My Internship at the Laurel Historical Society #2

My main project for my internship this semester is to go through the textiles collections at the museum. My goal was to create a write up about a few of the more prominent pieces in the collection, the most obvious of those being a dress that once belonged to Mamie Eisenhower. However, when I really started looking into the textiles in the database, a familiar name popped up. We had a few things that had once belonged to Captain George Emerson Albee, including some photos and a stamp from his collection, but I had not realized that we had an article of clothing that he had once worn during the Civil War.

So I started digging through the textiles boxes and at the very bottom of the box I found what I was looking for, although it was not what I expected whatsoever. What I pulled out of the tissue paper was not just a casual pair of canvas pants, but instead what I found were leather shot-gun chaps. From the belted waist they were as perfect as 150 year old pants could be with some repairs done around the thigh area. But from the knee down things got a little iffy; there was a grass stain, some black lines, and some holes around the calves and ankles that were surrounded by some suspicious looking dark red stains (don't worry I used gloves when I handled these).

Now, the museum description said that he wore these during the Civil War, but I had never heard of chaps being worn as a part of a uniform. This caused me to start looking for information of Captain Albee to see if maybe there could be an explanation behind these. I found way more than I bargained for. The leather chaps sitting on the work table next to me belonged to a Medal of Honor recipient currently buried alongside his wife at Arlington Cemetery.

Captain Albee enlisted in the Wisconsin Company G, Berdan's Sharpshooters (part of the Union) in 1862 at the age of 17. He was in the field for two months when he was injured during the Second Battle of Bull Run. He eventually reenlisted and was actually imprisoned in the Confederate Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. The journal that he kept while he was serving and while he was imprisoned is actually at the Library of Virginia.

However, it was not during the Civil War that he earned his Medal of Honor. He earned that during the Native American wars that followed. He apparently led a charge of only three men against eleven Native Americans at Brazos River, Texas and managed to gain the high ground.

While I never actually found much about the chaps, the fact that I had a face to go with them and even a highly detailed backstory was an incredible feeling. I really hope one day I can go read his journal.

My Internship at the Laurel Historical Society #1

At the beginning of this semester, I started working on Fridays and Sundays as a museum intern at the Laurel Historical Society in Prince George's County. The LHS is located in an 1840's mill workers house and functions as a small museum as well as the organizations offices. I had always wanted to work in a museum, so I was really excited. However, I was also really nervous about it. What if it wasn't what I expected? What if it turned out that I was no good at the thing I had aspired to do since I was a kid?

My first day there started out pretty standard; I introduced myself to my coworkers, signed some papers, and was showed around by my boss. It was after all of the introductory stuff that I started to become uncertain. I began learning how to use the museums collections database, and I am absolutely terrible with technology. As Ann, the executive director of LHS, was teaching me how to find what I needed, I was barely looking at the screen as I wrote down step by step directions for each thing she showed me (I highly recommend writing stuff like this down for those of you who are also technologically challenged). Luckily for me, Ann was a great teacher - it probably helped that she used to work for Past Perfect (the database company) for a few years.

For the first few weeks I got myself comfortable with using Past Perfect. I would pull boxes from the collections and go through them in order of accession number and make sure all the information was correct and up to date. This might seem like along time, but I only worked two days a week for nine hours so it took me a little longer than I wanted.

I got my first research project at the beginning of October; I was doing the research for the Edgar Allan Poe event that was being held for the first time around Halloween. My main job was to provide an information station on Poe, but I also ended up providing additional information on literary figures contemporary to Poe such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, and his fellow Gothic legends like Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker. Seeing my work displayed around the museum was one of the most satisfying feelings I have ever experienced.

More about my Adventures at the LOC! #2

Hello everyone! I am back again to tell you more about my summer adventure at the Library of Congress. As I may have mentioned in my first post, I was an intern at the Copyright Office (COP) for ten weeks. During this time, I learned so much about the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office itself. The particular internship I was selected for was the Copyright Archival Records Digitization, and the main objective of this internship was to increase the access of copyright collections to researchers. At the Copyright Office, there are file cabinets with thousands of bibliographic files from the 1950s through the 1980s. These special files were developed and long-used by Copyright staff for reports on the copyright status of works. Many of the files include search reports which are objective statements of the results from searches in the COP records, original dust jacket deposits, obituaries, correspondence, and copies of applications. As a Junior Fellow, my task was to look through these files and decide whether or not they should be digitized. 

