More Finds in the Local Archives

I regularly write a "column" in this blog called "More Finds at the Local Antique Shop." It usually discusses inferences I make about photos and ephemera that I find. I try to apply context to orphaned items. Today, I am going to share ephemera that has context and explain how the material fits into the collection I know.

Lawton Collection, Joyeux Noel
(Happy Christmas)
Shirley Historical Society

My last post discussed my work on the Lawton Collection in Shirley, Massachusetts. Within the collection, I found the two pieces of ephemera mentioned in this post. One outstanding feature of the Lawton Family Papers is a box of Christmas cards covering about a decade in the life of the family. The cards illustrate early twentieth century greeting card design and reflect the tastes of the times. Like today, cards were written by family, acquaintances, business associates, and long lost friends (maybe people one hadn't heard from since the previous Christmas.) I chose the card to the left as my sample for its beautiful color and unusual design. It seems more like an illustration for Little Bo Peep than a Christmas card, yet I find its simple illustration very appealing.

I found myself wondering how many people keep years worth of Christmas cards. I usually keep a year's worth. I review the previous year when I replace them with current ones when the holiday ends. Unlike birthday cards, I do not keep any old Christmas cards. I find them impersonal, even with long letters describing recent events in the lives of those I know; those letters about family that say the same thing to all its recipients. I am guilty of sending such correspondence too, but it strikes me as very ephemeral. I expect the recipient to read about what is happening in my life and then throw it away. 

As antique dealers, did the Lawtons treasure these items from a whole different perspective than I? For one, I wonder, did the Lawtons keep their ephemera because rather than weighing the materials for personal or historical value, they judged it on a monetary level?  Seeing a decade's worth of cards is certainly fascinating and when we are through reviewing the collection, I think we are likely to find it has historical merit for research purposes. Did the Lawtons recognize the value of keeping their correspondence in bulk? While I do value this card on its own, it is certainly much more interesting when seen alongside the others in the collection.

Lawton Collection,
Shirley Historical Society

The second item I am sharing is an invitation to the child of Frank and Anna Lawton. Shirley Lawton would have been about ten when she received it. A friend invited her to a party. I admire the friend's neat handwriting and the quaint image. Lately, my own child has been invited to parties via email or evites. As much as I love my digital correspondence, I think we've lost something in this iteration of human relations. The personality that shines in the above note brings me right into the context of Shirley's life. This is certainly not a card sent by "Harriet B"'s mother (as my email invites are.) I picture little girls in a simpler time with simpler non-themed parties. This particular piece of ephemera not only shows us Shirley's life context, but clearly shows how her time was different from our own.

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More Finds at the Local Antique Shop - Creating Context

Last week, I wrote that archivists focus mainly on the materials that they keep and not necessarily the people who make those materials. Now that I've cleared up a little confusion I found among some of my contemporaries about an archivist's role, perhaps this will befuddle matters once again...  It's time for another round of "More Finds at the Local Antique Shop." This time I have an agenda beyond my interesting finds. Of course archivists don't keep things just to keep "stuff." There is certainly more to it than that. So take a look at these two photos. Form your impressions about them and then read on...

These photos reflect diverse subjects and portray different sensibilities. The first feels like a snap shot. The second is most definitely a posed studio photo. The first gives us a sense of place. The second does not. The image with the building impels us to focus on the setting much more than on the people pictured, whereas the image of the woman makes us focus on the details of her dress, pose and expression -- essentially on her. Most obviously, the first image is one that can stand as representative of poverty and the second as one of wealth.

Unfortunately, these are "orphan" photos from an antique shop. I do not know who these people are. I do not know anything about their lives other than what I see here. Without doing some research, I do not know if my impressions about them are true or false constructs. I wonder if other materials that reflect the lives of these people exist somewhere -- either in a family collection or in a repository. I wonder if there is a collection that tells their full stories. If such collections exist, and if I were to somehow find them, would the other materials in that collection confirm my impressions of these people or would they negate them, A third scenario is that they may balance them, providing other dimensions to my first impressions to make me better understand the purpose of these images in the lives of the people depicted. Perhaps they would show the people in different circumstances, in different clothing, or in a different setting.

An archivist focuses on the materials for which we care, but equally importantly, we focus on the context of that material. Without context, all materials can easily be considered "orphaned." The collections archivists build aim to tell about their subjects by retaining a connection to those subjects or creators of the materials. We track from where materials came (provenance) to tell the history of the material itself and so that we can attest to its authenticity. We aim to keep order given to materials by their creators to further retain context. Though we keep groups of records with different provenances separated, we aim to put materials with related contexts together in larger "collections" with resources from multiple people and places reflecting a larger story. So while the safekeeping of materials is the archivist's main goal, it is a goal with a purpose of forming connections among similar materials to help shed light on the individuals, their communities, and the human condition.

