Gnashing my Teeth: Lots and Lots of Archive Work!

 

When it came to tackling this massive collection, it was really a case of just diving in headfirst! We had already gone through all the boxes and made a preliminary overview of everything, so now I had to go binder by binder, folder by folder, box by box with everything. I began going page by page with every single document, scanning them and adding accession numbers for everything. A ton of this stuff was old faxes, printed out emails, and letters organizing conferences, seminars, and events. And I had to go page by page, scanning even the documents that were flight confirmation faxes, dinner menus, or hotel booking information. As tedious as it was, it was interesting to see hotel brochures from the 1990s for fancy European resorts, or cancelations of flights due to ‘events happening in New York last week’, written in September of 2001. As I scanned, I also kept folder and subfolders on a shared hard drive on the computer, where all the digitized files were sorted by binder and by box.

Once I’d gone through a few of these boxes just containing binders of correspondence and travel plans, I moved on to boxes of published medical journals. This was a bit harder of a task, since Branemark kept multiple copies of every article, book chapter, or even interview he’d ever given. While about half were in English, he’d published a lot of work in Swedish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, even Japanese. His very first published article from the 1950s, on conducting experiments on the vascular system of rabbits had around 50 copies of it in the collection! I created a chart with the title of each journal, the article title, the year published, the language of the article, how many copies we had, and if the article was accessible online already in a database or not. This took a long time, especially since I had to go one by one and look up article titles with complicated (at least for me) medical terminology as the titles to find them online. About half of the articles were available online in some capacity, and about a fifth or so of the total articles I could find no trace of at all. Sometimes, the case was it was an incredibly low-quality photocopy of book pages where I couldn’t find any title and looking up chapter titles got me nothing, sometimes it was entirely in a foreign language or alphabet I had difficulty using to search, and sometimes, 1960s Swedish academic journals just weren’t preserved widely online.

Once this treacherous task was finished, I took over the conference room with all my journals. I laid them all out, a total of about 3 boxes worth of academic work, which ultimately took up every single flat surface in the room. My supervisor and I decided that the museum really only needed to keep 2 copies of each article at most, since some had anywhere from 15-50 copies. We would see if the ACP would like all these extra copies back, and if not, they would probably end up recycled. Then, I went through, keeping two copies of each article and putting any remaining copies back into their respective boxes. While doing this I did some crude math calculations, so that the ACP could know exactly how many articles we had to potentially return to them.

All this work took a while, and after the scavenger hunt of trying to find each article online, it got a bit less fun, and a bit more tedious. But I had finally finished, and we had 3 piles of ‘to keep’ articles, and 3 boxes of ‘to return/get rid of articles’ nicely sorted.

Author of an article I found whose last name made me LOL

National Museum of Dentistry Internship: Sinking my Teeth In!

 

For my internship, I continued working with the National Museum of Dentistry we have here in Baltimore! During my undergrad, I worked with them for HIST 391 , and I’ve become good buddies with the Collections Assistant, so I was excited to work with them again over this past summer!

The project I was working on was a donation from the American College of Prosthodontics of a collection relating to the pioneering dentist Per-Ingvar Branemark (1929-2014). Branemark was a Swedish doctor turned dentist who discovered that titanium and bone fuse together extremely well for what he would go on to call ‘osseointegrated implants’ that could be used all over the body for prosthetic teeth, limbs, fingers, even ears, noses, eyes, chins, lips, literally anything you can imagine. The entire collection was donated upon his death to the ACP by his assistant turned wife, Barbro Svensson.

A lot of his work the museum wanted to keep and work with was focusing on dental implants specifically, but you really could do so much with osseointegration in the field of restorative surgery. This collection was essentially everything Branemark ever wrote or published, scheduling information, handouts, and communication related to every professional event he ever attended, patents for every medical tool he ever invented in every country it was patented in, and tools and photographs from just about all the surgeries he ever performed.

The first steps in what we were doing with the collection was to go through all the boxes and just get a general idea of everything that had been donated, how we’d need to go through it, and where to house the items that we were going to keep. Since the collection spanned a wide variety of archival objects, we separated them into archival materials (faxes, letters, pamphlets, booklets, surgery plans, etc.) and physical objects (medical tools, photographs, slides, photo negatives, DVDs and VHS tapes, etc.). I essentially made a colored coded chart with each of the boxes and recorded the contents, archival or object, to start off the process. The curator of the museum, who actually is a licensed dentist himself, handled the processing and digitization of about half of the ‘object’ boxes: the DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes, as well as adding records for the medical instruments to the collection. My main task was going through everything else!

