Mending

Today was a cool day.  I normally do not go into the archives on Mondays.  I'm a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday type of gal, but today.  Ah today.  Today, I went in because we were to be taught how to mend an historic document. 

For the past several weeks, I have had the chance to clean 1865 Civil War Muster Out Rolls from Pennsylvania.  It has been a great experience!  Interestingly enough, we are doing it the slow and "painful" way.  There are faster ways of cleaning the documents, but funding is short, so we are using the cheapest, most effective methods to clean the documents.  So, for several hours on Thursday afternoons, I sit at a table with a document that looks just like the one above (usually in smaller pieces though, because they had been folded and tore along the creases) and clean.  How does one clean one of these documents?  You use eraser crumbs.  Yup, good ole fashion (clean) eraser crumbs.  It takes time and patience, but it's doable.  And at the end of the session, the darker your eraser crumbs are, the more dirt you were able to remove from the document.

Today though, we had a staff person knowledgeable in mending documents come in and show us how to do so.  I went in because this was too good of an opportunity to pass up!  And it was an experience!  So totally loved it.  It is fascinating the equipment one uses, again, using the cheapest, most effective methods possible.  We all had a chance to play, though not on the real documents!  We used random pieces of paper that had been written on, crumpled, and tore.  Trying to put these pieces back together again with starch and rice paper was tricky.  And while my first attempt wasn't anything to write home about, it was amazing to me.

And I'm kinda hooked!  I want to learn more and see more.  I would love to take a class and really learn how to do this.  I knew this internship would have its downside...almost everything I've been asked to do gets me excited.  How do I chose which to focus on???  For now, I'm just grateful I'm getting the chance to experience it all!

Cleaning

I had a fantastic afternoon.  I cleaned.  Yes, you heard that correct.  I had a fantastic afternoon because I spent several hours cleaning.  Now, before you think I've totally lost it (which you may still think that when you get to the end), I spent my afternoon learning how to clean and cleaning PA Civil War muster out rolls.  It was so fun!  I know, I know.  I find stuff that most people find boring kinda fun.  LOL!  I think my supervisor finds me funny.  I am always so excited when they suggest a project or I share what I've found.  He laughs at me most days...and I hope it's good laughter!

Anyway...today, I took advantage of learning how to clean a document and then got the chance to actually clean  it.  Woohoo!  The archives is working on a project cleaning 1,000 Civil War muster out rolls from the state of PA.  They currently have about 800 rolls to go and no funding.  So, us lovely interns (volunteer) have the chance to learn how to clean 146 year old documents.  Eeeeee!  Seriously exciting stuff.   It was the best afternoon EVER!  This is from the archives website as an example of a muster roll.  The one I worked on was a tad bit smaller, but not much...except it had broken apart at the fold lines. 

So, every Thursday afternoon I will be with the other interns cleaning muster rolls.  Next week, we'll see how to clean a document that is in one piece, not broken up like the one we did today.

Yesterday, I had some success in the records finding mention of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic.  I spent Tuesday on the website seeking files that may contain information on the epidemic.  Wednesday, I went to essentially they "card catalog" to see where in the Tower (which is where the files are located).  Then, I spent the afternoon in the Tower looking at the documents I thought may have something to do with the Influenza Epidemic.  The first 6-7 boxes I looked at had nothing.  Very disappointing.  The last box before heading out for the day started mentioning it.  Yea!  I was very excited.  So, on Tuesday, I will head back to the Tower to see what else might be up there.  I kinda wanted to get back up there to see what else could be there, but I had a good day today. 

This is so much fun!