The final donation of items

Hello!  It has been a long, long time since I’ve shared an update on the status of my Edgewood project.  Even though I’ve been neglecting this poor little blog, much has been happening.

I’m still working on finalizing the transcripts for two oral history interviewees.  One keeps requesting small changes every time I sent what I think is a final draft and there is a communication issue with another.  But hopefully I can wrap that up soon.

I also finished digitizing all of the important records, which was essentially everything between 1851-1951.  This included old photos, a scrapbook from 1936 (which I originally thought was a photo album until I took it out of its display case), lots of old annual reports, correspondence and ephemera.

But most importantly – I completed the donation of archival items to the San Francisco History Center, which was my ultimate goal!  Yes, it is finally true.  It took much longer than expected thanks to a crazy school and work and life schedule, but at least I made it happen.  Part of the delay was in me digitizing everything I wanted to before the transfer.  That was way more time consuming than I had planned for.

At the end of July (yes, sorry, I am very slow in posting this), three wonderful archivists from the SFHC came out to Edgewood and picked up about 12 boxes of assorted papers and artifacts and 14 or so boxes of orphan records from the 1850s to 1940s-ish.

What the vault holding most of the boxes looked like before:

and after:

You can see how much was cleaned out!

Here are some boxes waiting for the assembly line of getting moved to the van.  You can see the vault they were stored in in the background (black door).  These were orphan records from about the 1910s, I believe.

And a few more boxes in my office

And then it was all about playing tetris with the boxes and getting them into the van.

It was a very close call in being able to fit everything in the car.  I have to credit the SFHC archivists with doing an amazing job of fitting 25+ boxes of different sizes, some without lids, some with fragile items, into this minivan and maintaining their sanity.

It feels so good to have completed my main goal of this project.  All of the most valuable papers and items are now safely in the hands of the professionals, where they will last another 160 years of Edgewood history.

Someday the staff will process the collection (I’m dying for this to happen, but trying to not pressure them) and I’ve already begun referring people making genealogy requests to Edgewood over to the History Center for information.

In 2016, Edgewood celebrates its 165th anniversary!  It is my hope that the collection can be at least partially processed as part of the anniversary celebration.

What started as a class project requiring 135 hours over a semester turned into a year-long project totaling somewhere around 400 hours.  I am so happy and proud that it’s done and it was worth all of the time and stress.

I have some more to share and will hopefully get that posted soon.

Success!

I finally managed to schedule a meeting with the San Francisco History Center to go over which of the items that I found in my project that they might like to take.  Two archivists came to Edgewood to see the orphan files – undoubtedly the most important records I found – and some other things.

Before the meeting, I pulled out all of the things that I both really wanted them to take and that I thought they would most likely want.  These were mostly papers from the 1850s through the 1950s, plus some older newsletters from the 1960s-early 1970s, as well as the artifacts I found, like the copper engraved plates and the glass plates.

I’m so happy to say that the meeting went really well.  I first took them into the vault to see where orphan files.  They were delighted by the vault, which is a giant safe…

And about all of the boxes of orphan records.  I pulled out a few of the oldest papers so they could see them, and they were really excited and we spent a few minutes reading them.  They are so charming and I wish I could just sit down and go through every single one of them.

Then we went upstairs and I showed them the old orphan register and other things in a display case in the conference room…

I already knew that they wanted all of these things, but it was great to be able to show them everything in person.  Then I nervously pulled out the two boxes of other items that I was hoping that they’d take and we spent some time going through all of it and they decided to take everything except that crazy mystery mallet that I found (they didn’t know what it was, either)!  They said that the items would round out the existing collection really well.  They also said they’d take all the oral history interviews that I do.

Even better, they said my work was very well organized and professional!  I was so excited and felt very successful in my work, especially since I’m still just a student.  It feels great to know that I uncovered records that are seen as a valuable addition to an existing archival collection, and that I’m helping to preserve those amazing orphan records.

Right after, I finally got underway with digitizing and have finished up two subseries already.

