Perhaps it was the setting (Cape May, gorgeousweather). Maybe it was the wonderful Local Arrangements folks who were veryproud and knowledgeable of their local history. Or, it could have been the program and theworkshops. The winning combination of all of the above likely made the Spring MARAC (April 12-14) a success as an entertaining and educational conference.
Dating 19thCentury Portrait Photographs Workshop
Gary’s workshop took its participants through the historyof early photographic portraiture from the earliest Daguerreotypes in 1839through cabinet cards in the late 1800s-early 1900s. We learned the distinctive elements that help date Daguerreortypes, ambrotypes, tintypes (alsoknown as melainotypes and ferrotypes), cartes-de-visites, and cabinet cards. Garyalso provided us with resources for determining the dates of costumes inphotographs.
He brought many examples of cabinet cards andearlier photographs, and invited us to try to identify them, usingwhat we had learned. I just wanted to buy a micrometer and attempt to identifythe cabinet cards (by thickness and other means) within the Plainfield PublicLibrary’s Local History collections. Overall, it was an inspiring, informativeworkshop that was well worth the price of admission. If I were an archivesprofessor, I’d book Gary as a guest lecturer every semester.
ConferenceSessions
For example, the plenary speaker was historicpreservation consultant Joan Berkley, who spoke about the archival resources,especially primary sources, she used to uncover the structural details of an historichouse museum. Importantly, she named all the repositories she used, andexplained how she used the archival materials in her work. Another session Iattended, on preserving and promoting New Jersey’s historic structures, alsofeatured three speakers who use archives and libraries to preserve historicproperties, the Doo Wop resort architecture of the Wildwoods, and lighthousesin the state.
Additionally, the final session of the conferencefeatured the author of Boardwalk Empire,Nelson Johnson, and a writer from the HBO series of the same name, EdwardMcGinty. These two gentlemen talked about the value of archives and librariesfrom two very different directions, but each made clear cases for the use ofprimary sources whether digitized or not. The other two speakers of thatsession, Heather Pérez and Shannon O’Neill of the Atlantic City Free PublicLibrary, talked at length about how the show has changed the way they do theirwork and deliver their services to patrons.
In the sessions featuring archivists as speakers, therewere many standouts, including one focused on the Brooklyn HistoricalSociety's efforts to attract and educate students. It was inspiring to seehow dedicated the BHS is to its young student and undergraduate patrons. Thesociety has created a host of programs reaching from K-12 throughundergraduates. One example is the Young Curators program, which allows 4thand 5th graders to construct their own meaning of history in a new and visual way. They do this by completing a 12-week residency program wherein theycreate exhibit panels using the BHS’ archives to encourage further research,and spotlight historical events and people. BHS' programs might be a bitambitious (and expensive) for the libraries where I work, but the depth andbreadth of their offerings are certainly well worth the funding the staff hasbeen able to secure for them.
Public Displays: Using Your Collection andArchives to Tell Your Story was a session featuring three diverse views ondisplays. First, a young researcher (Rachael Rohrbaugh of Chatham University)talked about the results from her study on the lack of exhibits education inMLIS/MLS programs. Next, a couple from the Cape May County Historical Society(Bruce and Pary Lion Tell) showed us very economical and practical ways to setup and display facsimiles of historic documents in exhibit cases. Finally, anarchivist I had seen at a previous MARAC, when she worked at the Andy WarholMuseum (Amy Lucadamo, now of Wilson College), provided a variety of methods toshowcase collections. In particular, she focused on an innovative timeline shecreated for alumni visitors – it connected images and icons of shared historywith individual histories of alumni. She also showed ways to spotlight objectsand records in nifty ways, such as magnifying text (a museum displaytechnique).
Finally, one of the most riveting speakerswas neither an archivist, nor historian. He was our host, Curtis Bradshaw, ownerof Congress Hall. Curtis is the grandson of Carl McIntire, a fieryfundamentalist Presbyterian minister whose mammoth collection of papers andaudio records was recently processed by the Princeton Theological Seminary(primarily by MARAC Program Commitee Co-chair Bob Golon). In the sessionRescuing and Making Available a Controversial Collection: The Carl McIntirePapers at Princeton Theological Seminary, Kenneth Woodrow Henke, of PTS,provided a lively history of McIntire. He also told us how the collection came toPTS, then introduced Curtis, who shared his personal impressions of hisgrandfather. Curtis told many stories of how his grandfather worked. Forexample, he would watch his grandfather at the microphone, delivering his radiosermons. He also directed groups of female volunteers to keep newspaperclippings files (now at PTS) in order to save a record of his 20th centuryreformation of the Presbyterian church. A charismatic speaker, Curtis kept hisaudience amused, and gave us a peek into the famed minister’s life.
As always, MARAC exceeded my expectations andleft me with more knowledge and skills to take back to thelibraries where I work. To see the complete program, visit MARAC (downloads aPDF). http://data.memberclicks.com/site/marac/Marac-2012-SpringProgram-4.pdf
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