Primary (Source) Colors

Meet Bill, Billy, Will, and William

2010-01-14T15:19:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I worked through a finding aid for anthropologist Carleton S. Coon (1904-1981). Coon's legacy in the place of American anthropology is highly contested and I'm interested in his influence on other scholars who worked with human remains.

It turns out Coon was highly fond of nicknames. As a historian, I strongly dislike nicknames. Nicknames make it hard to keep track of individuals and narratives, especially when they are used inconsistently or without reference to a full name. Imagine my feelings when I read the following from Coon's finding aid.

"Identification of the person with whom Coon is corresponding is not always clear. In much of the correspondence, the writer failed to give his last name (obviously being well acquainted with Coon). Then, too, Coon seems to have been very fond of nick-names, which were often used instead of a person's real name. By comparison with other letters, it has been possible to identify many of the writers lacking a full name. Further complicating matters, Coon seems to have had many friends with the same first names, particularly: Bill (14), Ted (6), Fred (5), and George (4)."

For the record, I have a few acquaintances named Bill (7) and Ted (2) myself (at least according to Facebook).

Hat tip:

The Papers of Carleton S. Coon are housed at the National Anthropological Archives.

While I'm at it, I'd also like to give a shout out to a web exhibit organized by the Human Studies Film Archive. The exhibit focuses explores The John Marshall Film Collection, which was recently added to UNESCO Memory of the World Register. In particular, the online exhibit features some interesting information about film archives more generally.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About U.S. Temporary Labor Policy (1917-1990)

2009-12-21T17:03:00.013-05:00

There seems to be shockingly little written on the history of temporary labor visas in the U.S., (with the exception of the bracero program, which began during WWII, and was separate from the temporary labor categories of nonimmigrants created in the 1950s.)

As far as I can piece together, the basic history is as follows: (and here I am drawing heavily on Lowell, 2000 and 2001, and Briggs, 1988.)

1917: The Immigration Act gave the Secretary of Labor the power to waive exclusion prohibitions (like the literacy test,) for those in the Western Hemisphere to be admitted as temporary workers. This power was invoked during WWI, mainly for Mexican workers in the Southwest, and operated through 1921.

1942: In response to WWII and labor shortages, Congress authorized the Mexican Labor Program, popularly known as the Bracero program. The first program officially ran through 1947, though it was informally extended through 1951. The program was then officially revived, and operated through 1964. (Unlike the 1917 provisions , the bracero program was never a part of permanent immigration law.)

1952: Congress creates a class of non-immigrant visas under the Immigration and Nationality Act (Sec. 101(a)(15)(H). At the time, three groups, all of whom were required to be intending to return to their home country, could qualify under the new "H" visa:
i. Those of exceptional merit and ability coming to perform temporary services "of an exceptional nature"
ii. Those coming to fill temporary positions, if such labor cannot be found in the U.S.
iii. Industrial Trainees.

1965: The major postwar reforms to immigration law, which ended the national origins quota system, did not touch on the system of temporary visas.

1970: Congress abolishes the double-temporary provision of the "H" visas, allowing temporary labor immigrants to fill permanent positions. Admission is still contingent on intention to return to the home country.

1980s: Temporary labor programs (specifically the H-2 visas) form a major part of the debate over the passage of immigration reform, culminating in the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). According to Briggs (1988), while the final bill contained an amnesty provision, instead of new and/or expanded temporary labor programs (as had been proposed in earlier versions of the Act,) it did create the H-2A category to help facilitate the entry of agricultural labor.

1989: Congress creates the H-1A category for foreign registered nurses under the Immigration Nursing Relief Act, which runs through 1995.

1990: Congress further defines the H-1B category and establishes a cap of 65,000 visas per year, while also requiring employers to certify that they would meet labor standards.
--

The kicker for me is that legislators placed the original temporary labor visas (101(a)(15)(H)) in the 1952 Act with almost no discussion of possible ramifications. They did not revisit the issue at all in 1965, even as they limited permanent labor migration to only 20% of all Legal Permanent Resident (green card) visas. In my mind, this shift in 1965 to a system of heavy emphasis on family reunification (74% of all LPR visas,) with far less for labor, coupled with the stringent labor certifications put in place in 1965, and strengthened in 1976 (*), all but ensured that the bulk of the foreign labor force would arrive through temporary labor categories. (Temporary work visas remain controversial, especially as comprehensive reform again enters the realm of political possibility. See, for example, Papademetriou et al., 2009) Yet as Lowell illustrates, H-1's were barely utilized before the late 1980s, and only rose above the 60,000 p/y mark after 1995. Similarly, Briggs's figures show that from 1971 through 1984, no more than 22,000 H-2s were certified by the Department of Labor for agricultural work in a given year, and no more than 13,000 for non-agricultural work (with an average of far fewer numbers in both cases.)