The next steps are to totally finalize the list of items they’re going to take and for me to finish digitizing the records they’re going to take that I think will be fun and helpful to have electronically at Edgewood.  Then we’ll schedule the pickup.  I’m hoping to finish up everything in the next month or so.

More on this as it progresses!

Oral history project process

It’s been a while since I posted because I was really enjoying the winter break.  But, I am happy to say that in the interim, a lot of great stuff has happened on my Edgewood archives project.

I completely wrapped up the process with my first oral history interviewee, John.  He approved the transcript and I sent him copies, along with the photos I took of him when he visited.  The transcript has been shared with the communications department and they’re working on a story around it.

I also did another oral history interview with a man named Jim, who lived at Edgewood from 1954 to 1957.  He came with his adorable wife and after the interview, I gave them both a tour of the campus so Jim could see his old room and other places he wanted to see.  They got to meet a few kids currently living at Edgewood and some staff, which they enjoyed.  They were a really cute couple and even gave me a hug at the end.  After now having done two interviews, I realize I should give a tour before an interview in order to spark memories, especially since I have only a few photos and other things to help with that.  Now I’m working on transcribing that interview.

Jim has shared some helpful information with me about some of the people he remembers from his time at Edgewood (There was someone who competed in two Olympics!  I need to find her.).  He even connected me to another former resident, Victor, who agreed to participate in the oral history project.  Victor lived at Edgewood for almost 10 years (1954-1963), and had come from another orphanage where he had been living for years, so I think he’ll have some great stories and a unique perspective to share.

The best part of all of this, however, is that through my work on the oral histories, I have actually reconnected John and Victor, who lived at Edgewood at the same time for several years.  In fact, John’s first memory of Edgewood was of Victor convincing him to slide down the laundry chute in their cottage!  When I first spoke with Victor on the phone, I told him I had just interviewed John, and he exclaimed that he hadn’t heard that name in 50 years.  I then called up John and let him know I found Victor (or, Victor found me) and he asked me to pass along his phone number.  I did, and they now have lunch plans.

Whenever I speak to one of the former residents, they ask me about all of the people they want to talk to again and if I know where they are.  It feels so great to be able to help reconnect these two, and I hope I can help others as well.

More on Jim and Victor to come!

Winding down

It’s hard to believe it’s the end of the semester already.  I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot with this special studies project and learned so much about working with paper-based archival collections and about oral histories.  It’s been an amazing opportunity to create a mini archival collection.  I realized about halfway through the semester I was incredibly ambitious when I made my original plan.  I actually only added an oral history component because I didn’t think there’d be enough to do with the surveying and preservation aspect!  Only about 70% of what I hoped to do actually got done, but I’ll keep chipping away at everything.  The most important thing is that I found all of the old orphan records from the 1850s and on and that they’ll be preserved.

Over the past week, I met with Edgewood staff to go over the inventory of everything I found to see which records they wanted digitized.  I had already planned to digitize a number of items for preservation reasons and for use in marketing projects.  But I was surprised by some of the other items that people asked for electronically, like photographs from the 2000s.  I politely declined to do anything too contemporary because of the sheer volume of items.  But I somehow still ended up with a digitizing plan for approximately 200 records, most of which have multiple pages or need some sort of special handling!  For now, I’ve prioritized the order of digitizing, but I am reserving the right to modify the plan as I progress.

The oral history interview that I had scheduled for December 3rd was unfortunately cancelled by the interviewee because of a severe rainstorm we had in the Bay Area that day.  I was disappointed, but I completely understood and also didn’t want an elderly lady driving by herself across a flooded Golden Gate Bridge, so it was for the best.  This interview and the interview with another former client of Edgewood have been scheduled for the first week of January.

I heard back from the archivist at the San Francisco History Center and she’s asked some questions about the records to help her decide which ones to take.  I’ve also reached out to leadership at Edgewood to see which orphan files I can donate to the History Center, due to privacy issues.  I suggested a 70-year gap, which I think is a standard and would allow files through 1944 to go to the History Center.  At this time, Edgewood was still an orphanage, but some of the files do contain medical and adoption information, so there are definitely privacy issues to be considered.

