Research and Story Maps in Historic Preservation

        So far, my internship at the Division of Planning and Permitting for Frederick County has been full of interesting research projects. The first two that I worked on were for two properties that are up for county nomination as historic properties: the Libertytown Female Seminary Academy, and the Buckeystown United Methodist Church. As part of the nomination process, historical significance and context for each had to be established. I performed deed traces, census research, and archival research to unearth as much of the histories as possible, and then conducted secondary research to establish the larger context of such establishments in Maryland and U.S. history, including the early rise of women’s education and the importance of churches in post-Civil War Black communities. Later this month, my supervisors at the Division of Planning and Permitting will present my research to the preservation committee, and, if all goes well, the buildings will be approved to join the county register!

            
        Thankfully, the newest project that I’m working on has allowed me to take a small break from research and explore some other sides of preservation work instead. In late March, we did a site check on the George Markell Farmstead, a Frederick property that has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2000. The property consists of multiple 19th- and early 20th-century agricultural buildings, including a two-story brick farmhouse, an icehouse, a springhouse, a smokehouse, a tenant house, multiple barns, and various outbuildings. Unfortunately the property has not been maintained since being purchased by Frederick County in 1999, and has fallen into various states of serious disrepair. Our project moving forward is to convince the county to conduct a Historic Structure Report in the hope that an adaptable reuse plan can be crafted in the near future. HSRs are comprehensive reports crafted by experts in multiple fields, including architecture, engineering, history, and environmental studies. They outline the current physical conditions of each structure and the work that is necessary and appropriate for preservation and adaptation. Unfortunately, getting an HSR approved isn’t necessarily easy, so I’ve been working on a GIS Story Map that can be used as a public-facing, interactive document to encourage officials to approve the process. The Story Map includes historical details, physical details, mapping details, and primary source graphics to engage and build context for the viewer. In addition, it includes a brief explanation of the importance of an HSR and why there should be a desire to see the property saved. 

The George Markell Farmstead Story Map has been interesting in that it has illuminated the ‘real world’ issues and obstacles in preservation, including budget constrictions, bureaucracy, community divisions, and the sad truth that just because something is on the National Register doesn’t mean it’s immune from falling into the ground. The George Markell Farmstead checked a lot of preservation boxes: the farmhouse was architecturally beautiful, the property played a significant role in the Civil War’s Battle of Monocacy, and the cluster of once-standing agricultural buildings represented at least 75 years-worth of changing agricultural patterns in Maryland. Even so, the property continues to be neglected. It has been an eye opening experience to learn that preservation takes effort, communication, and genuine good faith amongst multiple groups of officials and community members in order for it to actually be effective. 

 Catherine Till Sansone

When You Wish Upon a Starr

Entry Two “Trail Blazing” 

 

 

I knew next to nothing about the execution required to curate an exhibit. Maybe I was hoping to be given a magic wand, and I could just “poof” the items here, have them arranged, sorted, inventoried, researched, and hung onto the gallery walls but the reality meant traveling to Wilsondale, West Virginia, and Buffalo, New York. It was important to affirm the relationship I developed with Gail Fleming Browning, Starr’s sister, over the last two years, through telephone conversations, texts, and emails. I had also begun to build a relationship with David Mueller, a “super fan” of Starr’s, and who had a close, warm, and personal relationship with her. Mueller amassed an enormous collection of Starr’s photographs, personal correspondences, memorabilia, and clothing. He was, understandably, nervous about handing over his beloved collection, so the purpose of both trips was twofold: first, to retrieve her personal effects, but second, and most central, was to formally meet Starr’s family, and Mr. Mueller, to strengthen the connections I had established. 

Travel tip: start planning months ahead of time and get help, ask questions, lots of them. Find a travel buddy, that is important for your mental well-being and it’s more fun! I was fortunate that my good friend from high school, Sue, agreed to accompany me on these treks. I don’t think I could have completed my missions without her. Travel planning takes much execution, hotel and car rental reservations, and in my case, traveling with a disabled, slightly overweight chihuahua. I learned a lot from the first trip which greatly enhanced the second leg of the journey.

The first trip was to Wilsondale, and try as I might, I could not avoid highways. I loathe them! Miles and miles of drive-by cities, towns, gas, and food signs. In this case, slicing through the Appalachian Mountains, about five days before the leaves had peaked in October, made the journey much more enjoyable. I did not think it would be necessary to research food in Wilsondale. I assumed there would be enough chain restaurants to find food to choose from. Nope! The town closed by 8:00 p.m., on Friday! We dined on wine, potato chips, and peanuts. Stella, my dog enjoyed gourmet dog food. Trave tip two; find out when the town rolls up, that way you can stop somewhere for dinner, or buy better snacks. 