Admittedly many of the changes in utilization of temporary labor categories stem from the passage of the Immigration Act of 1990, and Lowell points out that only after the H-1s became popular in the late 1980s, did Congress impose restrictions on its use. Likewise, with the rise of a more global labor market, different hiring practices, increased flexibility and portability of skills, and the IT boom, H-1s have become even more popular. Still, I think this situation is a good indicator of the unintended consequences of immigration reform - how a little known category at the time of creation later became one of the mainstays of immigration policy.
--

(*) After 1965, immigrants applying for occupational preference categories (permanent visas) were required to obtain labor certification from the Department of Labor (DOL), attesting to the fact that there were not adequate laborers/professionals in the U.S., and that their admission would not adversely affect the American workforce or prevailing wages. Prior to 1965, labor migrants were excluded only upon certification of the DOL; after the change, every laborer required certification. At the end of 1965 the DOL published a Schedule A of occupations that could receive automatic certification, and a Schedule B of oversupplied occupations in the U.S., that could not receive certification.

At the time, only those entering under the 6th preference (skilled and unskilled workers entering in occupations underrepresented by U.S. workers,) and nonpreference applicants required a job-in-hand prior to immigration; 3rd preference workers (Professionals and highly skilled workers) were exempt from this provision. Additionally, the DOL decided labor certifications on the basis of the economic situation of the U.S. as a whole - i.e. what occupations were needed / not needed across the country.

In response to economic downturns, in 1976 Congress first passed the Eilberg Act, which required that all labor migrants have a job-in-hand prior to immigration, and also changed the requirements for labor certification. Now the DOL certified labor migrants on the basis of conditions and availability of U.S. labor at the workplace (i.e. micro-level,) rather than across the country (macro-level). Second, they passed the Health Professions Educational Assistance Act, which removed physicians and surgeons from the DOL Schedule A, and required all but those attending US or Canadian medical schools to pass the Medical Boards prior to entrance. (See: Yochum and Agarwal, 1988.)

(Schedule B was abolished in 2005 with the creation of the Program Electronic Review Management (PERM) system for labor certification.)
--

Sources:

Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., "The "Albatross" of Immigration Reform: Temporary Worker Policy in the United States," International Migration Review, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Winter, 1986).

B. Lindsay Lowell, "The Foreign Temporary (H-1B) Workforce and Shortages in Information Technology" in Wayne Cornelius (ed.), The International Migration of the Highly Skilled: Demand, Supply, and Development Consequences in Sending and Receiving Countries. San Diego: University of California, 2001.

----. "H-1B Temporary Workers: Estimating the Population." UC San Diego: Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, Working Paper No. 12, May 2000.

Demetrious G. Papademetriou, Doris Meissner, Marc R. Rosenblum, and Madeleline Sumption, “Aligning Temporary Immigration Visas with US Labor Market Needs: The Case for a New System of Provisional Visas.” Migration Policy Institute, July 2009.

Gilbert Yochum and Vinod Agarwal, "Permanent Labor Certifications for Alien Professionals, 1975-1982." International Migration Review Vol. 22, No. 2 (Summer 1988).

The Immigrant Multiplier in Historical and Contemporary Contexts

2009-11-20T12:33:00.004-05:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about the immigrant multiplier, a term used to refer to the number of other people that ultimately enter the country with, or because of, a single migrant. Many of the discussions revolve around trying to produce accurate figures for chain migration (through family reunification,) to understand not simply the number of people admitted each year for legal permanent resident status, but also the net immigration gain.

As comprehensive reform once again enters the political discourse, estimating the actual multiplier is bound to play a role. As an example of the power of the chain migration, many commentators point to the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act [among other factors] as causing many of the extreme backlogs in family preference categories today, as IRCA's amnesty provisions created a large number of new residents and citizens who could then petition for their family members to enter.

