MSA The Legacy of Slavery in Maryland Program: Penitentiary Records- Blog #2

 

As this internship approaches the halfway mark, I find that I have much to reflect on its value. I have made great progress with my transcription work, having just reached the year 1821 in the 1811-1869 records. Within these records, I read through old and sometimes barely legible or illegible records, which I then record in Excel in preparation for it becoming part of an accessible database for historians. In my weekly meetings, I discuss the findings with Mr. Haley, and we discuss further avenues of research, interesting trends, and unexpected occurrences in the records. Thus far, I am pleased with my progress in getting through the records and finding entries of interest. I have discovered numerous interesting accounts in the records. In particular, I found five cases of conspiracy to commit insurrection (three during the War of 1812) and five cases of people arrested for attempting to help enslaved persons escape.

As an archives, a major part of the mission of the MSA is to make research more accessible for the public and for researchers. My position has indeed helped to do so with part of my responsibility, after completing the first set of the 1811-1818 entries, being to help create the groundwork for the database which it would eventually be shared within. The basis, of course, comes from the transcribed entries which I have neatly recorded in Excel for ease of transition. However, the more unique aspect of this was that my feedback on how the database should be laid out was valued and sought due to my in-depth understanding of the records already prepared. The database will be created at a later date, but unfortunately it may not contain all the information within the entries. As this is the case, I provided information and suggestions on the categories to focus the database on which might be of greater importance for researchers. The first of which was to record the categories which might be able to showcase racial and economic inequity in prison. This would be able to be told by examining the complexion category for information on race, which could then be compared to the sentence and pardon categories to gain a better understanding of how race may have played a role in unequal sentences in prison. For economic inequity, I suggested that the occupation category would be most important as any comparison between occupation and sentences, or pardons may be able to show inequity due to the economic conditions of inmates. The third major category which was of most interest for placing into a database would be those which show how prisons may have benefited from the labor of inmates, which can be best investigated through examining the occupation of someone in prison compared to that of their prior occupation.

Furthermore, I have had the opportunity to learn and to network with the Maryland State Archives. I have been learning skills with transcription and research with this internship. Transcription is of course the majority of the work, and I have been learning ways to be more efficient, to read 19^th century handwriting, which is oftentimes not in the best condition. I have also furthered my research skills by working with the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I have conducted research into Maryland lynchings and located a rough potential location where one man, John Simms, was lynched outside Annapolis. I discovered this using maps from the time in conjunction with the clues from newspapers, which gave information like proximity to railroad, property owner, and proximity to the local landmark known as the Three Mile Oak.

Regarding networking, I have had the opportunity to meet with many people at the Maryland State Archives. Working with Chris Haley, the Director of the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland Program, has been helpful for networking. I also have meetings with Emily Squires who is the Director of Research, Reference, Education and Outreach. Outside of those who I typically interact with, I am most excited for the opportunity to meet with the former State Archivist Dr. Edward Papenfuse this Friday. I look forward to being able to meet him virtually to discuss my internship project and my investigations into the prison records and Maryland lynchings. He has left a lasting impression on the MSA and has contributed much to its growth into the institution it is today, so I am definitely grateful to meet him and to hear his perspective on the project.

Oral Historian for the 20th Anniversary of the Joseph Beuys Tree Partnership | Hannah Balik Post Two

 

The bulk of my responsibilities were, of course, collecting the oral histories. That sounds simple, but there is a lot that goes into the process, both before and after actually sitting down and pressing the record button. First, Sandra and I had to finalize who we wanted to interview, and then the harder part- actually getting in contact with them, getting them to agree, and scheduling a time to meet up. Especially with the state of the pandemic over the summer, we didn’t want to put anyone in danger. 

Once an interview was scheduled, I would spend hours researching the person. I would look through the records that Sandra gave me access to, regarding the project. I also just familiarized myself with who this person was outside of this project - what they were doing twenty years ago, and what they do today. All of this information I gathered helped me tailor each interview to the individual I was interviewing. Being able to adapt your interview questions to the individual you are interviewing is an important skill, as it keeps the interview feeling personal, rather than robotic. 

