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.

Surprise finds

More historical records keep popping up in unexpected places.  As word has gotten out about my archival project, coworkers are now giving me things that they have found in their offices.

Hidden in the bookshelves at this desk, a coworker found a few items and handed them off to me.

A front page of the declaration of the end of World War II… I don’t know why someone held on to this for nearly 70 years, but it was interesting.  She also found a couple of old San Francisco Examiner supplements from 1955 and 1962 that featured Edgewood.  I think these used as fundraisers.  She also found a lot of photos of clients from the 1980s.

And in the filing cabinet of another office were many, many newsletters.  They went back to the early 1990s through today and were a mix of internal and external newsletters.

I’ll add these to my growing pile of items to inventory.

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.

Image source

Last day of gym search continued

My final finds from the gym storage were mostly related to events and more recent records.

Around 2008 (judging by when the programs end), someone put together a series of materials from the Fair, Edgewood’s main fundraising event.

The Fair began in 1967 and is hosted each spring by Edgewood’s Auxiliary members.  I was happy to see that the box contents are very comprehensive and almost a complete series, although some scattered years from the 1970s and 1980s are missing.  I’ll add the more recent Fair records to these, and try to fill in the gaps.

The first Fair program and 40 years later.  It has really changed quite a bit!  The first few years, the event had the same name and look, and now each year has a different theme.

In another box, I came across handwritten notes from an unknown person planning the first Fair, complete with a full list of the Auxiliary members at the time.  These items will be helpful in preparing for my oral history interview with a woman who helped put together the first Fair.  I’ll definitely be using these records to help craft questions.

I also found many, many, many items related to other events from the past decade.  Way too many to photograph.  There are a lot duplicates that I will try to weed if I’m able to.  For several years, Edgewood held another large event – the Hope Ball – and I think I’ll be able to put together a full series of those related records through what I have found.

Another great contemporary find was this box of annual reports from 1982 through 2008.  This probably doesn’t seem very exciting to others, but these will help me trace the name changes that Edgewood has gone through over the years, as well as help the Communications Department with the more recent events in Edgewood’s historical timeline.

And I found a few more newsletters from 1999 and on.

And then I found this mysterious scrapbook on the 1951 Macy’s Easter Flower Show.  I have no idea what the connection to Edgewood is.  The only tie that I can make is that it is from the agency’s centennial year.  The news clippings and photographs inside are all related to the Red Cross.

I’ve reached out to the original Edgewood archivist and several staff members to see if they know what the tie is.  If I can’t find one, I may contact the local Red Cross to see if they want it.  One thing I learned in my Archives and Manuscripts class is to offer records to more appropriate institutions when deaccessioning (aka removing) items from archives.  Luckily, I know people who work there that I can contact if needed.  Finding this scrapbook has created a little puzzle to solve, albeit a low priority one.

And underneath it were nine more photo albums from 1996 to 2002.  These seem to be a mix of photos from volunteer events and Edgewood’s school’s graduation day.  I have passed it along to the Communications Department to sort through since they’re not really archival.  As with the other photo albums I’ve found, none of the pictures are labeled and they don’t have photo releases.  The Communications Department will select the photos they want to keep, and I’ll go from there on getting some better albums to store them in.

After going through nearly 100 boxes, seven shelving systems, three filing cabinets, and a few random piles, I have uncovered some great finds.  I have already found far more things than I ever expected to, which is wonderful but I definitely have to redesign my original plan to digitize everything I find.  With several hundred paper items and photographs (so far), I now know that it’s unrealistic to digitize everything.  And frankly, not everything will be worthy of digitizing, which is also important to recognize.

I’m starting to get a better understanding of what professional archivists and repositories have to deal with when selecting items to digitize.  My challenge is not so much finances, but time.  It would be impossible to complete the digitization in any practical time frame, let alone by the end of the semester in mid-December.  I’ll have to prioritize the items once I’ve finished my entire search.  Things like the hundreds of newspaper clippings-which may even be digitized already-will have to be evaluated, with only the most important records or series selected for digitization.