So what is the actual multiplier? In his theoretical account of the immigration reforms of 1965, David Reimers has shown that one student (on nonimmigrant status,) can enter the country, and within ten years, bring over 18 others. This multiplier of 18 is certainly the high point, and more empircally based studies have found the actual number to be far less. Jasso and Rosenzweig,* for instance, estimate the multiplier at only 1.2 other people per migrant, out of a cohort of 1971 labor migrants. The most up-to-date figures come from Bin Yu, using a wider sample size, and a slightly different methodology, which combines reunfication (i.e. those coming through chain migration,) and reproduction (2nd generation, etc..) Yu's figure is still far lower than Reimers, at only 4.3.

So how does this factor into my dissertation on the development of immigration policy in the 1950s and 1960s? The evidence that I have found in the archives so far indicates that policymakers in the 1950s and early 1960s based their estimates for divising immigration reform on studies of the first postwar piece of immigration legislation, the Displaced Persons Act (DP Act,) which worked to bring in those people affected by WWII and the Holocaust. Over and again in the debates over reform, legislators and bureaucrats referred to a multiplier of 2.4 family members per immigrant (though the term immigrant multiplier had not yet been coin.) This figure of 2.4 had significant weight when it came to proposals to widen immigrant admissions, as liberals and restrictionists fought over a slew of reform proposals. It also played into the creation of immigration/refugee bureaucracy, as policymaker decided where to open consulates, refugee centers, etc.

I am still trying to figure out how exactly to fit this information into my narrative of the rise a new preference system that heavily favored family reunification over all other categories (especially labor market needs,) but it strikes me that 2.4 is a rather small figure, which could help to account for some of the "unintended consequences" of the 1965 Immigration Act. It also makes me think that legislators were actually much more concerned with net migration than scholars have acknowledged.

Found in the Archives...

2009-11-17T15:09:00.002-05:00

Congressional Record, Sept. 15, 1961, pgs. 19650-19651

Pastore: “The senior Senator from Rhode Island will never be satisfied until there is a real liberalization of the immigration laws. But it can be safely said here today that this is a very real step forward in bringing about the liberalization of the naturalization laws. I do not agree with every feature of the bill.”
Eastland: "Has the Senator ever agreed with every feature of every bill?"
Pastore: “There have been times. I have agreed with the Ten Commandments. But I know the Senator is jesting.”
Eastland: But the Ten Commandments have never been before the Senate in Bill Form.”

Dog Skeletons, Bigfoot, and American Intellectual History

2009-11-11T19:55:00.007-05:00

This evening I finished reading a book by an anthropologist named Grover Krantz (1931-2002). The book, Only a Dog, is somewhat of a rare volume. I only learned of it from an intern at the National Anthropological Archives, where I am currently working on my dissertation. Krantz is most well-known for being one of the only professional scientists who supported the belief in the existence of Bigfoot or Sasquatch, a mysterious, human-like creature in the Pacific Northwest. Upon his death, Krantz donated his own body, and the body of his beloved Irish Wolfhound, Clyde, to science. Much of the book takes place in Berkeley in the 1960s, when Krantz worked at what is now the Hearst Museum of Anthropology. The book's honesty impressed me, as Krantz's story of his wonderful relationship with his dog is punctuated by struggles with alcohol. The vast majority of the book, however, fancifully centers on the enormous size of the dog. Perhaps due to the fact that I'm a graduate student at Berkeley or the fact that I miss my own dog, I was interested enough to read the book. The little, seemingly frivolous volume forced me to spend a little time contemplating how we view public intellectuals historically.

Krantz's book ends with an emotional description of the decline and death of his beloved dog, Clyde. The book details the emotional emptiness Krantz felt after Clyde's death. Krantz struggles though the dark weeks and months that followed. He broods through life, ending relationships, talking aimlessly to himself, and returning to booze. Eventually, Krantz returns to the site of Clyde's burial and he begins to disinter the grave of his beloved pet. Krantz recognized the value of Clyde's enormous skeleton and he hoped to add it to his growing collection of animal remains for study and teaching purposes. The process of digging up his deceased pet proved so emotional for Krantz that he forced himself back into his house before consuming a full gallon of wine, mustering up the courage to continue the work. Krantz's emotional difficulty in the task of digging up his former pet is understandable, he explains that prior to his acquisition of the dog, his life was virtually directionless. After ten years with his companion, he was an established scholar and less of a slave to alcohol.