The next day we easily found our way to Gail Browning’s house, located alongside a narrow, two-lane road. On one side, a shear mountain cliff, and on the other, a plunge down a ravine into the river, or creek. We settled in, chatted, and I got to see the entries into the family bible. Gail directed me to five containers in the corner of the dining room. These held all they had left of Starr’s possessions, and I was granted access to them. At this point, I had been researching Starr for almost two years, and to say it was surreal is an understatement. To touch these items, some very personal, made me a little uneasy. It was a weird emotion that I couldn’t articulate but I felt a sense of protective reverence for these items. After choosing what to take back, the car was loaded up. It was a hot and humid Indian summer kind of day, but I had one more stop. Starr’s final resting place, which is located on the top of the “hill,” in Gail’s words, is in the family plot on the property. Even carrying Stella, and thinking I may have a heart attack, it was worth the climb! Her tombstone is beautiful, and it was again, an unexpected emotional experience. After sharing a meal at the local gas station/grocery store/restaurant, with the best-fried chicken, we said our goodbyes and that we would see each other at the exhibit reception. It was an amazing trip, in a lot of ways

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Next, I needed to travel to Buffalo, in February!!! Oh God, what fresh hell awaits but this trip was very cool—perfect weather, the route sliced through small quaint towns, with interesting architecture. Sue was my fun fact researcher, so we could absorb the history along our route. This was a shorter jaunt, six hours, so we could take our time. We found out that no one knows how Buffalo got its name! We stayed in Williamsville, right outside the city, with no unkindness to Wilsondale, which closes shop at 8 pm, this quaint town had several restaurants, pizzerias, bakeries, and little local specialty stores, open past 10 pm. It also had a beautiful park with a mini waterfall, within walking distance of our hotel. 

The next day I met a nervous David Mueller in the lobby of the hotel, I gave him a big hug and both our anxieties went away. David unloaded his car, four large plastic containers, four smaller ones, a couple of boxes for the magazines, several loose messenger tubes, and two large flat boxes, up to the room. We chatted and ate pastries, and David showed me everything in his collection, with many backstories. The afternoon was fun and interesting, and we agreed to meet later for dinner. Like my trip to Wilsondale, this trip, meeting David, and later enjoying a nice dinner with him and his longtime partner Tony, was a key purpose of my trip. I felt connected to each of them, and I felt a greater sense of responsibility to tell Starr’s story both visually and through the written narrative. Hearing David’s recollections of Starr through their friendship, and seeing where Starr lived as a child, the family’s burial plot, and sitting on the floor of her sister’s dining room, going through her final items and possessions, are priceless, indelible memories I will cherish forever.

r.

 

 

 

When You Wish Upon a Starr

Entry One “Introduction”

Catherine Till Sansone

Let me introduce myself, my thesis subject, and how I became both the intern and the curator of an exhibit. I am referred to, in the academic world, as a non-traditional student, which is a polite way of saying you are probably old, and I am. This second, and much more successful attempt at a degree, is a far different world than when I left in 1971. Upon returning to academia, I only intended to receive my bachelor's degree, which I thought was unattainable. But a master's degree!!! Not anything I could or would have anticipated, yet here I am. So how did I, the most unlikely student, get here? 

In 2020, as an undergraduate, it was suggested I enter the accelerated master's program. After the shock, I thought about it and decided I didn’t have anything to lose, and the program would allow me to dip my toe in the pool's deep end with no real commitment. I graduated in 2021 and in the fall of the same year I officially entered the master’s program. I did not know what my thesis subject would be, but I felt a sense of urgency and pressure in finding one. As a lifelong resident of Baltimore, I am still fascinated by its history, architecture, and the people, who have called this great city their home. I thought to myself, what is the most colorful and interesting place in Baltimore? Instantly, Baltimore’s infamous adult entertainment district, known simply as the ‘Block,’ sprang to mind. In its heyday, it stretched almost five blocks, but today this seedy, rundown area, has whittled down to just that, a block. My research led me to the Two O’clock Club, one of a handful of clubs still operating as an adult venue, and has long been associated with former burlesque star, Blaze Starr. Starr was born Fannie Belle Fleming on April 10, 1932, in West Virginia, and at 15 left home and worked in Washington, D.C., as a waitress before performing in burlesque clubs in Philadelphia and New Orleans. She became one of the top burlesque dancers and was known as “The Hottest Blaze in Burlesque.” She was a comedian and prop stripper who received notoriety for her relationship with the often controversial Governor of Louisiana, Earl Long until he died in 1960. Starr first performed at The Two O’clock Club in Baltimore in 1950, and later purchased the club from Sol Goodman, her manager and friend, in 1968. She retired from dancing in 1972 and passed away in 2015. 

