Note: I celebrated my 26th birthday on Sunday! Thank God for life, health, and strength!!

Aisha Johnson

Week Twenty at the Maryland State Archives

I’ve been working on a presentation that I’ll be giving at the Laurel Historical Society about African Americans in Maryland during the 1870s and 1880s. This is an area that our department has not yet focused on and which is understudied in African American historiography. Therefore, I have a lot of research to do!

I continued researching and writing case studies of slave holders in Dorchester County. I may have found evidence that one of the fugitive families was unfortunately recaptured. William Still recorded their safe arrival in Philadelphia in 1857 but the names of Daffney Cornish and her children appear on an 1864 listing of slaves in Dorchester County.  In 1867, the Maryland General Assembly ordered that a county-by-county register (commonly known as the Slave Statistics) be made of slaves owned prior to November 1, 1864, when slavery was abolished in Maryland. Slave holders hoped that the federal government would reward them for their loyalty to the Union by compensating former slave holders for the value of slaves that they had held at that time. Daffney’s family appears on this list, pointing to the likelihood that their runaway attempt was unsuccessful. Another possibility is that Reuben Phillips and Jane Cator falsely claimed that they still owned the Cornishes in 1864 in order to recoup the loss of their property. According to the federal census, it does not appear that any of the Cornishes lived with either Phillips or Cator by 1870. There is still more digging to do in this case.

Krystal

Week Eighteen at The Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum

Happy belated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day! All of the events that were planned at MCLM went well.

I continue to process a collection of songbooks with the help of two volunteers. There are certain duties that are easily assigned to volunteers such as the initial inventorying process and updating the name and subject authorities in the catalog. Some of the duties I take control of are pulling subjects from the library of congress, verifying the appropriate library of congress number for the book and what collection to attach the item to in the database. 

An item I came across that was interesting is a songbook entitled Negro Melodies No.1 Happy Contraband dated 1865.  The songs lyrics provide information about what slaves ate how the masters dressed and other details about slave life.  Song lyrics are an interesting primary source that may be under utilized.

Week 21 at the Alabama Department of Archives and History

Hello and greetings from Montgomery!

This week is the week before my big workshop! I am really excited, and I am avidly working to get everything in place! In addition to my public programing, I am also processing the Charles Morgan papers, continuing scanning the last book of the Peppler photographs, I have a number of lunch engagements for the next week. Needless to say, this is going to be a very busy two weeks for me, but I am very excited for all of the new experiences!


Until next time
Cheylon Woods
IMLS Fellow
Alabama Department of Archives and History

Week Nineteen at the Maryland State Archives

I spent much of last week working on case studies of slave holders in Dorchester County associated with an advertisement offering a reward of $3,100 for a group of 26 runaways. William Still, a noted Underground Railroad conductor, documented this escape in his 1872 book. The fugitives also faced severe rainstorms and a lack of provisions. Also complicating this remarkable 1857 escape, was the fact that approximately 20 of the runaways were children and infants. Nevertheless, all but one of them reached the North safely. Around this time, Dorchester County was plagued (from the slave holder’s point of view!) with several instances of slaves running away. Although Harriet Tubman, a native of Dorchester County, did not lead this particular escape, her knowledge of Underground Railroad routes likely helped this group make it safely to the North.

This year, LOSIM will be participating in Washington, D.C.’s annual Emancipation Day celebrations in April. For background information about slavery in D.C. and the commemoration of freedom, we watched and discussed, Enslavement to Emancipation, a documentary produced for D.C. public television. It was really interesting to analyze the documentary as a public historian and to think of things we would have done the same or differently if we were doing something similar for our project.

For a description of my weekend activities around Maryland and Virginia, please visit my blog.

Krystal

January 9 -13th, 2012 @ Fisk University

Hello all! I hope all is well and everything is going as you wish. I have continued to work on the second section of the S.L. Smith collection. Nothing has turned up in my 1960s pile yet. I am sure, as I thumb through the individual papers, a document will show a death date...hoping for a Newspaper article. I received an invitation to attend a photo preservation workshop in Atlanta next week, which I gladly accepted. I look forward to the workshop and networking. Also, I have started working on my presentations for the National Rosenwald School Conference in June. I will present on the topic of HBCU Archives and also a poster presentation on the S.L. Smith collection. I am very excited for the exposure the collection and Fisk University Library will receive from the poster presentation.

Aisha Johnson