Sandra and I set up a makeshift sound booth in the CADVC offices for interviews, lining the walls with thick blankets to curb any echo. This studio was an awesome space, although I ended up doing about half of the interviews off-campus, with the majority of those being outdoors. After each interview, I would upload the audio file into Google Drive, as well as my personal hard drive. Then, I would download it into the software Trint, which Sandra purchased for this project, very kindly. It is a transcribing software, the first time I’ve used one of this kind. Honestly, it was awesome! I’ve spent days transcribing interviews before so it was really helpful to just have to double-check the transcript after the computer did its work. Of course, the program isn't perfect, but it is a lot faster than doing it manually. After finalizing the interview’s transcript, I would write an abstract for each interview for the finding guide. I also wrote about two paragraphs for the finding guide, describing the original project, as well as the 20th-anniversary project. 

I ended up interviewing ten people, which I think is a good number in only three months. The people ranged from the higher-ups in the granting organization that gave the money to the CADVC for these projects, to park representatives, and UMBC staff. I have never interviewed so many people for one project, and I loved it. Storytelling is such a great way to connect to people and I loved learning about UMBC and the inner workings of Baltimore City community planning. I found it very satisfying when I would ask someone a question they didn't know the answer to, would tell me to ask someone else, and then when I asked that person, they would know and tell me. It was like a (really slow) game of tag. I had also never used a real recorder before, only my phone or computer. I was lucky enough to be able to borrow a professional personal recording device from Dr. Meringolo, which helped the process greatly, in addition to giving the interviews better sound quality. 

In post three I will discuss future plans for this project, and the skills and lessons I will be taking with me from this internship into my career in Public History.

Oral Historian for the 20th Anniversary of the Joseph Beuys Tree Partnership | Hannah Balik Post One

 

This summer, I had an internship as an oral historian for UMBC’s Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture. I was interested in this internship because of my interest in public history and oral history. Once I learned that the oral history was going to be reflecting on the twenty-year anniversary of the Joseph Beuys Tree Partnership, which not only had roots on UMBC’s campus, but across Baltimore city, I was interested. Even though I had just spent the first year of my master’s degree online, and thus had never even been on campus, I was excited to be able to tell the story of this piece of UMBC history. The tree partnership consists of four parks paying homage to 20th century German artist Joseph Beuys’ 7000 Oaks Project. The original project’s full name: 7000 Oaks – City Forestation Instead of City Administration consisted of the placement of 7,000 basalt stones with an oak tree planted next to it by a volunteer, in order to encourage the greening of public space, and encouraging all to be participants in their environment. Beuys initiated this project in 1982, but was unable to finish it before he died in 1986. The project was completed by Beuys’ son the year following his death. 

Renee Van der Stelt was the registrar and curator at CADVC in 2000, and had previously had a job at a museum that featured Beuys’ art. When she came to UMBC, she immediately had ideas to incorporate Beuys’ ideas of social sculpture, environmental art, and the expansion of green spaces to Baltimore. It was decided that there would be one sculpture park on campus, which would be the most cohesive and planned park. The other three parks in the project were already existing neighborhood parks with active community member run groups. The parks chosen in Baltimore city were Patterson Park, Carroll Park, and Wyman-Dell Park. These parks only received one rock and a small sign as a nod to the project. Otherwise, the trees were scattered throughout the park, with the main goal being to increase the tree canopy more than create a sculpture garden, like the one on campus. 

Sandra Abbott, the Curator of Collections and Outreach at the CADVC since 2008, had decided to create a project honoring the twentieth anniversary of the project. It was decided that collecting oral histories of the main players in the planning and creation of the parks was in order. Sandra planned on interviewing people across the board who had involvement in the project: from the CEO of the grant organization that made the project possible, to UMBC’s head of Facilities Management, who aided in the planting of many trees on campus. These interviews were intended to be turned into the base of an archive for the project. Sandra explained to me that she has been contacted in previous years by researchers wanting to learn more about the project. However, she had nowhere to point them towards and nothing to give them. She hoped that creating this collection of stories and sharing them on MD-SOAR would allow for both researchers and UMBC students to answer any questions they might have on the project. Sandra also hoped that UMBC art students would be able to take these recordings and animate them into stories, like they have done in the past with other oral histories.