I am not a believer in coincidences, maybe, perhaps some quirky events or chance encounters are random, but based on my experience, they are all a sequence of connected events. Divinely ordered according to a master plan, or so it seemed regarding my thesis, which has been a series of fortunate events from beginning to end. The first was how I landed on Blaze Starr. In my research, I found her obituary, and as obituaries do, they list the names of deceased and surviving family members. I found her nephew and searched for him on Facebook to get an interview for my thesis. For grins and giggles, I reached out, fully expecting never to receive a response, but I did. That encounter led me to her sister, Gail, and both were so friendly, and warm and genuinely seemed thrilled that I was inquiring about their aunt and sister. When I relayed this information to one of my professors, they responded, “You have to do Blaze!” At first, I did not think I could find enough about her to hold a thesis, but happily, I took my professors' advice. I knew from the beginning that I somehow wanted to do an exhibit but fully realizing the impossibility of that happening was slim to none. So, was what happened next just a random event or a predestined happenstance? 

I applied for an internal position at CCBC working in their art galleries. The interview went smashing but I didn’t get the job and honestly, I can say it was the best rejection I ever received and led to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I was told, ‘Sorry you didn’t get the job, but we were so impressed with your thesis subject that we would like to host an exhibit.’ After I picked myself up off the floor my joy could not be contained, not only were they allowing me to curate an exhibit on the life of Starr but also an opportunity to intern. I thought it could not get any better until I received a call from the Director of the galleries, Nicole Buckingham Kerr, telling me that she just hired a new gallery installer, and by the way, he’s a professional drag queen!!!!! Somewhere I know Blaze is smiling. For my next episode, I will be discussing traveling to Wilsondale West Virginia, and Buffalo New York to retrieve the personal and professional artifacts from Starr’s life.

 

The Fellowship of Museum Professionals

 

While working on the collection policy for the Glenn L. Martin Aviation Museum (GLMMAM), I have discovered that although museums may have a common theme, they   operate differently. In my examination of best practices, I visited two other Maryland aviation museums, the College Park Aviation Museum and the Patuxent Naval Air Museum. From my contacts with these museums, I have found that each museum’s procedures are tailored to fit their own circumstances. However, they have a common denominator: they both strive to ensure their collections conform to their missions and to maintain professional standards. In these interactions, I also discovered a comradeship among museum professionals.

College Park Aviation Museum (CPAM)

CPAM is at the historic College Park Airport, which is the world’s oldest airport in continuous operation. The site, which was first used by Wilbur Wright to train the first three Army pilots, has been in service since October 1909. From 1918 to 1921, the airport also served as the Washinton terminus for the country’s first airmail route between Washington, Philadelphia, and New York City.

While the airport is CPAM’s primary focus, the museum’s scope encompasses the aviation history of Prince Georges County in general. CPAM preserves the legacy of the county’s long-forgotten airports, particularly Columbia Air Center in Croom, which was the first African American-owned and operated airport in Maryland. In addition, the museum’s scope includes former Maryland aircraft manufacturer Engineering Research Corporation (ERCO), whose Ercoupe was tested at the airport, and Maryland members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS). CPAM in fact houses the open-cockpit biplane that the GLMMAM executive director flew over the North Pole.

A public museum, CPAM operates under the auspices of the Prince Georges County Department of Parks and Recreation. It has a small professional staff, augmented by a sizable volunteer cadre to assist with admissions, the gift shop, and museum programs. Its collection policy provides a general framework for acquisitions, loans, and deaccessions; but its documentation process is laid out in a more detailed procedural manual. The curator has primacy in regard to collections but consults with the collection committee on major acquisitions.

My visit to CPAM, where I volunteered for twelve years, felt like a trip home. It was my first return there since 2018. On a personal tour guided by curator Luke Perez, I noticed familiar objects displayed in new ways. For example, the museum’s centerpiece, a Curtiss JN-4 mail plane, was placed in a new setting that included a display on Daisy Miller, the wife of one of the original civilian airmail pilots, Max Miller. Hired by the Post Office in 1918, Max was killed in a fiery plane accident after two years, which equaled the life expectancy of these early airmail pilots. To me, the display of Daisy’s personal items, including letters to Max, humanized these pilots’ sacrifice. 

