Category Archives: Features

Historic Newton’s Early Photograph Collection

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Written by Patricia Feeley, Interlibrary Loan Librarian, Boston Public Library

Photo case for Portrait of a man
Photo cover

Historic Newton’s Early Photograph Collection has something for everyone who loves photographs: daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes, hand painted miniature portraits and cartes de visite.  You can see the fashionable cases of the day as well.  Many of Newton’s historically prominent families are included.  The poses struck range from the straightforward, all business portrait of Charles Redding, an African-American sailor who served on the famous USS Kearsage during the Civil War, to the dandified Stephen Winchester Dana Jackson in his fur-trimmed coat – and with a name that reads like the genealogical profile of a Boston Brahmin.

Sara Leavitt Goldberg, Archivist and Curator of Manuscripts and Photographs for Historic Newton (HN), took up her position about seven and a half years ago.  Always interested in photographs, she did a concentration in archives at Simmons College.  She then interned and consulted at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Watertown.  Sara’s predecessor at HN, Susan Abele, began the photo project 10 years ago.  With assistance from Ron Polito, co-author of Massachusetts photographers, 1839-1900, she created a comprehensive inventory of the photograph collection that Sara has found invaluable.

Charles Redding
Charles Redding

Inventory and collection in hand, Sara wanted to make it more broadly accessible while protecting her materials.  HN is a small, public/private collaborative and did not have the budget to digitize on its own.  Sara

went looking for a few good partners.

Digital Commonwealth (DC) had been on Sara’s radar since Simmons.  Sara knew she wanted to talk to DC.  She also knew about Simmons College’s internship program.  Here were two sources of free, professional help for her project.  Sara recommends both to small cultural institutions with limited budgets and big digitization dreams.

The photo inventory done by previous staff was an essential part of the process.  Kelsey Sawyer, the Simmons intern, handled all of the HN metadata based on the data in the inventory.  Sara is convinced the more prepared your institution is before you send your collection to digitization, the easier – and faster – it will go.  She characterizes her experience as “remarkably flawless.”

Stephen Winchester Dana Jackson
Stephen Winchester Dana Jackson

Sara contacted DC in January, DC visited in February, she dropped off the collection in April, the imaging was done in June and uploaded in August.  She got her collection back in September.  It “truly could not have been easier.”

Sara sent HN staff a link to the collection and everyone was impressed.  She is eager to show the images off to her trustees and museum council.

Her advice to anyone still on the fence about digitization: Take the time to get your descriptions done and done right.  She gives full credit to HN staff for their work on the inventory and metadata.  Next, find yourself a few good partners.  She can recommend two.

In summary, Sara says it was “well worth the price of membership” to have DC digitize her collection.  HN owns some collections in partnership with the city, so Sara has some negotiating to do before she can send more collections.  But send more she will.

National Archives at Boston Civil Defense Photographs Collection

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Written by Patricia Feeley, Interlibrary Loan Librarian, Boston Public Library

from NARA- Boston's Civil Defense Photos Collection
Improvising utensils from the Civil Defense Photo Collection

The National Archives at Boston (NARA-Boston) recently added a fascinating collection of Civil Defense photographs.  The Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) had the two-fold job of preparing Americans for natural disasters and military attacks.  Its heyday was in the Cold War years of the 1950’s.  It may be best known these days for its (in)famous Duck and Cover animated film.  However, the agency also assisted with natural disaster preparation.  One of the nationwide exercises it ran was emergency mass feeding courses, which were useful for either agency responsibility.  In an emergency, one might not have access to a full kitchen, so citizens were taught how to improvise utensils and how to cook without access to a kitchen.

Another exercise was Operation Alert.  Instituted in 1954, these exercises were designed to test how well the nation responded to a virtual nuclear attack.  The day after an exercise, newspapers published reports of

Operation "Alert" 1956 -Harvard, Massachusetts from Civil Defense Photo Collection
Operation “Alert” 1956 -Harvard, Massachusetts from Civil Defense Photo Collection

these virtual attacks.  They would even detail the number of virtual cities hit, the number of virtual bombs that were dropped, and the number of virtual casualties.  Pacifists in New York protested what they saw as the absurdity of preparing to survive a nuclear attack.  Soon a group of young mothers joined the protest.  The protests grew to include students and spread nationwide.  Operation Alert was permanently cancelled in 1962.

You may notice browsing the collection, as I did, that women are prominently featured in the Civil Defense photographs. This is not by accident.   The FCDA created a massive recruitment campaign targeting women.  While women were mainly directed toward care-giving roles, you can see in the poster for Women’s Activities and Conferences that women also were expected to train to take up arms in defense of the country.

Women's Activities and Conferences [1958-1960] from Civil Defense Photo Collection
Women’s Activities [1958-1960] from Civil Defense Photo Collection
Alfie Paul, Director of Archival Operations at NARA-Boston, has been with the National Archives for 10 years and in his current position as director of the Boston field unit since February of 2015.

One of NARA’s main strategic goals nationally is digitization.  So when Alfie assumed his position in Boston, he wanted to make digitization a priority in Boston, too.  Like many of Digital Commonwealth’s members, he was hampered by a lack of resources to do it on his own.  He recognized that using the services of Digital Commonwealth was a great solution for his organization – and for the people of Massachusetts, who he suspected were not aware of all that NARA-Boston offers.  Or even that NARA has a presence in the state.  However, no other NARA unit had worked out a similar partnership.

