Salaries in the Bad Old Days

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One interesting component of our Confederate muster roll collection is a record of the wages of Confederate soldiers.  A range of wages seems to have been available within each regiment: $11 per month for a private, $20 per month for a first sergeant, and a few intermediate salaries for lesser sergeants and corporals.

Right now, I happen to be reading Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain’s fond remembrance of his years piloting steamboats just before the Civil War.  That conflict was a death knell for the steamboating era, which was already in decline due to the technological advances of railways and tugboats.  Twain records vastly different salaries in the pre-war years: steamboat pilots made a minimum of $100 per month.  After labor organized, a few made up to $700 per month.

As an exercise, let’s equate the professional level of a Confederate Army first sergeant and a steamboat pilot.  (Respect for authority aside, perhaps these men were not completely different – both were trained specialists and mid-level professionals responsible for many people during defined tours.)  We can note that the sergeant in 1863 made anywhere from five to 35 times less than the steamboat pilot in 1860.

Hardly an auspicious beginning for a Gilded Age.

Audio Preservation Conference in Berlin

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I was most fortunate to be an invited speaker at the International Seminar on Preserving Endangered Audio Media in Berlin last week.  The conference’s unique focus was captured in its subtitle: “Rethinking Archival Strategies for Conservation of Analogue Audio Carriers.” Oftentimes, due to the rapid degradation of modern media and the obsolescence of playback technology, “audio preservation” is simply taken to mean “digitization.”  But as Paul Banks observed in his Ten Rules of Conservation, “The physical medium of a document contains information” and “No reproduction can contain all of the information contained in the original.” These concepts are true in audio media as well as in books and paper.  This conference addressed the conservation of audio carriers in addition to their content, and in so doing offered a refreshing perspective on difficult issues in new media preservation. 

Why should we care about tapes, records, or cylinders as physical artifacts instead of just source recordings for mp3s?  Several presenters offered perspectives.  Susanna Belchior of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) discussed how original discs, with their labels and packaging, are helping researchers construct a history of the Portuguese recording industry.  The discs offer invaluable information about when and where the recordings were made.  By pairing these primary recorded resources with available ledgers and account books, researchers can begin to understand how the practice and economics of recording evolved in Portugal.  Belchior also suggested that chemical analysis of the physical discs might yield information about specific shellac or vinyl formulations used by particular institutions or in particular regions.  This talk reminded me a lot of a National Archives talk given at the American Institute for Conservation 2011 meeting in which artifactual evidence in book bindings enhanced existing understandings of book binders and their work in revolutionary America.

Silke Berdux and Nadia Wallaszkovits, respectively of the Deutsches Museum and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, discussed a fascinating preservation project focused on the open-reel tape recordings of electronic music innovator Oskar Sala (here is some basic info in English.)  As an experimenter in the recording studio, Sala used many unconventional techniques, such as switching among tape speeds, changing the number of recorded tracks, and splicing many different tape types together.  Sala’s work reminds me a great deal of fellow electronic music inventor Raymond Scott, on whose materials I was fortunate enough to work at the Marr Sound Archives.  I imagine Sala’s tapes would also share commonalities with those produced by the musique concrete innovators, as well; all of these individuals worked in audio tape as a primary medium.  As a result, the physical tape shows as much about the experimentation process as does the recorded content.  In order to better preserve both the visual and sound information in the Sala archive, high-definition video of the tape was taken during playback and paired with the tape’s digitized audio.  The resulting audio / video file is an elegant preservation solution that captures far more information than would the audio or video alone.  

At the conference’s conclusion, George Brock-Nannestad raised the following (paraphrased) question: How can we argue for the preservation of physical recordings when interest in them as artifacts seems like a fairly niche, academic pursuit?  This is a great question, and one that often bothers me at conferences.  More broadly, how can we argue for the importance of physical things in a world that is increasingly digital and intangible?  I think one answer is this: heritage caretakers, historians, and other allied professionals can conduct research that contextualizes material studies within broader trends in history, art, and the humanities.  For example, what can types of paper fibers tell us about trade routes?  What can binding styles tell us about the economics of a region?  What do tape splices say about the creative process? 