I first began to get a general overview of all the boxes I would be going through since there were 20+ binders filled with 50 or so years of information. I created preliminary little finding aids with information about binder and folder contents, with basic info like “correspondence and slides regarding professional seminars and conferences attended from 1980-2001”, or “medical journals published from 1960-1980”. Just a little more specific than my color-coded spreadsheet to help myself work! After all boxes were gone through, I was able to sort things into groups essentially, of all the boxes just filled with academic journal articles, boxes with just cases filled with slides and photo negatives, boxes just filled with books and patent paperwork, and boxes just filled with binders. It was a bit daunting to see all the boxes filled with so much stuff at first, but once we’d tackled this first step, it felt much more doable!

From there, we were faced with going through each box, one by one!

A little doodle I came across in the files!

Completing under intense Heat and Humidity

 

Thomas Pate

            My internship at Sharp Street Memorial Church in Baltimore was a rewarding and fun experience, but that did not mean it was without challenges. The challenges of this internship were caused by a series of unfortunate events that made the processing of the Wilson collection much more difficult than initially anticipated. Some of these were out of the control of the church, while others were the result of issues with the buildings that required serious repair, and will hopefully be sorted with the return of some grants.

            The first issue was the heat and the humidity, which were not ideal over the Summer of 2025. The community center, where my internship was located, lacked air conditioning, but had some fans to keep myself and my manager cool. The archival center had some air conditioning, but it was mainly located on the first floor, with the second and third floors being particularly hot and humid, which are not good conditions for historical documents. However, once the documents were moved out of these areas, the heat and humidity were only problems outside of the church, although thankfully, plenty of water was provided.

            The second issue was plumbing, and this was caused by a break in while I was working on the Edward Wilson collection. I will not fault the church for this, since someone scaled the barbed wire fence, pulled off a metal frame over a window (I am unsure how), and entered the basement in search of valuables. I heard some clanging, but this was a regular sound in the busy streets around the church, so I thought nothing of it. It was not until I needed to use the bathroom that I discovered that there was no running water, and this was due to the copper pipes having been cut out of the basement so no water could reach the community center's upper levels.  A police report had to be filed, but the perpetrator was long gone by the time they arrived.

            Besides having to walk across into the church proper to use the bathroom, this incident disrupted several meetings that were supposed to be held in the community center due to a lack of facilities. A repair was conducted in August to address the issue, and a private security guard would occasionally fly a drone around the building. I am not sure if these methods were effective, but there were no more incidents for the rest of the summer.

            These may sound discouraging to the next intern but fear not. I had an excellent summer internship, and these are challenges you may face at any internship. I include the photo of my award from my manager, Sister Ford, because at the end of a challenge in life, there is a payoff. This came from recognition from the entire church of my efforts to improve the history of Sharp Street despite the heat and inconveniences that were faced during my duty. The job was completed, and I became a better person out of it.

Sorting Through the Mass

 

Thomas Pate

My internship at Sharp Street Memorial Methodist Church in Baltimore focused on the organization and archiving of the Edward Wilson collection, a large quantity of old documents from a man by the name of Edward Wilson. Edward Wilson lived from 1892 to 1979 and was a veteran of the First World War. He was also the registrar of Morgan State University, a member of Sharp Street Methodist Church, and the Maryland Board of Education. He was a major activist for African Americans and was a prominent member of the community in West Baltimore. Wilson was also a member of several fraternities and coordinated campus life for the Methodist Church in Morgan State.

The first step of processing this collection was the transportation of the approximately one hundred boxes from the church archival center across the street to the community center. This was done to save the collection from the deteriorating conditions of the archival center on the third floor, which would be remodeled. These documents had once been processed by another member of the church, so some of the boxes had a degree of organization, but the vast majority had been haphazardly dumped with no organization. Stickers left on the box from the first sorting, around 2012, were also incorrect in detailing what was in the boxes.

The collection of documents had the challenge of being full of absolute junk and garbage. Dr Wilson spared every single document he seemed to have physically touched in his life, as it was also full of receipts, checks, Christmas cards, tax statements for Wilson, tax statements for Wilson’s wife, Alice, tax statements for random people who were completely unknown to the church (I guess that these were done for others out of kindness). One critical role of an archivist is deaccessioning and sorting out documents that, although they are old, are not worth saving due to degradation, space constraints, or are of no research value. Newspapers were removed due to existing copies in outside collections. Receipts are thrown away because they are of no research value. Moldy Christmas cards are a health hazard. There is no need to save horoscopes from the 1960s, or receipts to companies that merged into others over 70 years ago.

Books were not spared either. Dr. Wilson had books from all sorts of places, and many of these were critical to detailing church history, but some books had to be disposed of due to being in print elsewhere or being out of date (particularly for Methodist doctrine). Books that had mold had to be disposed of, and only a few were saved for restoration purposes and safely boxed away from the rest of the collection. An oddity of the collection was the artifacts and other miscellaneous junk saved by Dr. Wilson, including old pipes, glasses, and a small iron fist (presumably a paperweight).