Upon his death, Krantz donated his own remains to the Smithsonian Institution, with the condition that the remains of his dog be placed with his own in the museum. Today, Krantz's remains can be seen at the end of the Smithsonian's Written in Bone exhibit. In his book, Krantz details his amusement in seeing the reactions of passers by in observing his dog's enormous size, so I like to think Krantz would have appreciated the reaction of most visitors to his remains, which are articulated along with Clyde's skeleton; befuddlement, amusement, and interest. I am only so bold as to assume this because I recently spent some time observing visitor reactions to his remains at the Smithsonian.

Krantz's career in anthropology began in the 1960s and he therefore falls outside of the purview of my dissertation, which concludes at the end of the Second World War. What interests me about Krantz is the manner in which he is perceived by those interested in the history of anthropology. Krantz made several important contributions to the study of ancient man and played a role in the court proceedings surrounding Kennewick Man. Krantz also wrote extensively about the concepts of race and human evolution. He also built extensive personal collections of human and animal remains that would add to the collections of other public institutions upon his death. If pressed, my guess is that most contemporary physical anthropologists would recognize some of Krantz's intellectual contributions to their field, yet they would also probably chide his belief in the existence of Bigfoot above all else.

Contemporary physical anthropologists may not be alone in this assessment. When historians finally attempt to take Krantz into account in their own narratives (I've yet to see a treatment of his career by a historian of anthropology) my guess is that they, too, will focus mainly on his interest in Bigfoot Studies. Krantz's role as a public intellectual, frequently appearing on TV, popular magazines and in newspapers, typically surrounded this belief in the existence of Bigfoot. His embrace of the role of as "Scientist for Sasquatch," will no doubt shape his public memory.

As a student of intellectual history, I struggle with the tendency to place various intellectuals into boxes, or at least the desire to fit the ideas of specific intellectuals onto flash cards. As historians we often fail to draw more complete portraits of individuals unless we provide them with more extensive treatment in the form of intellectual biography. More often, intellectuals are represented in our works as representative of key ideas being espoused at particular moments, as pieces of evidence to prove our thesis. It is tempting to include details about the life history of intellectuals into our work, as though every scrap of information about their childhood informs their later intellectual contributions. Instead, perhaps it is best to aim for a broader understanding of the intellectuals we study, while informing our readers of our close reading of personal intellectual developments. No doubt, this is easier said than done.

A reminder that a controversial intellectual like Krantz was more than a Bigfoot theorist, or an expert witness in a heated trial, or an articulated skeleton at the end of an exhibition - is probably a good thing. My hope is that this more rounded portrait isn't lost on historians who hope to fit Kantz into their stories. Krantz's personal life was deeply afflicted his relationship to drink, and it was something as seemingly as trivial as a dog saved his entire life and career.

NARA II Screenings

2009-10-21T17:24:00.000-04:00

Lordy…it has been a while since my last post, but in the time that’s passed, I have managed to finish off my research in the State Department records at Archives II. From everything I had been lead to believe, the State Department records are some of the worst-cataloged and difficult-to-navigate collections imaginable. The finding aides are in multiple parts, depending on the year (Prior to 1949 has one system, 1949-1963 has another, and 1963- a third,) or department.

But at least there are finding aides.

Having moved on from State, I was hoping to look at the Department of Justice and Bureau of the Budget Records. A substantial portion of the DoJ files have been declassified, but pretty much anything after WWII has to go through another round of security review before you can even see any of the files. (Why the initial security review was not sufficient, who knows? The staff certainly doesn’t!) This review can take up to six weeks to even get a case number assigned, and an indefinite amount of time for the actual review to take place. And to make matters worse, the bulk of the finding aides are classified. It is almost impossible to figure out what departments are where (i.e. how do I even request the Office of Legal Counsel files, to have them reviewed?) It seems as though these requirements are to maintain the privacy of case files, but I am only interested in administrative records, pertaining to immigration policy. I have contacted the archivist who works on the collection, but I’m not entirely optimistic that I will see any of the files anytime soon.

The Bureau of the Budget records also have no comprehensive finding aids. Instead, there is an alphabetical list of the sub-record groups (i.e. Department of State Budget Records, 1949-1952, Legislative Files, 1939-1970), that points to the Master Location Registry (MLR) for the record group (51). Aside from the fact that a number of the entries in the alphabetical list do not match up with the MLR, the only way to get to the finding aides for each sub-record group is to find the collection in the MLR, and then request box #1, which supposedly contains the finding aid.