I have completed a very thorough first draft of the transcription of the oral history interview I did a couple of weeks ago, with two full listens completed.  Now, I just need to fact check a few names he mentioned and read it through one more time to check that it’s all coherent and flows well.  Then I’ll share it with Edgewood staff and the interviewee.  I’ll also check to see if the History Center would like a copy.

It’s astonishing to me, but I added up the hours I’ve spent on this project and it’s already over 168 hours – and I didn’t even finish everything on the project plan!  Every step of my plan has taken so much longer than I expected.  This is mostly due to finding so much more than I originally thought I would during my survey and having more people respond to my request to be interviewed for the oral histories.  And of course, I’m a little slower than a professional archivist because this is my first time doing any of this in real life.

Now I’m just wrapping up my final report.  The work will continue for several more months, until I can complete as much of my original plan as I can.  What’s left is digitizing records, donating materials to the History Center, and completing two more oral history interviews.  It’s a lot, but it’s doable over time.

I’ll continue to post updates here on my progress as I can!

Let the transcription begin

It’s hard to believe the semester is almost at an end.  I realized that I reached my 135 hours for the class last week, but I’m still going to try to accomplish as much of my original plan in this last week or so as possible.

This week, I have been focused on transcribing the oral history interview I did last week.  I’ve been surprised by how long it has taken me to do a first pass of the transcription.  Even typing about 95 words per minute, I have spent about 3 1/2 hours on it and I still have about one-third left to do.  Part of the challenge is the interviewee kept moving away from the microphone so it’s muffled and garbled in places, so I have to listen to some passages several times.  I didn’t want to inhibit him during the interview, so I didn’t ask him to stay near the microphone.  But I’ll definitely be doing that next time.  Through the transcription process, I’m learning some good tips to use in future oral history interviews.

I should hopefully finish the first draft by tomorrow and then spend some more time over the next week giving it one or two more listens to correct issues.  I have to verify a lot of the names and places he mentioned as well, but that shouldn’t take too long.  As I’m going, I’m noting time stamps and sections that the Communications Department may be interested in using for upcoming projects, like the annual report.

I’m also prepping for the next interview, which is on Wednesday.  I think that one will be shorter, and easier to transcribe.  I confirmed with my friend that I’d be able to borrow her audio equipment again and arranged getting it from her.

In the upcoming week, I plan to schedule meetings with staff to see which items from the records I found they’d like digitized so I can finalize that plan.  And I also plan to follow up with the History Center to see which records they’d like to accession.  I know my project is not at the top of their priority list, although they definitely want the orphan records, so I’m trying to balance respecting their existing workload while trying to wrap up my planning.

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First oral history interview a success

I meant to write about this earlier in the week, but I was so wiped out from the interview that I haven’t had the energy.  My first ever oral history interview happened on Wednesday with a man named John and it felt like a success in many ways.  It was an hour and 15 minutes long and I asked around 20 questions, including his memories of specific people.  It was a lot of questions in that amount of time, but I did leave plenty of time for answering and some of his answers were brief.  I tried to follow up on other topics that he mentioned while telling his stories, but it wasn’t always possible to go back and ask questions.

Four or five separate times, he began to cry so I would stop the interview to give him time because he couldn’t speak anymore. He said he didn’t realize how hard it would be to talk about these things.  Good thing I brought tissues to the conference room with me!  I did not circle back to ask him to follow up on the stories where he began to cry.  Maybe a more experienced oral history interviewer would have been able to do so in an ethical way, but I felt it was inappropriate and didn’t want to upset him more.  So I missed getting some stories, but in the end I feel it was the right decision.  I also think he’d do another interview if I asked and I could always ask him more follow up questions then.  It was interesting to hear of his stories of old San Francisco, the racial prejudice the children faced outside of Edgewood, and life for the children while in the cottages.

After, I took him on a tour of the campus, where he told me more stories and what used to happen in the different buildings. I learned they used to have smoking rooms for the children in the residential cottages.  Very different times!  He also showed me the rooms he used to live in and how he used to sneak out, which was fun.  John seemed happy that so many people were introduced to him and that I was interested in his memories.  So many children that Edgewood previously helped now really want to share their experiences and feel that they are meaningful.

