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.

Week 6 update

This week, I scheduled a second oral history interview, for mid-November.  John was the first person to call me wanting to participate and he lived at Edgewood from 1958-1963.  I need to begin doing more research on the time period, but he is full of stories and eager to share his experiences so I don’t think the interview will be too challenging.  It will be a good first ever oral history interview.  The hardest part will be staying on track and limiting it to just an hour.  He wants to come to Edgewood for the interview, so I’ll give him a tour after and I’m sure he’ll have even more to share!

I also called the third oral history interviewee, a man named Jim who left Edgewood right before John came, and they have mutual acquaintances.  Between the two interviews, I’ll be able to capture nearly 10 years of residential life.  I talked to Jim for about half an hour on the phone to complete the biographical profile form and learn a little bit about him.  He also wants to come to Edgewood for the interview so he can see the campus again.  I told him I’d like to do a little more research before scheduling the interview, and he was fine with that.  I’ll call him in early November to arrange a time.

News continues to spread around the organization about my archives project.  My boss got a call from someone saying they found a box of “old stuff” and was wondering if I wanted it.  It turned out to be records from the 1980s, photographs and other things similar to what I found in the gym balcony, so I added to the pile.  A couple of days later, I got an email from another person saying they found boxes of old Board meeting minutes and the CEO had told her to contact me to see if I wanted them.  I discovered the minutes went all the way back to the 1950s, so I decided to take them and added another three boxes and four binders to my ever growing stash of records to organize.  It’s getting harder to find storage space to keep everything together.

I had been planning on spending an upcoming weekend day sorting all of the records into series, but I believe I’m now up to 20 boxes of materials to go through!  It’s going to take longer than I originally thought and I am going to try to recruit some help so it doesn’t take an entire week.  I think I have a good idea of what series I want to create: Hope Ball, Garden Fair, orphan files, other events, newsletters, annual reports, Board meeting minutes, photographs, etc.  I’m not as sure about what to do with some things, like the newspaper clippings, though.  I’m debating about whether they should be a series themselves or if they should be sorted into other series based upon content, such as if they are about an event.  That’s probably more proper and professional, but it’s also a lot more time consuming.  I’m learning that some records very clearly go together as a series, while others are more debatable and can be viewed in multiple ways.  The challenge is then to think about how a user may search for the records so they can be organized to be most easily retrieved.

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Oral history project progress

I’m happy to report that a lot has happened this week with the oral history project. I began by writing an project design statement. I know that I should have done this from the start, but I had thought through all of the details over the summer before getting started, and just needed to commit it to paper. I made interview tracking forms which have a checklist of items to do for each interview, from contacting the interviewee to research to transcribing to obtaining release forms.

I created a biographical profile form for each interviewee. The form has sections for tracking things like relevant project information, life milestones, friends and associations, interests, education, etc. This will help to gather basic information so I can start to formulate interview questions. The forms were all based off of templates in the Community Oral History Toolkit.

Armed with the bio profile forms, I called the two interviewees and spent some time chatting with each and learning information about their lives  which I think will be helpful for guiding the interviews. I scheduled one interview for December and will try to schedule the other for mid-November. Now I need to get going on my research and writing questions!

Just when I was feeling pretty secure with being able to manage these two interviews, I got an email from a third person wanting to participate! He was a resident of Edgewood from 1954 to 1957. What is particularly great about this narrator is that he transferred to Edgewood from the only Chinese orphanage in the country. I think he’ll have a unique perspective on life at Edgewood. I’m going to call him soon and try to schedule an interview in December or later.

I’m really pleased at how the project is coming along. It’s overwhelming and I’m nervous about it, but I’m happy that people are interested in participating. My intention was to start – not complete – an oral history project, and now I’ve defined it to take place through 2015 so I feel comfortable scheduling more interviews after the semester ends. I’m learning that all of the interviews and all of the transcription and digital transfer can’t be done by the end of the semester.

One fun thing that happened this week is I met a descendant of Mrs. Haight, one of the original founders of the San Francisco Protestant Orphan Asylum, now Edgewood, back in the Gold Rush. She doesn’t know too much about her family history, but we were able to help each other out with some learning some new things and I know the relationship with her will continue. She helped clarify which Mrs. Henry Haight the founder was. There were two Henry Haights in San Francisco; a governor and a banker. Most people assume Haight Street was named after the governor, but it was really his uncle, the banker. We didn’t know which Mrs. Henry was ours. I had only a few days earlier figured out that our Mrs. Haight died just before the 1906 earthquake. Edgewood’s was the wife of the banker.

The next challenge was to figure out Mrs. Haight’s first name. No one knew. I had a spark of inspiration and turned to my handy genealogy resource, Findagrave.com, and found her almost instantly – Weltha Buel Haight. This was confirmed by the profile listing the date of death in 1906. We passed along the news to her. For the meeting, I had also pulled out some records related to a George W. Haight (unknown relationship, but definitely a family member) that she seemed to enjoy looking at. George was the orphanage’s lawyer for over 20 years.