The catch? Each box (Even the ones containing only finding aides) has to be reviewed onsite before they will give them to you (something they do not tell you in advance.) So while at least the records are reviewed as you order them (hopefully), there’s not telling how long that review can take.

All in all, if you plan a trip to Archives II, make sure to leave yourself ample time, and understand that you might not see the boxes you want on the first trip…

How Many Bodies?

2009-10-10T18:10:00.006-04:00

The subject of my dissertation is the history of the practice of collecting, researching, and displaying human remains in the United States. For those unfamiliar with the history of anthropology, medicine, and the American West, this may seem to be somewhat of an esoteric subject. On the contrary, I argue that the practice of collecting, studying, and displaying bodies was central in the development of ideas about race in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

I recently strolled through the Smithsonian's new exhibit Written in Bone. I plan to write more about this exhibit either here or elsewhere, but I pinky swear that you will be the first to know. The public displays of human remains made me ponder their history; other than recent, traveling blockbuster exhibits such as Body Worlds, museums in the United States have been hesitant to display remains in their public exhibitions. While a complex history informs this hesitation, the new exhibits did cause me to think anew about the scope of human remains collections in the United States. Believe it or not, I am asked this question quite often at cocktail parties. If I had to venture a guess, I would think that when most people think of bodies in museums they first think of Egyptian mummies. Mummified bodies from Egypt, certainly, are a component of the overall number of bodies in museums in the United States. But they are vastly outnumbered by the remains of American Indians and other indigenous groups from around the world.

But just how many sets of human remains are in museums in the United States? I've struggled to find a single, clear estimate of the total number of remains in the US, but several major museums give an estimate of the number of human remains they have in their collections. This information is relatively easy to find via Google searches, but I thought it might be interested to explore nonetheless.

A 2000 report from the Hearst Museum of Anthropology lists 9,600 sets of remains (some of these catalogue numbers may reflect more than one individual).

The Smithsonian Institution’s website explains that when the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was initially passed in 1990, the museum possessed 33,000 sets of human remains. 18,000 of these remains were of Native Americans. The Smithsonian claims that since 1990, 5,400 sets of remains have been offered for return and a total of 3,652 of these have been successfully repatriated.

The American Museum of Natural History possesses a collection of nearly 12,000 individuals collected from around 50 countries.

Numerous other museums and universities possess collections that range from a handful of remains to several thousand bodies. Certainly, statistics that attempt to size up these collections fail to tell the whole story, which is exactly why I get to write a dissertation on the subject of human remains collections.

From Ike to Camelot

2009-09-09T19:14:00.003-04:00

After my trip to Abilene in June, Boston and the JFK Library was next on my list. All in all the JFK Library was one of the easiest-to-use archives I been to, and with a location on Columbia Point, overlooking the Bay, it was certainly one of the prettiest. (Since my visit coincided with Ted Kennedy's death, it was also quite a humbling time to be there...I'm not going to detail about my experiences navigating the archives around the wake, but I will say that I was interesting to be a part of everything that was going on.)

I'd like to say that the JFK Library is pretty far from downtown, and it is, but after having to drive 2 1/2 hours from Kansas City to get to the Eisenhower Library, the 50 minute commute from Cambridge wasn't bad at all. Logistically, from the JFK/UMass stop on the T Red Line, you hop on Bus #2 (free), which takes you on a nice tour of Columbia Point, ending in front of the Library. The building itself overlooks the Bay with stories-high glass windows, very modernist / minimalist...the view from the reading room is spectacular. The archives themselves are not marked, so to get to them you have to walk through the gift shop to the lone security guard, who takes your name, and escorts you to an elevator, which then takes you to the reading room. Once you know where you are going it is fairly easy, but at first it is quite confusing.

In terms of the archives themselves, the staff is incredibly knowledgeable, and really laid-back - after the brief orientation, they basically leave you alone, though they are always ready to answer any research related questions. The reading room is also one of the more high-tech I've seen, with wireless internet access, and digital locks for their lockers. There are also bathrooms and a water fountain inside the reading room (albeit away from the records,) and I cannot tell you how clutch it is to have those two things there, rather than having to leave the research space, as in most other archives I've been to.

There are a few downsides to the library - for one, not all of the finding aides are digitized and online. They have paper copies of everything in the reading room itself, but I find it much easier to be able to keyword search through the aides. More importantly though, parts of certain collections (or entire other collections,) such as the RFK Attorney General papers, are still closed, for one reason or another. While I understand that there are donor restrictions and other such issues, it is frustrating to know that there are potentially useful materials sitting in the library that I just cannot access.