John in front of the cottage he used to live in from 1959-early 1960s:

He also brought photos from when he lived at Edgewood, so I was able to scan those (with a signed release form!) for use.  Some of them were of other children, so I can’t use those but the organization will probably use the ones of him and the staff.

I learned a lot of great lessons from this first experience to use on subsequent interviews.  One lesson is to let the narrator know I wouldn’t audibly respond a lot to their stories, but would encourage them by nodding, etc.  I think John was confused by my lack of acknowledgement, so I ended up speaking a lot more on the recording than I wanted to.  Another is to have a back up person to help with logistics, like scanning photos.  I had to learn really quickly how to scan photos on the giant all-in-one machine in the reception office.  Also, to have someone take photos of the interview while it’s taking place!

My friend had lent me professional audio equipment, so I was able to get a high quality recording.  (Does everyone hate the sound of their voice when they hear it on a recording?)  It’s now uploaded to my computer and I’ll try to start transcribing over Thanksgiving weekend.  I do it all over again on December 3 with a woman who was on the Auxiliary!

I also sent out my finalized inventory list to certain staff and began scheduling meetings to sit down with them to see which records are of most interest to them for digitizing.

Inventory and container list

This week, I finally managed to finish inventorying everything and finalize my series organization and basic container list. I did reorganize a few things from subseries to series after looking at the finding aid to the existing collection. There were a couple of areas that I had as subseries of another series, but the original archivist had as a series and vice versa, so I shuffled things around a little to better match the existing arrangement. I now have 10 series and 26 subseries. I then sent off the list to the archivist at the San Francisco History Center, highlighting the items that I think she’d be most interested in. I am looking forward to the next steps of choosing the items and getting them donated. I know that she would like the orphan records and the orphan register, but there are some other series, like property records, that I hope she’ll also want.

I found this recipe for sweet potato fries in the middle of a binder of Board of Directors meeting minutes from the 1950s.  There was also a remote control in the box.  I have no idea what people are thinking sometimes.  I would love to see a list of strange things archivists find while processing!

In other news, I spoke with a staff person that it was recommended I talk to to see if she knew of where any more archival records might be hidden within the building. She said she didn’t know of any, but then handed me four files of orphan records that had been sitting on her desk for years! Oh my. She also told me that long ago, another person had indexed the orphan files but since that person left, she had no idea what happened to it. I plan to contact that former employee this week to see if she can remember what the file was called. It was also burned to a CD, so I hope she can remember if it was labeled. She left a few years ago, so I don’t have much hope of finding it, but you never know!

I also finalized my questions for the oral history interview this week and made a checklist of items that I need for that day. I admit I’m pretty nervous about the interview, but this man also really wants to tell his story so I think it will be fine – as long as the recorder works!

Series organizing, oral histories, and more

I was able to accomplish a lot this week and am feeling pretty good about where I am in the project.  I finished sorting and inventorying the Garden Fair event (the organization’s primary event, and therefore very important) records.  Someone in the past had already organized many years through folders, so that gave me a great head start.  I added the extra records I found to the appropriate existing folders, and I was able to add three more years’ worth of records that didn’t already exist.  Now I only have sporadic gaps from 1969-1980. I also created subseries for publicity materials and photographs, although I did not inventory them because these subseries seem like less of a priority.  With the time constraints I have, I’m trying to focus on identifying the most important records to work on.

For organizing information, I changed the structure of how I was going to sort  Auxiliary records.  Originally I planned to have a Garden Fair series, with subseries for photographs, invitations, etc.; and an Auxiliary series for everything non-Fair.  But after more consideration, I decided to create one Auxiliary series and turn everything into subseries, further dividing by folder where appropriate.  It makes much more sense to have it as one giant series than two smaller, somewhat duplicative series.

I also finished inventorying all of the annual reports from 1856-1931.  The good news is that I have multiple copies of some years, but the bad news is that some of them have what I think is mildew.   I discovered I have three biographies or stories written by former clients from when Edgewood was an orphanage, which is very fun—I thought I only had one.  If I ever get the chance to do an oral history interview with a former orphan, these will be very helpful.