When I interviewed for this position in late May, Sandra was looking for two historians to collect these stories. However, I turned out to be the only one hired. I was nervous about the workload, as Sandra had hoped to record up to twenty oral histories over the summer. I was expecting to be very busy: researching subjects, preparing questions, the interview itself, transcribing, and creating a finding guide with abstracts. Not to mention trying to get into people’s schedules with the pandemic and a very quick turnaround. This would also be my first project of this scale. Even though I had taken Dr. Lanman’s Intro to Oral History course last fall, and used interviews as a research method quite often in undergrad as a Sociology/Anthropology major, I knew that this was going to be quite the undertaking compared to what I have done previously.

In my next blog post, I will discuss the oral history process, and how these expectations compare to reality!

Assistant Librarian Technician at the National Gallery of Art's Vertical Files | Blog #1

Brief Introduction

Working at the National Gallery of Art's Library for ten months so far, it has allowed me to get through most of training and immerse myself further within this research library. In particular, I work as a student assistant under the Vertical Files – this is a collection of ephemera such as exhibition notices, brochures, group exhibitions, invitations and other documents under 50-pages stored in our collection. The nature of these materials is fragile, yet essential to many art historians' research. They are the materials we often discard, throwing them away because their purpose is often temporary. However, they serve as valuable materials which can help researchers learn about artists' exhibitions, how such artists' works were presented and even key us into these documents as artistic works themselves.

What gives significance to the materials within the Vertical Files is that, while there are number that are digitized, the sensitivity of these objects makes for circulating these materials difficult. There is never a guarantee another copy can be found easily so many researchers have appointments to look through the collection themselves. As a librarian assistant here, I manage the collection through adding new materials, labeling them appropriately and filing them away within our various drawers. There are guidelines to label and organize such works, making files for individual artists & institutions who accumulate enough ephemera. And that is only a brief summary of the many responsibilities and tasks I've been put up to!

To put it simply, being a librarian here means making the materials in our collection the most accessible for our patrons. That is the goal when working as a librarian technician at the Vertical Files here!

Goals as a Librarian Technician Assistant

It is important to remember that there are multiple roles that different kinds of librarian serve in a library – especially like the museum library within the NGA. The most common librarian people think of is a circulation librarian. They often check out book materials to patrons, shelf them in their appropriate places among other things. Sometimes, they handle the cataloging of new books, which means creating a digital record for these materials so they can be searched for and tracked within the library system. As you saw previously, the work as a librarian technician at the Vertical Files is noticeably different and it is this difference that interested me in the position. 

The biggest learning goal I had coming into this position, the one that I still maintain even now, is learning more about how a research library functions differently from public libraries. Choosing the National Gallery of Art felt like a dream because it takes a particular focus on Western art (although not exclusive to just this) and this reflects in its library. As a result, the National Gallery of Art's library particularly focuses on the scholarship revolving around this Western art and the Vertical Files goes into this further. As a department within the library, it houses material culture that largely dates from the mid 20th century onward and it has a number of sub-collections such as the Evans-Tibbs collection (primarily focusing on African American Art, local Washington D.C. artists and Turlow Tibbs himself). 

Learning about the differences between these kinds of libraries is important to me because I like to think about how learning spaces are designed. Constructing this spaces and playing a role in building the collection bares much relevance to desire to eventually work as a museum curator. Personally, I believe that organizing information like the Vertical Files' materials has an artful approach to it, that it takes my own personal decision-making to label & file such works accordingly. It means thinking like a researcher and understanding their needs. In analyzing these materials, I am able to think about how they should be categorized, whether these are useful to our patrons and consider whether these materials stand out on their own. Some materials are not simple pieces of cardstock. Some fold, some have pop-out images, others containing digital media, or having text printed on soft tissue paper. Some are press releases, others invitations with the signature & writing of the artist themselves. It's in this way that I have to constantly challenge my ideas of what it means for something to be "rare", for something to be "useful" to a researcher, and most importantly, for something to be considered as valuable enough to archive in this way.

That is one of most important things I've been learning in my employment here. It is the most important thing to me to constantly expand my definitions and worldview regarding such research materials. That, to me, is an art.

Past Projects

Being brief, I have worked on a number of projects in my time here. I have linked Library of Congress name headers to artists who didn't have them.