The museum also had a new display on a pioneering woman pilot who was previously unknown to me, Bernetta Miller. The fifth American woman to earn a pilot’s license, Miller was licensed to fly a monoplane in 1912, at a time when biplanes were considered safer and simpler to fly. As a woman, she was chosen to demonstrate the ease of piloting a monoplane at College Park. This practice reoccurred throughout American aviation history. Using the social construct that women were not as capable as men, aircraft manufacturers often hired highly skilled women pilots to demonstrate planes considered too dangerous or difficult to fly, supposedly proving that “if a woman can fly it, anybody can.”

 

 

Patuxent River Naval Air Museum (PRNAM)

PRNAM is located in Lexington Park, Maryland, adjacent to the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, where the Navy tests U.S. and foreign warplanes. The museum’s focus is naval aviation research and testing. Established in 1978, it was once an official U.S. Navy museum but has been private since 2016. Largely an all-volunteer organization, PRNAM often draws from personnel formerly assigned to the base.

The museum’s collection team especially benefits from ongoing ties with the base, where it receives objects and technical assistance. Like GLMMAM, the PRANM team is composed of part-time volunteers, although their number is larger. The team follows a rather comprehensive collection policy and a detailed procedural manual. Whereas the CPAM curator largely makes acquisition decisions, the PRANM team decides collectively.

My trip to PRNAM happened to coincide with a visit by the GLMMAM executive and assistant directors, curator, and board members. Having completed my meeting with the collection team in the morning, I was able to join my comrades for their afternoon activities. We received a tour from PRNAM board president and participated in discussions with its leaders.

 

Similarities

Regardless of differences in their processes, both museums follow strict criteria on what to accept into their collections, guided by their collection policies. Furthermore, their staff members who are responsible for collection management—paid or unpaid—are committed  to the standards of our profession. This dedication was obvious in their assistance to me to establish these standards at GLMMAM. My contacts at both museums freely shared their experience and collection documents. Their most important contribution, however, was their time. CPAM curator Luke Perez spent well over an hour discussing collections and showing me his museum. PRNAM collection team leader Pam Bone and team member Jane Macone met with me on their day off. Their cooperation indicates to me a fellowship among museum professionals.

Vinegar Syndrome at MSA

 

The main project I worked on while I was an intern at the Maryland State Archives was with MSA’s master negative microfilm collection, in which I was given the task to identify microfilm reels that were at risk of developing vinegar syndrome, and separating those reels form the rest of the collection in order to mitigate the spread of vinegar syndrome. 

Vinegar syndrome is a process that can occur when the natural decay of older reels of film start to produce acetic acid, leading to deterioration of the film, leading it to become warped, brittle, and smelling of vinegar (leading to its namesake). If gone undetected, or left to fester, vinegar syndrome can leave a reel of film unusable, so when a reel with vinegar syndrome is found, it's important that steps are taken to preserve the reel as much as possible, typically through digitization. When a reel with vinegar syndrome is found, it is important to separate it from other reels of film. This is because the acetic acid that develops on one reel of film can transfer to other reels of film, and start deteriorating them as well.

On an average day during my internship, I would come in in the morning, say hello to everyone, head to the loading dock where the microfilm reels were kept, open the garage door and start the ventilation fan, put on some gloves, and look for reels that showed signs of vinegar syndrome, before it became too hot outside to keep the garage door open. It wasn’t uncommon for me to go through two or three pairs of gloves a day, as the acetic acid from the reels would eat away at the gloves quickly. Similarly, while the ventilation system was a nice way to stay cool, it was primarily used to keep me from inhaling any fumes that could have been produced by acetic acid. 

Over the course of the summer I went through a few thousand reels of microfilm, individually checking every single reel of microfilm for signs of vinegar syndrome. The result was the separation of a handful of microfilm reels which had shown signs of early onset vinegar syndrome. Despite having gone through so many reels, I was barely able to make a dent in the overall master negative microfilm collection. 

 

These images show examples of film reels without (first) and with (second) vinegar syndrome. 

 

 

Organizing an Archival Collection: Maryland Folklife Network Internship

Hi again,

For those of you who may not have read my first blog post, my name is Josh Masser, and I am currently working as the Maryland Folklife Network Intern for UMBC’s special collections. The bulk of this internship is focused on processing a newly acquired collection of archival materials that is currently named the Mills of Baltimore County Collection. Archival processing is essentially the act of organizing, appraising, and defining a given collection of materials. The Mills of Baltimore County Collection is just one part of a larger collection of materials gathered by Charles L. Wagandt II (roughly eighty boxes of varying size).