I now have four sorted and inventoried boxes, and just a few more to go through.

I started making digitizing plans by identifying individual items and/or subseries to digitize.  Everything from 1969 and earlier is automatically on the list for digitizing.  Everything from 1970-1999 I’m less sure of and need to talk to certain staff to see what their needs are.  I’m not inclined to spend the time digitizing things after the 1980s, but there’s fewer records in the 1970s so I’m more comfortable with adding those to the plan.

I did more prep work for my first oral history interview, researching the staff names the interviewee mentioned and confirming his admission and discharge dates to Edgewood.  I’ve already come across one issue during my research; the date he gave me for when he moved to Edgewood was off by a year.  I hope he doesn’t try to debate me on it.

I had the chance to talk to the former executive director of Edgewood from the time the interviewee lived there.  He was able to confirm some of the staff the interviewee mentioned, and tell me stories about his time at Edgewood.  It was a very fun conversation and he said to contact him anytime I have questions, which I will!  Because of the lack of records from that time period (late 1950s to early 1960s), it is incredibly helpful to have someone to turn to for information.  He’s my only connection to the time period.  He lives out of state now, but I hope he comes back so I can do an oral history interview with him.

Finally, I wrote out the first draft of questions for my second oral history interview, which is with a former Auxiliary member who was at the first ever Garden Fair in 1967, and sent those out to staff for feedback.  I made copies of the 1967 Garden Fair planning materials to avoid having to keep going back in to the box when writing the oral history questions and doing research.

Whew!  The fun discovery phase is pretty much over, but I’m finding the sorting and organizing phase really fascinating.

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Sorting extravaganza

The time finally arrived to sort through the surprisingly massive amount of materials I had uncovered during my survey.  Once I got all of the boxes in one place, it turned out that I had way underestimated the number of boxes I needed to go through.  I thought I had 14, but I really had 23!  I was able to use my boss’s office and there were boxes everywhere…

And more that were hidden under desks and tables.  I had been thinking the entire semester of the best ways to organize the records, so luckily, the sorting passed by relatively quickly and easily.

This is about a third of the way through

And more progress, about two-thirds done

I was able to give five boxes worth of materials to the communications director, as there were piles of recent photos, printed materials, and publicity documents.  I was also able to recycle the equivalent of two boxes due to the many duplicate items.  A couple of the boxes were artifacts, which I previously inventoried, and I gave one box to my boss since it was old donor files that were inadvertently given to me.

With everything sorted, I began organizing the newsletters into subseries.  I came up with eight subseries, which were organized by title and one for random newsletters.  I was happy to find that I have a pretty complete series of the earliest newsletters, from 1965-1972, but I have a gap until 1981.  I’m not positive they were even creating newsletters during this time period, though.

I was able to turn this

Into this!

Next I began to organize the large amount of event materials.  These records posed a much larger challenge in terms of organizing.  There were several types of records that could either be a series itself or a subseries. After much debate and consideration of what I know about the agency and what would be most beneficial to staff and volunteers, I decided upon one main events series, with subseries for each year of a large fundraising event, a subseries with all materials for another event where it wasn’t necessary to have each year separated, and a subseries for miscellaneous events.

I also decided that any Auxiliary-related events would be a subseries under the Auxiliary series, and not under the events series, due to the history of the Auxiliary (since the 1940s) and how people search for information related to them.  It would be most helpful for people to have all Auxiliary records together, rather than as subseries in other areas.

This towering pile of event invitations and programs

Became this…  And this was actually subdivided a  little more.  I inventoried the records for the large fundraising event, but not the miscellaneous events because there are too many (probably around 100) and it’s actually unlikely that anyone will ever want to reference them.  These are the types of materials that have very little research value but no one wants to get rid of.  I may go back later and try to record the general time frame that these cover, though.