I have worked on putting together a digital collection on Evans-Tibbs Artists, primarily those featured in David C. Driskell's Two Centuries of Black Art (1976). You can view that here, if you are interested.

I have worked on sorting a shipment of ephemera from the Pace Gallery in New York, labeling and filing them accordingly into our collection before shipping duplicates to the Maryland Institute College of Art. 

I have recently done Vertical Files orientations for our CASVA members.

I have completed shared digital project with the Circulation team, editing book volume' material information., completing 7,843 entries in that time.

Current Projects

Telework

Currently, I am doing research on our Evans-Tibbs artist who have poorly-sourced or under-sourced Wikidata pages. Wikidata is one of the platforms under the Wikimedia Foundation and it provides a structure to the data present on other Wikimedia platforms such as Wikipedia. There are guidelines to sourcing information for these artists' background, namely according to Wikidata's standards.

In addition to this, I am working on an Auction Catalogs' project where I am doing simple edits on auction catalog's MARC records. A MARC (standing for Machine-Readable Cataloging) record is a bibliographic record which describes the material, main + added entries, subject headings and what is it classified as. In particular, I am making these Auction catalogs' place of sale & date of sale fields human readable, and changing their indicators.

In-Person Work

My foremost responsibilities within the Vertical Files are

• labeling new materials into our Artist & Institutional Files, both general & artist/institution-specific folders
• weeding duplicates from the collection to create more space
• returning checked-in files & materials into their original place
• creating labels +  making records for artists and institutions who accumulate enough materials to 'graduate' into their own folder

Maryland State Archives The Legacy of Slavery in Maryland Program: Penitentiary Records- Blog #1

 

   Maryland State Archives Penitentiary Records- The Legacy of Slavery in Maryland

         The internship I am undertaking is for the Maryland State Archives Legacy of Slavery in Maryland Program. While other members of this internship are fulfilling roles in mining and examining census records, I am focusing on the Maryland Penitentiary records. My intern supervisor is Mr. Christopher Haley, the Director of the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland Program. I will be responsible for examining the digitized Maryland Penitentiary records from 1811-1869. I will transcribe these ledgers of inmates to prepare them for a separate database which researchers would then be able to access with ease of use to locate specific areas of interest. In addition, I will need to take note of any trends that I see developing or odd features to entries and discuss it with Mr. Haley, and those of my internship cohort on our Friday meetings. These features are likely among the most important aspects of the internship as recognizing them can open new avenues of research while others can help to explain racial injustice within the prison system. This internship also has a secondary aspect in which I will assist the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission in their task of telling the history of Maryland lynchings and its victims. I will do so by the creation of biographies for those victims.

            I intend for this internship to help further my interest and study of racial injustice in Maryland. My interest was sparked by the current culture facing this country today, with the issues of racial shootings and the disproportionate sentences and number of African Americans imprisoned. These are big issues which are evident within our society and have their roots in the past. I have been able to better understand the roots of racial injustice of the past because of my previous work with two other graduate students on the five known lynching cases of Anne Arundel County, John Simms, George Briscoe, Wright Smith, Henry Davis, and King Johnson. With this internship, I will be able to better understand another element of racial injustice with the prison system directly from primary sources.

            I specifically chose the Maryland State Archives for this internship because I wanted to get to know the people and community of the institution. It seems to be a great place to work, and I have seen that the work that is done there greatly matters. The Legacy of Slavery Program alone seems to be of vital importance to the local community and reconciliation, and it is only one of many projects which the Maryland State Archives is currently researching and investigating. More than this, it is a local institution with a focus on local history, which does attract my attention as I enjoy the idea of helping investigate, research, and write about the local history of Maryland.

The reason I was interested in this internship was because it would focus on the study of racial injustice in the prison system as well as because I feel the internship itself focusses on what I feel is the core of archives. In terms of racial injustice in the prison system in the 1800s, I feel that it is a major, and local Maryland issue which I understand the basics of but not the specifics. This internship would allow me to delve deeper into the lives and stories of those who were imprisoned and to understand the depths of racial injustice during the 1800s. In addition, I personally believe that the core idea of archives which I would be accomplishing would be facilitating future historians by making the records of the Maryland Penitentiary more accessible. By transcribing and preparing the records for use in a database, the records would be able to reach many more historians than before and would be easier to access and search for specific areas of interest. I would be able to shed light on these records, and gain both the benefit of facilitating my own understanding as well as making the records easier for others to understand and access.