During my time at the COP, I was able to go through 2,000 bibliographic files with the help of another Junior Fellow named Swatha. We had to work together to create a metadata scheme which would essentially become a finding aid for COP staff assigned to the digitization of the files. The first thing we did was to create a spreadsheet on excel that contained metadata meaning the cabinet|folder name|number files within the folder|author(s)|claimant(s)|date| registration number(s)|type of work(s)|. For the duration of the internship, we took inventory of the files while also doing extensive research. For example to decide whether a file should be digitized, we had to do research on the importance of the works. One of the most interesting files I came across was that of Francis Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby. This was a file worthy of digitizing as Fitzgerald himself contributed to American Culture with his portrayal of the Jazz Age and grand gestures that took place. The amount of reading I did this summer was exhausting, but it was worth it. One of the trickiest things about this internship was time-management and literacy skills. On top of creating this metadata scheme, my colleague I had several oral briefings There were several occasions where we had to explain our tasks and findings to the Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden and Register of Copyrights Karyn Temple. This was very nerve-wracking as we had to know how different Copyright Acts impacted the status of works. However, I quickly became comfortable with presenting because I had done my research on the 1976 Copyright Act and the 1988 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I enjoyed my time at the COP because I not only got to do research, but I also learned about a bit about intellectual property. 

Figure 1. Dr. Hayden explaining Oculus to me 

Figure 2. Original Copyright Registration for The Great Gatsby 1925

Upon the completion of my assignment, I also had to work with my partner to create a display day project. I want to say that this was the most fascinating part of my internship. All of the interns in the program worked with Library curators and specialists to plan and present a display of the most significant discoveries we made. My partner and I chose to display a search report regarding the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, a tray from the COP’s copyright catalog (largest in the world btw), The World Crisis book deposit, a special search report on the works of Winston Churchill, and a marbled record book from 1925. It was amazing because we got to present our findings to congressional staff members and the general public. This experience taught me a lot about preservation especially because I was able to see how they test for the acidity of paper as well as how they rehouse materials. It was just amazing! 

Figure 3. Supervisor's Facebook Post 

Figure 4. Special Search Report on the works of Winston Churchill Published in America (1945) 

Figure 5. The Burmese, Thai, Laos Rare Collections (Asian Division) Display Day Table 

Figure 6. World War II Collection's Display Day 

Mental Health Association of Maryland Internship #3

Over the summer I continued my work organizing the archive at the Mental Health Association of Maryland (MHAMD). As MHAMD is a non-profit which does amazing work, archival preservation is not their forte. After I assessed the collection and organized items from copies and originals and chronologically, the next step, which would be brutal, was to match the copies with  the originals so I could begin to get rid of the hundred upon hundreds of copies. I had to grab an original folder and find its copy, which there could sometimes be up to four copies of, and meticulously match each original document with it copy. Once I confirmed that there was an original of the copy I could finally deaccession all the copies. I spent weeks on this part and in the end I had two piles a foot and a half tall each that had to weigh at least eight pounds. There were a few copies that I could not find the originals of so I stored them in a safe place. After dealing with the copies I could finally give the originals the time they deserved. I further organized them in chronological order and removed all the Office Depot plastic from them. I then placed the fragile documents into archival safe plastic and moved all the documents into archival safe folders. I gave each folder a title which could be easily organized and also on the front of each folder I wrote every document inside of it. It was certainly tedious work but it needed to be done to ensure the longevity of the archive. After weeks of this work I further organized the documents chronologically and placed them into archival safe hanging folders. The CEO wanted all the documents to be easy to access chronologically. We also talked about digitizing and finding ways to make the collection even more accessible to people. The MHAMD also took back dozens of boxes of their archives from the  MD state archives. My time was up in the summer before I had the chance to get to this, but they have offered me the opportunity to come back whenever I was able to continue working on the collection. Although I may not be an archival professional, I felt like I really made a difference to help preserve the documents of such an important organization. I handled well over a hundred documents dating from 1915 to 2016. The picture is how I left the collection after I organized it. Also it shows the difference from start to end.