As a final note, I recently purchased a copy of Trade in Artists’ Materials: Markets and Commerce in Europe to 1700, edited by Jo Kirby, Susie Nash, and Joanna Cannon and published by Archetype Publications.  Most of the materials discussed in this volume are much older than anything I encounter at the Texas State Archives.  However, I hope the book will offer a model for the type of conservation research described above: a blend of material evidence with history, trade patterns, economics, and the arts.  So here’s to future research rooted in physical heritage, research that makes the argument for preservation implicitly.

Thoughts on Conservation after the AIC 2011 Meeting

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I just returned from the 39th annual meeting of the American Institute for Conservation, which took place in Philadelphia June 1 – 3.  I’m always surprised by the size of the AIC meeting.  Conservation is a relatively small field that’s difficult to get into.  Arts and humanities budgets are shrinking, especially in the public sector.  And many conservators aren’t reliably funded for travel.  Given all this, I often wonder: “Where do all these people at AIC come from?”

One reason for the strong attendance at AIC must be the pervasive drive toward self-education among conservators.  It shouldn’t be any surprise that people drawn to work in libraries, archives, and museums would value lifelong learning.  But I think there’s a healthy streak of humility and anxiety here, too: no single person can know all things about all materials, and the ever-present risk of damaging a historical artifact provides strong motivation to keep learning and stay humble.  The composite historical /craft-based /scientific nature of the conservation field was a strong component of the panel discussion about training programs held on June 2 and reported upon in the new AIC blog, among other places.  My feeling is that the AIC annual meeting is so well attended for the same reason that discussions about training are so difficult: because we all realize no one set of experiences yields the perfect conservator. 

Another reason so many people go to AIC may be the fact that during the rest of the year, many of us practice in relative isolation.  Those who aren’t lab singletons, either in private practice or within an institution, often work within very small departmental groups.  The need for learning doesn’t always mesh well with this style of practice, and Parks Library Preservation noted that the educational benefits of community are likely one reason behind the growth in conservation blogs.  Isolation is a real challenge in a semi-academic field like conservation, and with so much to learn, nobody wants to waste time reinventing wheels.  This is true in designing workflow, in creating documentation, in conducting research, and in the most practical aspects of treatment.  (For instance, I’m certain it wouldn’t take even a very clever person to refine my method of emptying oversize mylar washing trays, which is really a moderately controlled exercise in spilling water on the floor.)

Overall, I think the need for knowledge combined with frequent isolation creates a strong desire for a professional community.  And while the digital world offers some powerful tools toward this end, still nothing replaces in-person learning and face-to-face conversation.  Why do people invest so much time and money to attend AIC every year?  Because the investment is worth it.

Barn Floor Paper

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An ongoing project here at TSLAC is the treatment of our large collection of Confederate muster rolls.  These documents provide a fascinating snapshot of men enlisting in the Confederate army, often stating their age, hometown, and personal supplies brought into service.  The muster rolls come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, with myriad paper, media, and condition issues.  Specifically, I’ve noticed one unusual type of paper that composes perhaps 10% of the collection.  An example of this dark brown paper is below:

Muster roll, silked, before treatment.

Muster roll, silked, before treatment.

In my mind, I’ve come to refer to this as “barn floor paper,” because it would appear to be made from sweepings off the barn floor.  Given the stresses and disruptions in manufacturing in the Confederacy, this isn’t so difficult to imagine.  A close-up may reveal more detail:

Muster roll, detail, during treatment.

Muster roll, detail, during treatment.

The paper is very coarse, with a variety of fibers visible throughout.  It is poorly sized, if at all, which creates challenges in removing existing mends without disturbing the fibers.  After treatment, wash water is a deep, molasses color, though the color of the paper itself remains quite dark.

Muster roll, close-up on heading "Pay Roll," during treatment
Muster roll, close-up on heading “Pay Roll,” during treatment.

Do any readers have knowledge of or experience with this paper?  Do you know what it was made with, or have your observed it in other collections?  I’m curious to know whether its homely composition reflects difficulties in economics and supply chains in the Confederacy, as I imagine.  Or, perhaps this paper was made this way quite intentionally, for a particular purpose.  As with so many record-keeping supplies, I’d argue that purpose definitely wasn’t preservation.