Another twist in the Haight Family-Edgewood saga is when I was speaking with one of the oral history interviewees yesterday, he told me one of his counselors was named Dave Haight. I would be very surprised if it was not a member of the same family.

The organization’s leadership also helped me out by suggesting a couple of other places in the building that older records may be hiding (closets) and I’m working on getting access to do a quick search. I wasn’t surprised when they suggested that, but did get wary. There’s a lot of closets. Probably over 20.

I also reached out to one of the organization’s board members who works for a production company to see if I can borrow audio equipment for the interviews. Part of my plan is to get donations. If she can’t help, I have another option for borrowing equipment. After much internal debate and discussion with staff, I decided to go with audio over video since it’s more casual and less intimidating to the narrators, requires less storage space, and just simpler over all. In the future it can always change.

I also completed my search of records in the vault. Post coming soon! Here’s a hint: orphan records!

Oral history project update

I’m happy to say that I have another oral history narrator signed up!  Only one week and already two narrators!  This woman was a long-time Auxiliary member and helped to create the Auxiliary’s first Garden Fair, now in its 49th year and Edgewood’s primary fundraising event.  I can’t wait to interview her and learn more about the origins of the Fair and how it evolved.  I’ll get to work on writing questions for her soon.  I need to do some research first.

I’m continuing to dig around for historical materials and have uncovered a lot in the last week (post coming soon).  I know it’s only a couple of weeks into the semester, but I’m starting to feel a little overwhelmed with everything that needs to get done.  I’ve uncovered far more historical records than I originally thought I would – a good problem to have – and need to hurry up finishing the survey so I can get started on my inventorying and digitizing.  The oral history project is an entirely different story that also needs a lot of attention.

But even though I feel like this sometimes 

I know that it will all be worthwhile!

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First day part two

On my first day going through the storage room, I also found some nice historical publications of Edgewood’s, mostly from the 1960s through the 2000s.

In this dusty binder, someone had thoughtfully put together samples of invitations from about 20 years of Edgewood’s fundraising events, including most years of the Across The Bay 12K race, which was held for 30 years.  I may be able to put together a complete series of the 12K publications, thanks to this binder and some detective work around the office.

There were also many examples of invitations to events held by others to raise money for Edgewood.  All of the items are stored in generic plastic sheet protectors, so I’ll put these into better storage later, once I have inventoried everything.  I’m appreciative of the person who took the time to carefully get everything together, in sequential order, in this binder.  So many of the papers I’ve come across so far have been damaged by being randomly thrown into boxes.

In another box, that I wasn’t sure if it looked like it would have anything that I was looking for…

I found an oral history interview!  It even had a signed legal release form wrapped around the CD.  It was underneath a bunch of event photos.  I was quite excited and immediately contacted the original archivist, who gave me some background information.  It was the only interview done, I believe in 2001, and I’m so happy to have found it and rescued it from this box.  It had been transcribed, but I can’t find the transcription anywhere so I’ll have to do it all over again.  I haven’t listened to the CD yet but will soon.  The narrator, Cecil Malmin, recently passed away, but I’ll make sure his stories get put to good use.

I also found a box of slides of children, presumably clients.  I really don’t know what to do with these unlabeled photos and slides.  I’ve already found hundreds (mostly photos).  They have no details – no names, no dates, no contextual information – but does that mean they’re not worth keeping for the future?  I feel very comfortable weeding out photos of unknown people from random events that clearly don’t have connections to Edgewood, but I’m not as confident about discarding images of clients, even if they’re unnamed.  How to select which photographic records to keep and which to discard?

I also found a folder with older write-ups of Edgewood’s history.  I haven’t read through them yet, but some of the papers may have information I don’t know about and could be helpful.

I found an article about two former Edgewood residents reminiscing of their time at Camp Swain, which was a summer camp purchased on behalf of Edgewood (still an orphanage at the time) that the kids used to visit, from 1911 until the mid-1940s.  Nowadays, the children are still taken on camping trips each summer, but the location varies.  The article gives an idea of life at the orphanage at the time.

Who leaves a comb in a box of papers??

I’m also very happy that I found a large stack of old newsletters from the 1960s.  By this point in time, Edgewood was a home for emotionally-disturbed youth.  I plan to digitize these, along with the other records I find, but for privacy reasons I’m not sure yet how much can be shared publically.  There’s so much to consider when making older records available online and I want to make sure that I follow best practices around copyright and privacy.  Some of the articles that don’t include pictures or the last names of the children may be shareable, but I’ll be researching this.

First oral history narrator

I’m happy to report that I already have my first oral history narrator signed up!  The letters only went out on Friday, so I wasn’t expecting a response so soon.  The narrator called me yesterday, very eager to participate.  He lived here from 1958 to 1963 and already began telling me stories of life at Edgewood back then.  Now I need to get going on finalizing the narrator agreement, research, and all of the other steps needed to prepare.  The interview isn’t scheduled yet, but I proposed meeting in November and he was fine with that.  He wants to come to Edgewood for the interview so that he can tour the campus, which I think is a nice idea.

I also just ordered my first set of white cotton gloves for any photographs and artifacts I find during my survey.  I almost feel like a professional now!