Alfie wanted to get all his facts straight before taking his proposal to headquarters.  Digital Commonwealth welcomed Alfie and one of his archivists to visit the facilities and answered all his questions so he could speak knowledgeably to his superiors.  In fact, Alfie did so much research and investigation that after his project was approved, nothing that occurred during the process of the project surprised him.  The “only real challenge” was making sure the metadata was compliant with the way NARA catalogs its records.  I know metadata compliance is a challenge shared by many of DC’s members – here’s proof it can be overcome.

In all, Alfie estimates it took two months from start to finish to digitize his materials.  He is eager to add more.  Boston historians will be thrilled if his “dream” of digitizing the Morgan v. Hennigan case file (Boston busing) – all 50 cubic feet of it – comes true.  Alfie will keep sending records as long as DC “keep[s] doing what they do.  It’s a fantastic resource.”

Two sailors from the USS Masonfrom U.S. Naval District 1 Photo Collection
Two sailors from the USS Mason from U.S. Naval District 1 Photo Collection

NARA-Boston has two collections on DC currently.  Alfie is partial to the Photographs of the First Naval District collection.  One of his favorites is of two sailors from the USS Mason, the first predominately African-American ship in the U.S. Navy.  He’s already featured it on the NARA-Boston website.

Next up will be photos of the Watertown Arsenal.  Stayed tuned.

The “best feedback” Alfie could get on his digitization projects is also the best feedback for DC: The Archivist of the United States “loves it”.

Massachusetts College of Art and Design collections

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Written by Patricia Feeley, Collaborative Services Librarian, Boston Public Library

"Massachusetts Normal Art School, Deacon House," from the Campus Life collection.
“Massachusetts Normal Art School, Deacon House,” from the Campus Life collection.

Massachusetts Normal Art School opened in 1873 with the goal of educating art teachers to teach drawing at lower levels of education.  The hope was that this effort would result in more architects for the growing country.  Massachusetts Normal Art School became Massachusetts School of Art became Massachusetts College of Art and, finally Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt).

MassArt prides itself on having always been a progressive school.  As a teacher’s college, it began with a majority female student body.  MassArt also accepted African-American students early on.  It was, and today is the only, publicly-funded art-only school in the country.  Over the years, the mission has changed, but the creativity of the students continues.

Danielle Sangalang has only been at MassArt for a little over a year.  After graduating with a dual degree of MA in history and MLS in library and information science with a concentration in archives studies from Simmons College, she obtained a history degree and worked for the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the National Park Services and the Trustees of Reservations.

When she arrived at MassArt, the college had already digitized a physical exhibit of historical photos on campus life.  She has since used Digital Commonwealth (DC) to digitized school yearbooks and just last month dropped off a collection of student handbooks.

Palette and Pen from MassArt yearbook collection.
Palette and Pen from MassArt yearbook collection.

Danielle had a great experience working with Digital Commonwealth.  She appreciated the onsite visit which allowed her to float her ideas and listen to suggestions from DC staff.  Together they decided to use the option of having her bound materials scanned by Internet Archive.  Danielle was aware of DC from as long ago as her days at Simmons College.  As a professional, she thinks DC is a great resource for “lone arrangers” like her, especially because it is free.  She knew as soon as she started at MassArt that she wanted to begin to work with DC to digitize some of her collection’s treasures.

Danielle’s yearbook project began with an email July 19, 2016.  A site visit was scheduled for September 7 and the first yearbooks were dropped off September 14.  The entire project was done by December 12.  As quickly as this went, Danielle wished she’d known ahead that she would be without the yearbooks for months.  Some of the yearbooks were unique copies and she was continued to receive requests for scans while they were inaccessible.

It was worth it, though.  Once the yearbooks became available, Danielle sent an all-campus email announcing the completed digitization.  Staff and faculty responded quickly with their thanks and delight at being able to view the yearbooks online.

"Student handbook" from MassArt handbook collection.
“Student handbook” from MassArt handbook collection.

Danielle’s second project was MassArt’s Student Association handbooks, a collection spanning 80 years beginning in the 1920’s.  This collection is Danielle’s pick for highlighting.  The early years are both handbook –rules and regulations, the “MSA creed”, student activities – and directory – student names, addresses and telephone numbers.  For anyone interested in the history of MassArt, they are a goldmine.

The 1937-1938 handbook, for example, offered students information on the glee club and yearbook committee, but also the magic and fencing clubs.  Danielle pointed out that the magic club existed for 10 years.  Who knew?

Danielle plans to continue to use DC as MassArt gears up to celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2023.  If DC didn’t prioritize collections from institutions who have not previously had a project done in the current fiscal year, Danielle would be submitting requests as fast as DC could do them.

Speaking of MassArt’s history, that once physical exhibit now digital collection on Campus Life is available on the DC website.  The photos span late 19th century class trips to Lake Asquam in New Hampshire to a studio of students playing checkers in 1918 to mid-20th century fashions from the design classes.

Portrait of class of 1927 on Smock Day from MassArt Campus Life collection.
Portrait of class of 1927 on Smock Day from MassArt Campus Life collection.

A charming bit of MassArt’s history is Smock Day. Danielle only recently learned that Smock Day was the final acceptance of the freshman into the ranks of the student body.  The seniors gave smocks to the freshmen to welcome them.  It was a big deal: There were Smock Day class photos, Smock Day dances (Admission was free with Student Association membership.) and the school president gave a dinner in honor of Smock Day.  Quite the welcome!

Photos of students’ work are not abundant.  Danielle would love to have the final drawings students do to complete their degrees digitized.  The drawings are loose and come in a variety of sizes, so they are not prime candidates for digitization.  But come the day DC can handle them, Danielle will be there with her completed application.