Antonio Ferraro
This week at Eckley, I began the next step in the inventory project as well as continued my research for my small exhibit.
The process for inventorying archival collections (the portion of Eckley’s collection that I am now working on) is slightly different than that for normal artifacts. Artifacts are typically stored either in boxes or directly on shelves, and each individual object has a unique identification number tied to each part of the object—often, objects with many parts will have each part numbered individually for record-keeping’s sake. Meanwhile, archives are typically stored almost entirely in boxes when able, and are often grouped in small collections, where each acid-free paper box will contain between one and several small collections of papers, documents, etc. that are all catalogued under the same identical number that, when searched in our database, will yield a description for all of the objects under that number. For example, in the archives, there could be a box that contains a small collection of letters pertaining to a certain person, and such those letters will be grouped together under the same number, e.g. AB12.3.
On the other hand, there are sometimes objects in archival collections that are numbered individually, like artifacts, that are stored together with other objects that have different numbers. For example, there could be one box that contains dozens of completely unrelated articles, from workers’ time books to letters to postcards to advertisement booklets, all with different numbers. Such distinctions are very important to make when making corresponding records in our system.
A WWII-era Army propaganda news bulletin made for distribution to schoolteachers that describes school-age boys’ contributions to the war effort, c. 1940s.
A pamphlet for a WWII-era flag-raising ceremony at Eckley, c. September 1943.
A Great War-era American Expeditionary Force (AEF) US Army book of songs, c. 1918.
A timesheet for “breaker boys,” who were young boys employed in coal mining operations who worked in the coal breakers, where they separated mined coal from impurities like rock and soil, c. late 19th – early 20th century.
Often, there are duplicate records created in our database for those collections of multiple objects under the same number, such as one collection I recently inventoried that had over a dozen separate recipe books that were all numbered the same, part of the same collection, but had unique records online under the same duplicated number. This separation causes unnecessary confusion because of the duplicated numbers (Collections Management may often be wondering why there are a dozen different records for objects all numbered AB12.3 yet with unique descriptions and names), and furthermore takes up unnecessary space in Argus, our software, which is very limited and must be conserved. An important part of my job while inventorying is to catch these duplicated records and consolidate them when possible—unfortunately, there are quite a large amount of these bad records left over from as long ago as 1997, the last time much of our archival collection’s records were updated.
Having to change my approach to inventorying this part of our collection has been jarring, but nonetheless interesting and valuable to my experience in working with collections, as many curators manage both artifact and archival collections from time to time (depending on where they work).
Front cover, a catalogue from a clothier / department store in New York, NY offering clothes, housewares, sporting goods, and other items catered mostly to women, but also to men and children, c. 1918-1919.
Catalogue, a page dedicated to the stylish golden age of menswear.
Catalogue, a page dedicated to mens’ workwear.
Catalogue, a page dedicated to womens’ skirts (almost all with pockets – shocking!!), suits, and coats.