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Exercise: A Personal Item Out of Context

Pull a random item from your own collection. What does that item tell you about the person it reflects? If this is a subject you know well, is what you think of that item influenced by what you already know about the subject? Let's pretend you know nothing about the person or people pictured. Would you draw different conclusions about the image than you do with some background knowledge?

To make my point, here is an unusual photo of me from my family collection: 

What conclusions might one draw about me based on this image? What do you think I'm doing here and why? Do you think this is an important part of my story or just a simple snapshot? (This is in fact a highly significant moment in my life and an activity that has an ongoing presence in my household almost ten years after this photo was taken. I'll tell the story about it one day...maybe in a new presentation somewhere or when I'm hurting for blogging ideas...)

While going through your own images and documents, consider their context. What context do your materials retain? What is missing? How difficult is it to retain the context of materials? How easily can context be lost?

   

Learning African American History through Context Boston

Prince Hall sought and received an English
charter for a black free masons group when
he was denied entry to the local white free
masons. Interestingly from an archives
perspective, the original charter for the
group he founded is currently housed
in a State Street bank vault.

I was lucky to once again have the opportunity to take a Context Boston Tour. This past winter I walked and blogged about the company's North End Tour. Last week's traipse through history began at the North End, but then took us on the Freedom Trail for a remarkable look at Boston's African American heritage. We were once again led by the knowledgeable Alex Goldfeld, who first introduced us to bits of this story on our last visit. (Here's a little plug for Alex who seems to have the low-down on all Boston history and as a North End resident, as well as President and historian of the North End Historical Society, he certainly knows the ins and outs of this area in particular. Check out his book The North End: A Brief History of Boston's Oldest Neighborhood.]

Alex began our walk through time with a version of this story:

"When Paul Revere wrote in his account of his midnight ride, 'After I had passed Charlestown Neck, and got nearly opposite where Mark was hung in chains,' he was referring to a well-known local landmark along his route through Charlestown (present-day Somerville). On this site twenty years earlier a slave named Mark Codman had been hanged and his body gibbeted (suspended in chains) for murder and petit treason for killing his master, John Codman."  http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/education/codman.html

The story resonated with those taking the tour and immediately brought the past to life, reminding us that issues of race have run as a thread through the fabric of American society since its inception. We discussed how black men struggled in a fight for freedom, noting their servitude as incompatible with the ideals of our founding fathers, and later seeking equality in society that had more common interactions among people of different races at an earlier time than I realized.

The racial thread wound with us through the streets of Boston. We paused at the site of the Boston Massacre, in front of the old state house building. For the first time, I learned about Crispus Attucks, who is widely known as the first man killed in the American Revolution. The most memorable cultural item created as a result of the Massacre is Paul Revere's engraving of it. I recalled from my early American art history classes that there were no dark faces in the image. I surmised with my guide that perhaps in an attempt to gain widespread general support for the movement toward Independence this was a conscious bit of self censorship.  

August St. Gaudens used live models for realistic
depictions of black men serving in the Civil War in this
monument located across the street from the Massachusetts
State House. The fine details of his work remind us of their individualism.

The oldest home on Beacon Hill, the residence
of George Middleton represents a
neighborhood for free African
Americans in the 18th century.

I think more than anything else, this tour gave names and faces to those who we knew existed. The stories of men and women who fought slavery, helped others find freedom, promoted education, and valued the general ideals purported by a newly established government were revealed across the street from the Statehouse and up Beacon Hill, which had always represented Brahmin culture to me. The tour also gave us stories of specific events that demonstrated the struggle for freedom, such as the story of Elizabeth Freeman who sued for her rights. She recounted her experiences for posterity and her court records shed light on the African American experience at the time. I kept picking up on those archives connections that are so valuable for me. There was also the story of Lewis and Harriet Hayden who were leading abolitionists with a home on the underground railroad. Lewis' story is heartbreaking and still full of hope. (Go on the tour and let Alex tell it to you for full impact.)

Part of the Museum of African American history,
this building itself has a long history of use, re-use and preservation

One of our final stops was outside the Museum of African American History. To get there, we wound through back alleys that were built as shortcuts for getting around the grid layout of a very hilly area. These alleys also served as places to run along the underground railroad. We silently walked through and, to me, this was the most poignant part of the tour. There was something about winding through narrow passages that made the historical echoes of chasing freedom vibrant to me. On the other side of the passage we viewed the remodeling of the Museum, forming the culmination of our journey. It drove home the idea that saving stories is so vital to saving our heritage and made me think about my appreciation for how far we've come and how society's evolution is preserved in our cultural heritage sites.