I did find some really useful documents, and hopefully in a future post I'll go through some of them...For now, I am headed back to DC!

The Weird Stuff We Archive

2009-09-09T18:21:00.004-04:00

Let's have a friendly little competition for who can find the weirdest archived object this year. I'll start - samples of human hair from around the globe.

Yes. You read that correctly, single strands of hair. Clearly labeled, for your researching convenience.

Good luck topping that one, guys.

A Hired Historian (or) Other People's Archives

2009-09-03T19:05:00.005-04:00

I couldn't be more excited to be back in Washington D.C. The city, though somewhat familiar, still a lot of surprises. When Emily and I arrived at the Mall a few minutes before an appointment, we stopped at the National Museum of Natural History and looked at a Giant Squid specimen. Later that afternoon I was flipping through the Andrew Jackson Papers at the Library of Congress. How many people do you think have done those two things in an afternoon? Later that day I skipped the gym and sat around eating popcorn to celebrate my accomplishments.

My first couple of days of research in Washington are on behalf of another historian, currently living in California. This makes me feel a bit like a hired hit-man, except with less killing and more historical documents. At the very least, it serves as a nice warm-up for my own work, which I hope to start next week.

Working in unfamiliar archives can be an adventure. Rules vary from archive to archive - but regulations tend to trend in a particular directions. When I started working in archives only a few years ago, people looked at me like I was from Pluto when I asked if I could use a camera to photograph documents. Now, both the Library of Congress and the National Archives ask visiting researchers if they have a camera with them to photograph documents. Some archives allow you to take a box of documents off of your cart, others ask that you only remove a folder at a time. But these are mostly inconsequential differences.

Another challenge of being a hired historian is that you can't really explain to archivists the nature of the project. Explaining my own dissertation to a willing audience is no problem (I say 'willing' because I have, admittedly, been guilty of waxing poetic about my research to audiences that would rather discuss - say - earthworms). But explaining someone else's research as it progresses can be more of a challenge. In this case, I was looking for documents related to military history - which isn't exactly my specialty.

And to make my inadequacy, my father sent me an e-mail this evening about a research trip he did on my behalf in Minnesota. The man stopped at a historical society and read newspapers in GERMAN because he thought he might be able to find some more information on an incident that is of interest to me. And you know what? The man absolutely nailed it. He found an article on microfilm, can I just say this again, in GERMAN. This dude took his last German class in the 1960s and the man walks into a research library and reads Gothic print Deutsche in his free time.

An archive starts to feel like home when you begin to know the people. You run into the same researchers day after day. You get to know the archivists. The nerdy intern requests to be your friend on facebook. You suggest a book to another historian, you goof off with the archivists, and if you're really nice, the interns will let you play soccer with them.

Sure, it is was an experience working with documents at two of the largest research centers in the world. I look forward to when my own research takes me there. But for now, I find the experience of working in smaller archives to be more satisfying on a personal level. Intellectually, I'd argue that working in small archives has made me a stronger historian. I certainly wouldn't argue that archivists at major institutions aren't helpful - quite the contrary, they are often well-trained and extremely helpful. When you're a familiar face, however, archivists tend to go out of their way to make sure you get what you need.

It seems as though every year I need to re-teach myself how to read handwriting from the 19th century. Despite the fact that it is the same language that I pretend to speak everyday, it feels like I'm working on a foreign tongue. And it doesn't even come with those fun Rosetta Stone practice games.

There is both a certain level of excitement and a level of trepidation in moving to a new place and starting a new job. This is certainly true in my case, anyway. I'm pining for a return to my archival home at the Smithsonian.

I Like Ike!

2009-06-18T00:03:00.002-04:00

After a long hiatus I’m back in the research saddle. I’m in Abilene, KS at the Eisenhower Presidential Library. After a long flight to Kansas City, and a long drive down I-70, I arrived in Abilene, one of the smaller towns I’ve been to in quite some time. The Library sits on a pretty campus that also includes a museum, a welcome center, Eisenhower’s Boyhood Home, and a Place of Meditation. In the center of the site stands a statue of Ike himself, overseeing everything.