Since my last post, I have completed the processing plan for the collection, which outlines how I plan to approach organizing the collection and arguing why this collection will be useful for future research. With the processing plan finalized, I have begun to process part of the collection. To keep things manageable, I have been instructed to focus on just one of the proposed series of the collection. I decided to begin with what is currently being called “Series II – W.J. Dickey and Sons.” As the name suggests, this series focuses on the operations of the W.J. Dickey and Sons Textile Company and its employees. The W.J. Dickey and Sons company was a large Baltimore based textile conglomerate that seized upon a growing demand for locally made textiles in the early nineteenth century. Before the company went out of business in 1972, the company owned and operated a number of mills in places like Oella, Dickeyville, and Stoney Point, North Carolina. The W.J. Dickey and Sons company materials were collected by Charles Wagandt II who was the great-grandson of William James Dickey (W.J. Dickey) the founder of the company.

To make the series more manageable for both me and future researchers, it will be divided into several sub-series. These sub-series are all smaller topics within the umbrella of the W.J Dickey and Sons company. For example, one of the sub-series will contain materials related to the company’s operations, while another will have materials related to employees and so on. Over the past few weeks of processing, I have been pulling materials from their boxes and sorting them into these sub series. Ironically throughout the process I keep thinking of ways that I can further subdivide the collection.

Organizing this series has been challenging because of the wide variety of materials that are in the collection. The collection contains things like company ledgers, meeting minutes, contracts, patents, articles of incorporation, ephemera, employee files, and paychecks. Finding a logical way to organize these materials for future researchers is almost like a puzzle. When I was preparing the processing plan, I had to think about how these materials should be organized and provide justification as to why I believed that was the best method. As an aspiring researcher, doing this work really makes me appreciate the work that archivists do to make the research process as smooth as possible.

Until next time,

Josh

Working in the basement

Digital Archiving

             While interning with the archives department at the Space Telescope Science Institute one of the most challenging and interesting tasks I have had the opportunity to work on has been a digital archiving project.   The main project I have worked on was to organize and create original metadata for a collection of Technical Reports for the Hubble Space Telescope.  The reports were digitally stored on the website called Box but needed to have their metadata recorded and transferred to ArchivEra.  ArchivEra is the website that the Space Telescope Science Institute uses for organizing its collections online.  The goal of the project was to create a user-friendly research tool for employees at the Space Telescope Science Institute by allowing them to search through multiple collections using the metadata.  Eventually, the goal will be to make the material available to the public online.    

            I began the project by going through two collections of Technical Reports for the Hubble Space Telescope and adding an index of contents to an Excel spreadsheet.  The content had to be added in the spreadsheet separated by a semicolon, with no spaces separating the values.  After completing this project I added the index of contents to the material that was already in ArchivEra, but still needed an index of content. 

However, not all the material had been transferred from Box to ArchivEra, so I had to create further metadata for them, and then add them into ArchivEra.  The other fields of metadata were the title of the report, date, date range, creators, processing information, download URL, accrual URL, index of content (which I already added), and location of the report in Box.  Next, I had to ensure that the spreadsheet was saved as a CSV UTF-8 (Comma Delimited) (.csv) and that the information was formatted correctly.  Finally, I went into ArchivEra and uploaded the spreadsheet, which automatically added the metadata to the reports.    

This has been my most interesting project thus far in my internship because digital archiving is the skill I primarily wanted to learn during this opportunity.  I believe having digital libraries and archives is important because it allows more access to a collection despite location.  I have found this project challenging due to the complex formatting requirements and the unclear error messages from ArchivEra.  The formatting required for the project is quite complex and I have found it necessary to constantly check the manual provided to me to ensure that the metadata is entered correctly into the spreadsheet.  If the formatting is incorrect ArchivEra will not accept the upload.  The error messages are also unclear to me as they use codes to express the mistake in the spreadsheet rather than highlighting the incorrect text.  This means that if there is an error message, I have to go back through the spreadsheet and carefully analyze the values to find the error.  However, despite this, I have still enjoyed the project as it has allowed me to gain a new skill in archives and make myself more marketable for future internships and jobs.  I love the feeling of finishing inputting metadata and knowing that it will help researchers find the materials they need.  

                     Image from NASA website: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/.