Next, I inventoried the annual reports, which equaled three boxes of records.  I still have to count the annual reports from 1853-1931, but was able to count (and weed) the more current ones.  Based upon a discussion with my boss, I am saving up to five of each.  I think this is too many, but it’s a good start to removing duplicate items.  This group is complete from 1982-2013.  So, combined with the earliest records, I’m missing annual reports from 1931-1982 – a huge gap – yet, I’m still thankful that I have any older reports at all.

I was very pleased that things went smoothly.  Even though everything is sorted into general type, I still have eight boxes left to organize and inventory.  Not too bad since I started with 23!  I hope to have that done in the next week or so.  In the meantime, I’m already starting to refine my digitization plan based on what I’m learning that I have.  Obviously, I won’t take the time to digitize anything too current, but definitely the older newsletters and annual reports.

I’m also very happy to say that I found the missing photo albums that I thought had been thrown out!  You may remember me mentioning it a few weeks ago.  I found them in a box under a pile of VHS tapes.  I was about to give the whole box to the communications department when I saw the albums.  I don’t know how they ended up in that box, but I’m so happy to have found them again.

In other news, I wrote the questions for the first oral history interview, which is in just a couple of weeks, and sent it out to colleagues and the CEO for feedback.  I confirmed that I could borrow an archivist friend’s recording equipment for the interview, which is very helpful and a big weight off my mind.  I also typed up the inventory list of the completed series.

I also began transcribing the oral history interview that the original Edgewood archivist did back in 2001.  It took me about 45 minutes to transcribe the first 15 minutes, and I type about 100 wpm!  That really opened my eyes up to the time required for transcription.  I will put transcribing that interview on the back burner for now and focus on my immediate project plans.  I will also need to rethink my goal of having both interviews transcribed by the end of the semester, since the second one is just a week before the semester ends.  This project is really helping me to learn about the exciting work of an archivist, as well as the challenges in time allocation and deadlines!

Display case

So far, I’ve been focused on what historical records are hidden away, but there’s actually a few known archival items sitting in a display case in a conference room.  The display case was put together about 10 years ago after the original Edgewood archives was created.

As you can see, it’s right between two windows.  It may not have been moved in the last 10 years, or at least not very often.  It’s been there for at least two years for sure.

Here’s a little bit better view of what’s inside.

A cash box used by the organization when it was the San Francisco Protestant Orphan Asylum (1863-1920).

A key to the Haight Street building (manufactured ca. 1874-1887).

A gavel used in Board of Managers meetings and some bank books.

A Camp Swain photo album from 1936.  The orphans spent every summer there.  I really want to look through this.  As you can see, the photo album is coming apart, but it looks like it has some fun photos inside.

And most importantly, a register of orphans from the first 27 years of the orphanage (1851-1878ish).  This register has over 1,800 entries.

I’m sorry the writing is impossible to see in these photos, but the page is quite faded.  I don’t know if it’s just the age or because no one has turned the page in 10 years and it’s been faded by sunlight.  Probably both.

The register has information on the childrens’ names, ages, eye color, hair color, complexion, admittance date, birth place, nationality, their history, who referred them, discharge date, and where they went.  In other words, a genealogy gold mine.

Here’s an example:

Orphan #1256, Mary Jane Thomas, age 9, had blue eyes, light hair, and a light complexion.  She was admitted August 17, 1872 and was born in Sierra, CA.  She was Welch.  Her father remained in Sierra.  She was recommended to the orphanage by Wm. A Jones of 435 Second Street.  Mary Jane was discharged on September 26, 1876 and was indentured to Mrs. EK Stockide (?) of Stockton, CA.

You know who else is in this register?  Jack London’s stepsisters!

It is a big priority of mine to donate this register to the San Francisco History Center so that it can be properly preserved and stored, and used for research.  Although it is a nice conversation piece to have in the conference room, it is of far more benefit to others at the History Center, where it can be used for genealogy or academic research.  My plan and hope is to also digitize and index this as part of my special studies project.  At 1,800 names, I may have to choose one or the other.  I’ll work with the History Center to see which option they prefer, if any.  They may not even need me to do it.  But I certainly want to read through it before I donate it!

Not pictured are three dolls form the 1930s and an embossing seal for documents.