I very much enjoyed the tour. I also enjoyed our small group of three friends who took it together. I felt that I had plenty of opportunity to ask questions and to use walking time to discuss my observations with my guide. There was a lot of walking in this tour, which may not be desirable for everyone, but I found it wonderful to explore parts of the city I had never seen before, even though I lived in Boston for four years. It was a pleasure to see another often under-recognized group highlighted in a tour dedicated to their story. Together, these multi-dimensional community stories that the Context Tours have provided me form the fabric of our heritage. While I work to ensure our documentation about this heritage is cared for, it is nice to see historians and even the travel industry taking the raw materials of history to create educational and entertaining programs.
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Please also see the blog post by Evolving Critic, who accompanied me on the tour. He focuses on the architectural landmarks along our route.

Walking Tour of Boston's North End

This past Friday, I braved the New England cold for a three hour walking tour of the North End of Boston and found that the quiet winter streets were ideal for wandering through the City. Context Boston offered me the tour to get my take on their recently launched historical seminars.

My e-mail contact described Context Boston as "a network of over 200 scholars and experts who create and lead walking seminars in cultural capitals in Europe and, now, the United States as an alternative to mass tours. Context connects intellectually curious travelers (and locals) with Ph.D. level experts for in-depth learning experiences..."

Perhaps I should not admit this, but I am not a tour guide kind of cultural heritage participant. I prefer experiencing a site on my own, doing my research ahead of time, carrying my guide book or brochure, and wandering through an institution or new city. I like going in blind, being led by serendipity and not another person with preconceived notions about what I should find interesting or a docent who tells me what parts of a history are the important parts. In other words, I am quite often the person in the back of the tour group who is reading my guide book while the group leader is speaking. (That's the part that I shouldn't admit, I think.) I thought that Context Boston might have their hands full with me, but I went in with an open-mind, choosing the walking tour of the North End over three others offered because of the area's immigrant history. As a former archivist of the immigrant City of Waltham, Massachusetts, I thought I'd be able to make some good connections in my knowledge of the subject. I had been to the North End many times as a former resident of Boston and a frequent visitor, but I was not well-versed in this particular area's community history.

Boston's North End is now known as a neighborhood composed mainly of people of Italian descent. Its contemporary standing in my mind focused on its restaurants, ethnic shops, and culinary festivals. Its history was remarkable to me for Copp's Hill Burial Ground, which is one of the oldest graveyards in the city and of particular interest to me because of my research in this area as a student, and of course for Paul Revere and his ride. The North End has a small, old-fashioned community feeling in a large city. I had invited a colleague to take the tour with me and she said that the area made her think of Brooklyn, New York. I think that is an apt comparison.  Despite this cozy sense on old narrow streets where neighbors can probably still yell across to each other from apartment to apartment (much like the stereotypical Prince spaghetti commercial from the 1970s), I always feel like an outsider when I venture through this area. I am not privy to the true character and inner happenings of the community as a wanderer on its streets, but our tour guide had the insider's view as a resident of the area, president of the recently established North End Historical Society, and writer of a book about the area's history.

The value of the Context Boston tour to me was this insider's view and the easy knowledge our resident expert had. He could not be stumped by any question (and I did try to stump him.) The very little he did not know, he would admit to and give us some other related tidbit that tied perfectly in to my questions. The guide could change directions on the fly. He tailored his tour to our interests, at first giving us some basic information and then ratcheting up the depth of his colorful descriptions when he realized that we had some historical knowledge of the area. The information he provided us ran the gamut from the 1600s to the present day and included multiple ethnic groups, who I pictured arriving on these shores pushed by the waves of the Atlantic. We talked about architecture, religion, city planning, business, and every other topic that relates to the development of a community. There was no script for our guide. He asked what we wanted to view (everything) and what we wanted to know (everything). He led the way, making sure to get in the necessary history to give us a good framework for understanding the subject, but also going off on the tangents we wanted. He was never rushed, but yet managed to finish the tour in the three hour time frame.

The story of the North End of Boston could be the story of any immigrant area in the United States, but the uniqueness of this particular community was made clear. Its early colonial history remains highly visible in the presence of Paul Revere's home and the Old North Church. It's African American roots are less visible up at the Copp's Hill burial ground. The legacy of its former Irish inhabitants are there in its street signs, old churches, and buildings once frequented by Kennedys. Our tour guide recalled the memories of the area's Jewish residents on streets where synagogues once stood. He even pointed out the last Jewish business owners in town to us. All the immigrant histories overlapped and all were neatly woven back and forth along the threads of time. The information we were given raced back and forth along the community's chronology as we rounded neighborhood corners and examined the architecture, objects, man-made and natural topography of the North End.

Though not one to take any old tour, I will again take one with Context. I have invited my husband to join me to discover the Brahmins of Boston in the spring and will seek out their tours in other cities that I visit. Their program was more of a college course by foot than the typical historical tour I've experienced in the past. I wandered the streets of Boston with an art history professor in my younger days, when everything was exciting to me and the teacher made every building come to life. Context Boston is on par with that experience of my youth. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in gaining a full understanding of a community and its history.
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For more information about my tour and for more images of Boston's North End see ArchivesInfo on Facebook