The Library is a giant marble building with exhibits on the first floor, and the research room on the second. So far researching here has been the most painless experience I’ve had at any of the NARA locations, though considering it’s a much smaller and more focused library, I guess that shouldn’t be overly surprising. On my first day in the archives there were only three other people doing research, and on my second, just one. The archivists and research room staff are incredibly friendly, and once they give you your orientation, they more or less leave you alone. That being said, when you do need help, they really know the collections. The best part though, is that just about all of the holdings are fully indexed, down to the folder level. Since most of the collections are individual people’s papers, I’ve been able to find some great stuff on immigration and refugee policy, but less about some of the important sub-themes I’m searching for, such as family reunification, refugees from Hong Kong, etc.

In particular the Maxwell Rabb Papers have been incredibly rich – he was Eisenhower’s point man on all things immigration (as well as civil rights, minority groups, etc.) and his confidential memos on the legislative process contain a lot of great Congressional and Bureaucratic gossip that you just can’t find in the official record. In general I’m learning a lot more about the political infighting around immigration policy during the 1950s.

(Other things are also coming together – going into the research I was looking for signs of a positive shift in policymakers’ attitudes toward East Asian immigrants and refugees in the mid-1950s, but I’ve now realized that the same shift applies to Italians, with conservative legislators still expressing their concern over Catholic immigration by 1953, but capitulating around 1957.)

More to come…

FOIA Update

2008-08-26T13:28:00.002-04:00

Just a quick update -

I actually received some of the FOIA requests I put in! Granted they only declassified two documents from all of what I requested, but still. I'm actually somewhat shocked, considering how quickly they processed the request (not exactly in 30 days, but still within reason.) I received a letter explaining that the documents had been declassified, and actual copies of two memos in question (which turned out to be pretty interesting...)

I'm guessing when the de-classify the 119 boxes of materials I requested they will NOT send me copies. Just saying...

Goodbyes of a Sort

2008-07-27T20:22:00.003-04:00

My time in D.C. has come to an end, and I'm honestly a bit sad to leave. Two months isn't a lot of time to spend in one place, especially a place like this one. Thankfully I've found a lot of great sources, though every door I opened led me to three more that I'll need to follow up on later on.

To recap the archival materials I used this summer:
NARA I
- Basic INS records, though these never went anywhere
- Congressional Records, especially House and Senate Judiciary Committee Records. Particularly useful here were the Special Subcommittee on Emigration and Refugees, 1955-1959.

NARA II
- Department of State Records. Vexing at times, and I'm sure I've only scratched the surface, but incredibly useful.
- Secretary of Agriculture Records. Not useful at all.

Library of Congress
- Emanuel Celler Papers. (Boxes relating to Immigration and Refugee issues.)

I spent the first few days of this week going through my notes and putting everything onto a time line in excel, so that I could sort by date, keywords, etc. I'm still going through what I have, but I already know that the 1955-1959 period, and especially the Refugee Relief Act, is much more important than what scholars have given it credit for. I also am getting more and more interested in the issue of Military Brides, and how so much of our immigration rules about what constitutes "family" migration emerged from wartime exigencies.

I'm also playing around with a few ideas about governmental institutions, and trying to place together how State fits in with the rest of federal immigration/refugee policy. Daniel Tichenor has already posited the congressional lag thesis of postwar immigration policy, where the Executive Branch led the way toward immigration liberalization, but I wonder if it's even more nuanced than that, with State leading the way, and other agencies following. I need to think about this more.

Anyways, for now this will be my last post, until I spend some more time going through my research, or until I hit my next archive!

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more posts from Emily and Sam.

Phil

Secretary of Agriculture Correspondence Records

2008-07-18T14:10:00.004-04:00

(The Secretary of Agriculture, or at least where they used to be...)

I’ve spent the last few days going through the records of the Secretary of Agriculture (RG16), and have been pretty disappointed at what’s there. Before coming to D.C. I had found a number of records in the online catalog that referred to “Foreign Relations – Immigration.” I figured these probably dealt with Mexican immigration / labor relations, so I was pretty excited by the prospect. Thankfully I put them off until the end of my time in D.C., since I didn’t really find much useful in the records.

I will say that the finding aides for this collection are well organized and kept-up, much easier to use than just about any of the other collections I’ve looked at this summer. Each year is divided into a number of boxes with the same keywords. You find the boxes you need, and it lists the necessary stack locations for the call slips. Finding the boxes was the easy part though. Once I got them, I found that the file for immigration was pretty slim in the best of years, and almost nonexistent in the others. For one thing, most of the papers in these files are copies of “continuity forms” – basically cross-references to other files. Trying to track down all of these other files and boxes would be an entire research project in itself. As far as what was left in the folders, most of the correspondence was personal letters from people attempting to immigrate to the U.S. The response from the Secretary of Agriculture typically stated something to the effect of, “Apologies, but we don’t have any control over immigration, or responsibilities under the Immigration Act, try State, Justice, or INS.” After looking through about ten years of these types of letters, I gave up.