The Art of the Title

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Materials in our state library and archives collections typically bear matter-of-fact titles like Senate Journal of the 28th Legislature or Executive
Documents of the House of Representatives.  But occasionally, one title stands out from its expository neighbors.  I take special note of the following cantankerous title, especially during this season’s contentious state legislative session:

"Unconstitutional Laws Exposed" by Chas. B. Pearre, 1872
“Unconstitutional Laws Exposed” by Chas. B. Pearre, 1872
For more information, we visit a prime example of a typeface-rich, 19th century title page:
"A Review of the Unconstitutional Laws of the Twelfth Legislature of Texas, and the Oppressions of the Present Administrations Exposed," by Chas. B. Pearre, Attorney at Law, Waco, Texas

"A Review of the Unconstitutional Laws of the Twelfth Legislature of Texas, and the Oppressions of the Present Administrations Exposed," by Chas. B. Pearre, Attorney at Law, Waco, Texas

 I wonder what Mr. Pearre’s website would look like today.

A Question of Value

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Preservation and archives personnel are periodically called upon to answer the general public’s questions about personal or family belongings.  Along with patrons’ regular concerns, I have lately noticed a new and perplexing question: 

“What is the historical value of my item?” 

This is a significant and complicated inquiry that deserves a good answer.  Two main issues puzzle me, and I’d like to consider them separately:

  1. What does this question actually mean?
  2. What useful answer can I provide?

1.      What does this question actually mean?

My hunch is that seeking “historical value” is to seek a connection between personal and canonical history.  Individuals usually have a strong sense of the sentimental and family value of their photos and newspaper clippings.  But does that emotional connection have meaning for other people, or within a broader historical context? 

The historical value question often has a companion, either explicit or implied: “Don’t you want my materials for your archives?”  I wonder if we might reinterpret that question as, “Doesn’t my specific experience somehow represent our collective experience?” or more generally, “How do individual stories compose the larger historical narrative?”

Further complicating things are differing definitions of “value.”  A conservator looks at a newspaper clipping and sees brittle newsprint and printer’s ink: not very valuable.  A patron instead sees a family experience: extremely valuable.  Where do we draw the line between the physical thing and the story it represents?

2.      What useful answer can I provide?

The critical thinking beneath the “historical value” question is deserving of encouragement.  But with patron inquiries, encouragement generally implies a specific, actionable answer.  Open-ended answers, like, “You’ll have to research that for yourself,” usually de-motivate busy people.  Herein lays the challenge of answering this question.

To my knowledge, there’s no such thing as a contract historian-for-hire who accepts referrals the way an appraiser would.  For family items, my best institutional referrals are our local city history center and the state archives where I work.  But these options may require substantial follow-through from the patron, and archives staff realistically have minimal time for questions about personal collections.

Perhaps a better strategy would be to assemble a reference list of books on regional history that might offer useful contexts in which to place personal belongings.  Handouts and brochures always seem to be well-received, and a reading list might make an encouraging take-away.

I welcome comments about this issue.  Questions about historical value, however that’s defined, seem to offer a golden opportunity to engage inquisitive members of the public in historical and archival research.

Canvas Covers

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A great many of our bound Texas government materials have an accompanying canvas cover.  These covers are frequently seen on oversized, hand-inscribed stationer’s bindings, and many have not fared well.

Early 20th century Texas court index, with a typically battered canvas cover.

These covers seem to have had mixed effects on their books over years of use.  While they do provide protection from light, they can also abrade delicate leather surfaces.

The canvas cover's footprint is visible around the edges of the board. Notice the faded leather at the bottom edge, as well as the abraded suede in all areas except the foreedge.

The pervasive nature of these covers seems to suggest that their use was systematic, or perhaps mandated, by certain state institutions.  There’s even evidence that the covers were contemporaneous with the bindings.

Inside the boards, we see that the canvas cover was made with doublures to match the binding's marbled pastedowns.

Addressing these covers appropriately is a challenge within a conservation treatment.  Despite their contemporaneous appearance, it is difficult to justify the time needed to formulate and execute a treatment for the cover when so many similar items need extensive attention to more fundamental issues.  The right conservation approach to these covers is an open issue on which I’d welcome comments.

I’d also love to learn more about the use and construction of these canvas covers.  Do they appear in other state or government archives?  Who made them and when?  Who decided they should be made?  What types of items received them?