Some of these boxes contained documentation of Wilson’s contribution to the Methodist Church, but he also seemed to hold on to much of the documentation for events going back to the early 1900s. Sorting these documents would be the next step of the process of archiving the collection, by categorizing the saved documents into the various boxes pictured above. Some of these categories included Sharp Street History, Dr. Wilson’s activism, Dr Wilson’s work with the Maryland board of education, Morgan, photographs and negatives, physical artifacts, community activism, legal documents, and his writings (he wrote many sermons). Also pictured is the dehumidifier, a valuable tool for controlling humidity during the hot months of June, July, and August.

Much more work is still needed to make this archive accessible to the public, but at least, the materials are in a better environment, the boxes have been sorted, and valuable materials have been found for the church. Digitization would be an important step to preserve the history of the documents, as many were in poor shape.

The Old Methodist Church in Baltimore

 

Thomas Pate

            Sharp Street Memorial Methodist Church graciously accepted my application to intern at the church in May of 2025 to complete a series of tasks with a historic African American church in Baltimore, near the McCullough Homes. This building, first constructed in 1802 and rebuilt in 1897 as the present building, was the result of Black Methodism being segregated from the white Methodist church in the late 18^th century. The church is a large building comprised of masonry and stained glass, and it has a beautiful interior sanctuary. However, my internship would primarily be in the church community center, a connected building next door to the church.

            The other building owned by the church is a townhouse across Etting Street that has three floors. On the first and second floors, a small museum dedicated to the history of the church is displayed in several rooms. The area around the church has your usual Baltimore-style townhomes, save for the large apartment buildings across Dolphin Street. Navigating the church and its adjacent buildings was at first a challenge for me due to the labyrinth of rooms, staircases, and hallways, particularly in the church. I was struck by how small and narrow these buildings were, probably due to different building standards in Baltimore during the 19^th century that did not require larger staircases or simple structural designs. I wish buildings today could still be constructed with this degree of design freedom, and I admired the architecture of all these structures.

My first task was to catalogue all these exhibits in these rooms into an Excel spreadsheet, which did not take me long to complete. My next task was the moving and sorting of the Edward Wilson archival collection, which I will explain in the next post. My later tasks included finding and aiding in grant applications, which were needed for renovations to the archival center. These tasks were outlined to me at the beginning of the internship and were completed around September of this year, so the internship was roughly four months in length.

The internship was helpful for my thesis research, as it had many old records related to 19th-century history. One such example was the membership of many of the attendees who were listed in the Wilson collection. I managed to identify two members who potentially served in United States Colored Troop units during the American Civil War and attended Sharp Street in the late 19^th century, named John H Smith and George “Bishop” Chambers. I discovered George Chambers as a member of Sharp Street since he was listed as an attendee in the Baltimore Afro American in an obituary, and I am fairly certain that John H Smith served in the USCT since he was a trustee at Sharp Street, lived in District 17, and had some enlistment documents for the US Army (unfortunately pinning down his unit and muster roll still require further research). 

Overall, the internship had some challenges, but it was an excellent learning experience and was useful in providing some research for my thesis. It still requires work, so if more UMBC interns are looking to fulfill an internship credit and have previous archival experience, this may be a lucrative opportunity.

 

Image: Google Maps Street view (my phone camera is not that good)

Phase 1 of Gable End Restoration on Walkersville Home

Phase 1

I have been employed with Hestia Restoration, a general contractor specializing in historic restoration, since February 2024. The owner, Matthew Benning, and I are the sole employees of the company. Previously, I worked with Fitzgerald’s Heavy Timber on the restoration of a fourbay bank barn in Summits Point, WV, from July 2023-Jan 2024. Currently, Hestia is working on the restoration of Matt’s own home. We are working on the gable end of the north elevation ell which extends from the original 1830s log home on Main Street, Walkersville. There is a one story kitchen addition off the two story brick ell, the roof of which meets the gable end of the ell. The brick ell has a second story sleeping porch on the west elevation of the home that has been converted into a bathroom and laundry room. The attic contains the original wooden shingles used on the roof, alike to the original log home. Because of improper flashing of the kitchen addition mating to the gable end of this ell, including the brick and framed portions of the porch, has received significant damage on its siding and facade.

We estimate that this ell was added during the Civil War period due to the large, approximately 3 to 4 inch by 8 inch, bricks and their soft composition. 

Unfortunately, the brick was parged with cement render that has caused significant spalling damage to the bricks. Several of these bricks will need to be replaced with similar bricks that have been salvaged through many projects. The brick was laid in an American Bond pattern with a tie course, laid short side in rather than horizontally, every eight courses of bricks. Our first objective in the restoration of this gable end is to remove the rotted wooden german siding, underlayment sheeting, and cement parging by hand. Once the compromised materials were removed, we began to reframe the gable wall attic space and replace the sheeting.