When I first approached the San Francisco History Center about my project idea, I thought I would find about the equivalent of one and a half boxes of records to be donated to them.  Well, I’ve managed to find about eight boxes of records so far and I’m not done.  Of course, not all of the items that I find will be added to Edgewood’s existing archives, but I’m still surprised at how much there is to go through.

My next steps are to compile my notes from searching the gym into a more proper container list.  Then, I’ll begin searching the vault, a small storage area in the basement of the main administration building.  I’ve been told there are some historical records in there.  And after that, I’ll work with the CEO to move on to other parts of the building, which are less likely to have any historical records, but should still be checked.  And at some point, I need to find some technologies that can read the slides and various types of cassettes that I’ve found so I can figure out what’s on them.

Last day of searching the gym

I’m happy to report that this week I was able to finish my search of the gym storage, going through the last 17 boxes and 6 large shelving systems that had a mix of random items and small boxes.

This box was filled primarily with news clippings from the 1960s through 1994.

I also found a few more newsletters from the 1960s and 1970s, and two photos of children living at Edgewood in the 1960s.

I also found the architectural plans for the current campus in this box, but forgot to take a picture!  Finding this box about two years ago is what prompted my idea to do this special studies project.  I was worried that it had gone missing since then, so I’m glad I came across it again.

This news article mentions yet another name for Edgewood – Edgewood Children’s Home.  This may have been an unofficial name.  I’ll add it to my list of things to research.  There have been around five variations of the organization’s names between 1924 and now and I’d like to find a more concrete timeline for the name changes.

In this box, someone thoughtfully organized photos by topic and decade.  The box was labeled as “Photos 1980-1986”, but they actually span from the 1960s through the 1990s, with most on the earlier side of the range.  I hope to be able to identify some of the children in the photos through the oral history project.

At the back of this same box, I found this folder, which was filled with deeds and other correspondence from the 1910s.

A list of donations to a memorial fund, from 1886 to 1914.  What I love about this document is that it mentions Ann Swain, the wife of the couple that purchased Camp Swain in 1874 as a summer camp for Edgewood’s orphans.  It also mentions James L. Flood, son of James C. Flood, a prominent local man who started his fortune in the San Francisco Gold Rush.  James C.’s legacy lives on through the Flood Mansion, perched atop Nob Hill.  The Flood Mansion is a registered historic landmark and one of the few Nob Hill mansions that didn’t burn down in the 1906 fire.  It’s now a private club.

This deed was signed by George W. Haight, the lawyer for Edgewood (at the time called the San Francisco Protestant Orphan Asylum) until his death in 1913.  Yes, George was a member of the Haight family, of the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco.  I don’t know the exact relationship, but George’s relative Henry Haight donated the land for the orphanage’s previous location, at Haight Street and Laguna Street (1854-1919).  What is fun about it is that a descendant of this family just the other day got in touch with Edgewood, wanting to reconnect and possibly volunteer.  The Haight family partnership is reignited, 100 years later!

I thought this invoice to “ruin” watermelon patches and trample them was a fun find.  This company still exists, by the way.

This letter is great because it references the sale of Camp Swain, helping to give more documentation of the time the camp was used by Edgewood’s orphans, as well as referring to a significant change in Edgewood’s property ownership and programs for the children.  I also like how their prorated bill was only 60 cents!

And the last find to share with you today is this envelope, which was in the folder with the correspondence and deeds.  Inside were about 15 or so images and their negatives.  I suspect these were donated by a former resident (or staff member) of Edgewood.  I’ll try to verify the sender was a resident and see if I can obtain copyright or usage permissions.  Either way, I will digitize the photos for preservation.

The photos are not labeled, but most were likely taken at Camp Swain.  The image on the top left of the children in clown costumes may have been taken at Edgewood, and the bottom right picture shows Edgewood’s current location, most likely in the mid- to late 1920s before the neighborhood started to get developed.

More coming tomorrow!