Mental Health Association of Maryland Internship #2

Over the summer I worked at the Mental Health Association of Maryland (MHAMD) in the Lutherville-Timonium area. Once I settled into my office and archive as well as put up some signs about the archive, I assessed what I had in the archival collection. There were over 100 years of documents in the archive. There actually were a large amount missing from the office and were in the MD State Archives. The MHAMD became worried their documents would not be preserved for longevity or be easily accessible for researchers at the State Archives, so they decided to get their documents back, dozens of boxes worth. These boxes didn’t arrive until I finished my internship, so my focus was on organizing the documents currently within the archive. One of my first priority was to order proper preservation items to save the documents. They were stored in Office Depot plastic and not archival safe folders. I ordered a few hundred archival safe folders, archival safe plastic (for the fragile documents), archival safe hanging folders, and gloves to handle photographs with. Once I ordered all the documents my goal was to go through all the folders and determine what was inside. The typical set up was three folders for each subject, one would be stuffed to the brim of originals in office depot plastic, accompanied with 2-3 folders full of 2-3 scanned copies of each original document. All these copies took up an enormous amount of space and because of how stuffed they were near the originals, stated to warp and damage the original documents. I went through each folder, copy and original, and labeled each document in the folder. This took as while as there were many drawers of files. Next I went through all the folders I had labeled and further classified them as copies or originals. After this step I separated the copies from the originals in different drawers and went on to put each folder in chronological order. This was only the start of the massive organization of the archive. The attached image is what all the cabinets of archives looked like when I started, this photo however is just of copies of originals.

Directory of the Baltimore Legal Museum

Post #2

Domonique Flowers

In October my main objective for the project was to utilize the pictures of the different parts of the museum and to take even more pictures of each of the main artifacts and collection pieces to use in the directory. Unfortunately, due to renovations and new features being added, the Legal Museum was temporarily closed for two weeks which forced me to switch gears a bit. Instead my focus for October would be twofold. First, I wanted to identify the sources I would use to create the narrative history behind the museum, that would be included in the directory. One of the main sources I used was “The Guide Book of the Clarence Mitchell Jr. Courthouse,” which was provided to me when I first became a museum docent. Another source I used was “Celebrating a Century of Service,” which was a publication commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the Clarence Mitchell Jr. Courthouse.

The second objective for October was to utilize the pictures that I had taken of the museum in September to begin classifying the main attractions. Some of the main ones included a 19^th Century grandfather clock that predated the courthouse, the copper drum used to select Baltimore City Jurors until 1960, the painting entitled “British Surrender of Yorktown,” by French muralist Jean-Paul Laurens and the 1885 Court of Appeals decision allowing African American men to practice law in Maryland. In addition to the artifacts and exhibit items, the directory would also contain profiles of the famous legal professionals who were featured in the museum. I assembled the list of individuals I would use and worked on their profiles. These included Thurgood Marshall, the first African American US Supreme Court Justice as well as Etta Haynie Maddox, the first woman admitted to the Bar of Maryland in 1902. I also began to organize the different displays based on the categories that I identified in September. Two of the main displays included the display of English Common Law as well as the display showing the history of the Baltimore Bar Association. The museum re-opened at the end of the month and even hosted a re-dedication ceremony to celebrate all the new updates added. I was unfortunately unable to attend due to a prior commitment though I did obtain a copy of the program in the Daily Record. I also looked forward to returning and discovering what new surprises and features awaited me.

Directory of the Baltimore Legal Museum

Domonique Flowers

The project I wish to create is a directory for the Baltimore Legal Museum, which would not only illustrate the achievements of the legal professionals in Baltimore City but also highlight all of the exhibits and profiles contained in the museum. The directory will cover three general areas including the History of the legal profession in Baltimore, History of the Baltimore Bar Association and a Catalogue of Artifacts and Profiles. This first section would provide a brief overview of the legal history and accomplishments of lawyers in Maryland with an emphasis on Baltimore City. It would also include a focus on the achievements of Baltimore’s majority and minority pioneers (i.e., African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, etc.), women in the law and Baltimore’s Legal Legends. The second section would feature a brief history of the Baltimore Bar Association and the impact it has left in Baltimore and Maryland in general. I would also like to include a section concerning the history of the Monumental City Bar Association, the Alliance of Black Women Attorneys, the Women’s Bar, the LGBQT Bar, the Asian and Pacific Bar, the Hispanic Bar and other identified specialty Bars. The third and most extensive section would contain a detailed guide to the museum which will include brief biographical profiles on all the individuals featured in the museum as well as a categorical guide to all the artifacts on display in the museum.

In September I began by separating all of the exhibits in the museum into 4 general categories: Collection Cases (7), Standing Displays (5), Individual Exhibits (27) and Special Features. The Collection Cases include the large featured units that display an assortment of artifacts behind glass. The artifacts consist of mementos from past celebrations held at the court house and include historical documents from Baltimore’s legal history. Standing Displays are structures around the museum that provide narratives on important legal figures and the history of the court house. Individual Exhibits are standalone artifacts scattered around the museum that have been donated to the collection. Special Features includes the bookshelves, centerpiece painting and coat of arms that adorn the museum. In addition, I divided the museum into areas (right, left, center) and mapped out the number and classification of artifacts that each area contains. For October I will continue by individually classifying the exhibits in the right area of the museum.