Tag Archives: work

Working in the archive is punctuated by helping out other parts of the museum. Last week volunteers (and staff) dressed up for a mini-performance in one of the historic houses. This is the post-performance performance, haha.

I recently worked on three boxes of the collection that had lived in someone’s barn for decades (and apparently had a bird at some point crawl in and die, leaving behind a bird silloutte and little feathers all over a group of papers). These papers were (unsurprisingly) absolutely disgusting. Yikes! Though cleaning up the papers provided a welcome change of pace.

So far it’s been a weird combination of me making things up and looking up suggestions online. My supervisor sometimes makes statements like “it absolutely doesn’t matter what order the materials were in originally” that sort of blow my mind. I was pretty sure that taking note of the original arrangement (if there is one) was something worth doing. I was also criticized for sorting in piles, because when you sort you are not suppose to make piles?! (I’m not quite sure what that means!) At this point I feel like I was absolutely spoiled with all the knowledge and help from others at my last internship. I am a bit hesitant to mention these sorts of things on a public blog, especially as there are some helpful moments, but it is a part of what is shaping my experience here so it feel dishonest not to consider all aspects of the internship.

Cats in the archive! An envelope of kitten photos somehow ended up wedged in between photos of buildings of York. This should probably return to the collection’s original owner.

The bulk of the Peter Moore Collection is comprised of 20th century photographs and business related papers. Here is junk mail sent to Roger Norton, a local businessman. I’ve come to realize I love old junk mail!

What a past few weeks it’s been!

Once training finished I got a chance to start getting into my big project for the summer – the Peter Moore Collection. Peter Moore was (and is) a firefighter in the York area. He started collecting local postcards, both old and new, that documented the changes of the York area. He also began collecting all kind of local ephemera, especially of items that documented local businesses and celebrations – business cards, brochures, flyers, photographs, and publications. In the 1990s and early 2000s he wrote an article for the local paper on Unknown Histories of the area.There are a lot of duplicates to be weeded out, and a lot of photocopies of materials he found in the Museum for his article research.

I’m glad I reboxed 115 boxes of material earlier in the year – 38 boxes and a handful of binders don’t seem all that terrible to tackle. I’ve been seriously digging into the collection in the past week, and I’m almost halfway through an initial sorting!

The Museum has its roots as a historical society, and its roots still show in some places, particularly in the part of the Museum where I work. The project so far has been a great experience in terms of working through a collection and researching information for the finding aid, but I haven’t been learning as much about the technical details of archiving as I’d hoped. To make up for that I’ve been doing a lot of online research, reading the SAA list-serv archive and searching other museums and archives for advice on the handling of particular collection items and how to make a finding aid that is up to current standards.

Inside the 1930s junk mail envelope – a penny to be used for mailing in the contest entry slip.