Internship at the BMI Blog Post #3

 As I conclude my time interning with the Baltimore Museum of Industry, I am proud of what I have accomplished. I utilized my research to construct historical narratives for each tour site and as a result I have brought awareness to forgotten history. In late April, I uploaded my tour sites to Explore Baltimore Heritage and it made me proud to know that I was making the public aware of these sites that either were not talked about a lot, or that were forgotten. A memory that I will always have is googling "The William G. Scarlett Company" and seeing that the first link that came up was a link to my tour description. Here is the link to access my tour of Harbor East: https://explore.baltimoreheritage.org/tours/show/34. 

My time at the BMI has taught me what it is like to be a historian. I acted like a detective, finding traces each company left behind and even though I have never met the founders of each company, I feel a personal connection to each of them from my research. Sometimes my research cases went cold, but I kept digging and eventually I found new leads to follow. It is gratifying to know that these companies once lost to public memory will not be forgotten all due in part to my research. I also enjoyed how my research manifested itself in a different final product from my usual research. For classes at UMBC, every history class that I have taken has required my research to be presented in the form of a term paper. It was refreshing to present my information in the form of a virtual walking tour because I know that more people are likely to view this tour than read my academic papers. The tour also allows me to reach a broader audience and it excites me to think that even people who do not consider themselves as history enthusiasts could possibly take my tour.

In addition, I have realized that while I enjoy bringing back forgotten pasts and researching the history behind places, I do not enjoy the physical cataloging of objects. I think for future endeavors, I would like to focus on bringing back these forgotten pasts. Overall, I found my internship at the BMI helpful in my introduction to the field of public history. At first it was challenging to write for an audience made up of the general public rather than for an audience of academics, but in the end I found the process more rewarding. Very few of my friends and family members enjoy history. However, I believe that through the creation of this tour, I have found a way to get them involved in history. 

Blog Post #2

Dogs, Old Dudes and War History

If I am being honest not a whole lot is going on at the Maryland Military Museum, between my boss getting sick, snow, vaccines and a family funeral the months of February and March blurred into one long categorizing and digitizing dream. I will say I had a few highlights these two months, first of all, Lucy, the Belgium Malonois dog finally stopped barking at me every time I stepped into the armory. That's a major win for me. Secondly I met some other volunteers, primarily older veterans who like to remind me how very little I know about history. Talking with them about their passion projects reminded me why I love history in the first place, COVID and online learning have been making feel a little disconnected from my interests and hearing about other's book projects and independent research endeavors felt like an EPI pen to my soul.  

I finally got a chance to see that actual museum, crazy I had been nerding out in the room adjacent and never seen the museum I was archiving for. The museum made me sad. It's self guided tour system was outdated and confusing, it's mannequins were creepy, and I could tell looking at the guestbook there had not been any foot traffic. How do museums with no visitors stay open? Since the MMA is part of the armory, it is funded by the state, I imagine donations come from veterans if at all. I am happy to hear the museum is planning on hiring a curator, I would love to see the space brought into the twenty first century. After my tour of the museum it was back to the Witte Library where Lucy and I try not to rip 70 year old pieces of paper by accident. After coming across a perfect condition hardback book with the names and ID numbers of every life lost in the 27th regiment, I started thinking about what the museum seemed to be lacking. There it was right in front of me in the names of men who dies with the same last name as I do, emotion. The museum was emotionless. The further I dug into the archives the more I found things I felt the museum was missing, the museum talked about triumph and glory, but here I was holding a huge file on how some soldiers and their superiors were involved in the creation of a personal use prostitution ring while stationed in Germany. It seemed clear to me people did not want to talk about that side of the regiment, but honestly I think that's what makes them more real.Aside from finding really cool stuff and scandals involving sex work, abuse of power, and what not. I'm learning a lot about archiving, dealing with other museums, coding and how to talk to veterans about their experiences so that's pretty cool. Someone should do an oral history on them while they're still around, maybe that person will be me,