Historic Hood River
Piecing Together History
Notes
Today’s post is the reverse of an 1898 Bradley photograph of local Civil War veterans which shows you how history is layered and pieced together in the museum archives. I have greatly increased the contrast so you can read pencil writing which is quite difficult to make out in the actual artifact. The hand written description has been edited and amended a couple of times as the writer learned more and filled in the blanks. For example, the date was originally given as “about 1896”, which he crossed out and corrected to May 1, 1898. That correction is explained in a March 12, 1920 note in the same hand, which explains this issue of The Hood River Glacier provided the date and correct roster of the men. Although I don’t see a signature, I believe the handwriting is that of Samuel Finley Blythe, onetime editor of the Glacier and active member of the GAR.
At a later date someone has carefully transcribed the pencil text, which makes it easier for the casual reader to decipher but loses the corrections and updates. You can see a much later hand, which I recognize as Sally Donovan’s, has categorized the image for storage. It was placed in the “Organizations: Societies- GAR” file in the museum’s upright storage cabinets. Those cabinets and old museum policies explain the crack and tape of the matte board (which fortunately just misses the image on the other side). Since the images were in manila folders in a sliding drawer that was frequently opened and closed, it (along with many other images) was folded or broken at the top where it extended a little too high for the drawer to easily close. Frequent handling of the images explains the staining we see along the edges as well as some loss of pencil and paper surface.
Our current archival practice is to place this image in an archival sleeve, so no fingers touch it. It has been scanned front and rear so the need to access the original is much less, and large items are stored in boxes so they don’t get damaged on the rare occasion the drawer is opened, and access to the physical archives is very limited. Why might someone still need to access the original? One good example is to get a better view of the text which the tape has made less legible. Especially with pencil writing, viewing from different angles can let you see the indentations in the paper which aren’t always captured in a scan. But while the files with these images were once accessed often– perhaps daily– I estimate nowadays there are only one or two occasions in an entire year where I dig out a physical photograph to answer a question.
I’ll post the actual image next week so you can see these men 33 years after their service ended.
L. E.
I chuckle at “upright cabinets”. I have one of those, and I keep telling
myself, it is not the best way to store some of my history things.
Something I learned not long ago……..I thought wearing gloves when handling old newspapers was to protect the newspaper, but I have since learned it also protects the person. Old newsprint may contain lead. Same with old quilts. Some fabric dyes contained lead.