I managed to get a lot of second pass work done today! I’ve also managed to combine a few boxes into one, so now I have 30 of 33 archival boxes finished for my second pass.
Now that I’m almost done with my second pass, I’ll have to start thinking about the next step: the finding guide and photo scans. As I’ve mentioned before, a finding guide is essentially a road map of a collection, which gets broken down into broad categories called ‘series’, and then by archival box number and folder name. To make a finding guide, I’ll need to go into the museum’s catalog software, create a new archival record for the entire Wynn collection, and fill in the information.
But, more immediately, the Wynn collection has photographs. So, I’ll be scanning and creating archival records for each photograph, like I did when I started with the Burns photo collection. This internship has really come full circle! Hopefully, though, this time my scanning goes faster because I know what I’m doing!
Today was super busy! I finished up my second pass, going through all 33 of 33 boxes! Another intern was using the computer, so in the meantime, I decided to help clean an ironing base from the same laundromat that the washing machine came from. I cleaned that a few weeks ago, and now I’m helping with the larger task of the iron.
This is the base of the iron before I started cleaning
The iron is split into two parts: the base and the top. Right now, I’m cleaning the base, which is mostly metal and wood. It’s cleaning up much better than the washing machine did! The dirt and old mold is coming right off the wood and the metal is in surprisingly good condition! I didn’t get much done because of Welcome Desk Wednesday in the afternoon, but I feel like I got a good start!
This is after I’ve cleaned a bit! It’s a pretty stark difference!
Today was also my final Welcome Desk Wednesday! I’ll be moving back to Front Desk Fridays starting this Friday. For my final Wednesday at the desk, it was a pretty calm day. People did come in, which was amazing, and all of them seemed to have a really good time! Today was also really special because my mom and my stepdad came down to visit, and so I got to show them around the museum and introduce them to the curator! All in all, it was a fantastic day!
I had a lot on my plate today, and since the computers were free, I finally made the finding guide for the Wynn collection! It went faster than I thought it would, which was a very nice surprise. As it turns out, there is a LOT of information you can fit into 33 archival boxes, so hopefully my guide can help researchers in the future!
Now, I’m onto the final step of processing the collection: scanning the photographs. I didn’t have much time at the end of the day, so I only got four done. But on the bright side, that’s four I don’t have to do later! There aren’t that many photographs in the Wynn collection (although, my baseline is probably skewed from the 250 photographs from the Burns UMC collection), and my estimate is that I’ll only have around 75 photos. But we’ll see if that guess holds water later next week. Knowing me, I’m probably underestimating.
Back in the photo scanning saddle! Or the photo scanning office chair, as it were
Today, the curator took us on a field trip to the Historical Center! The center itself is in a really old building that was a mansion-turned-mortuary-turned-museum! The curator there took us on a tour of the entire building and it was so much fun! My favorite part was an artifact they had, which was an electric car made in 1904 in Cedar Rapids! It was made pre-Ford, so it cost around a thousand dollars in its time, which was incredibly expensive! That’s around $36,200 in today's money!
This is an electric car manufactured in 1904! Talk about old school!
The reason we took the field trip was because the History Center curator had a cassette tape to MP3 converter that our curator needed to borrow. Recently, a cassette tape of a Klan meeting has found its way into the collection, so we needed the converter to both listen to it and to convert it into an MP3. It was a really heavy thing to listen to once we managed to play it. The one phrase that caught my attention from the recording was the phrase “Black Tyranny.” It’s such an odd phrase because there has never been a period in our nation’s history where Black people were “oppressing” white people. Our country is founded on ideals of white supremacy, so the idea that these white people in the recording thought that they were the ones being discriminated against was really weird to me.
After we came back from the field trip and listened to the cassette, I had a moment to scan some photos but not as many as I would have liked. I only got five done today (putting my total at nine) but I’m hoping I’ll have more time next week. Then, it was Front Desk Friday! The museum was super busy today, which was amazing to see as always! It was a really nice way to end a really busy week.