But hey, I came to D.C. to figure out what collections would work, and which wouldn’t, so it’s good to know that I’ll need to look to the Dept. of Labor (among other places) for records about Mexican labor immigration, rather than Agriculture…

...or so I thought

2008-07-16T11:50:00.002-04:00

Well, I got to the Library of Congress this morning thinking that I still had four boxes of materials to look through in the Celler Papers. I've been working my way backwards through the collection (don't ask...it's what I usually do,) and thought that these last four would take me two days to get through. Now here I am about two hours after I started, and I'm finished. 2 of the boxes contained nothing but pamphelts from outside organizations, many of which I've already seen, and Congressional hearings, records, etc., which I've also already seen. The remaining two boxes contained general correspondence coming into Celler's office, but unlike a lot of the later records in the collection, don't seem to have any of his responses or outgoing letters.

I have to think that the disparity between earlier and later records has something to do with when the collections were donated to the Library. Celler donated all of his records through about 1956 in 1967, while he was still a Congressman. The remaider of the collection was donated in 1972 and 1977, at the end and after he left the House. Possibly once out of Congress he felt that he didn't need to hold on to quite as much?

Hitting the Homestretch

2008-07-15T17:40:00.001-04:00

My time in D.C. is rapidly winding down (for now), but I think I’ve just about gotten through what I came to do. I have a few more days of research in NARA II to finish up some State Department and Secretary of Agriculture Records, and a couple more days at the Library of Congress to finish up with the Celler Papers. All in all I’ve found a lot of really great stuff, have learned to use the collections, and have a good sense of what other collections I’ll need to look at.

For one, if I do continue to pursue the labor angle (both skilled and unskilled visa categories/admissions,) I’ll need to look through the Department of Labor files. I also might need to look through the Department of Education for the student issue, but again, only if I go down that road. I also didn’t have a chance to look through the Office of the Budget files, which should be a good way to get around the dearth of INS files, and I might try to take another stab at finding the relevant INS records (not likely though.)

I’ll also need to head to Boston to look at the Abba Schwartz Papers, as well as Princeton for the Michael Feighan Papers, and possibly even Reno for the Pat McCarran Papers. Stopping by the Johnson Library wouldn’t be a bad idea either…

In my next post I’ll have some thoughts on the Secretary of Agriculture files, but for now, I’ve only just begun working with them.

The Importance of International Affairs in Immigration Policy, Part 2.

2008-07-09T17:17:00.000-04:00

Continuing from my last post, today I’d like to talk about a series of documents prepared by Congressman Emanuel Celler’s office c.1954. Celler chaired the House Committee on the Judiciary, and these cases were prepared as part of testimony highlighting the extreme restrictiveness of the McCarran-Walter Act (Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952.) Celler led the fight to replace the Act, culminating in 1965 with the passage of the Hart-Celler Act (Immigration and Naturalization Act.)

Celler’s staff most probably picked this series of cases for their representativeness as the most innocent victims of the immigration system they could find, those excluded from the country because of minor crimes in their past. Here are two examples:

(1) Anneliese Else Hermine Neumann, a German girl, stole two bags of coal while working in a railway coal yard in Berlin in Jan. 1947. In 1951 she married a Sergeant Ware, and applied for an immigrant visa. Her application was denied on the grounds that she had committed a “crime involving moral turpitude.”

“Sergeant Ware pleaded in behalf of his wife, stressing that in 1947, her father was still a British prisoner of war and her mother was incapacitated due to the fact that she had been wounded in both legs during the bombing of Berlin. There were at that time six younger children in the Neumann family, and the only reason Anneliese stole the coal was to keep the family warm.”
“There was no relief possible under the law, and Sergeant Ware had to resort to a private bill.”

(2) “Edith Ruth Smith (nee Kunick) married Sergeant Smith of the US Army in Germany in 1952. Their marriage had the prior approval of the American military authorities, but when it came to issuing an immigration visa to Mrs. Smith, it was discovered that Mrs. Smith, while 18 years old, committed “a crime involving moral turpitude”. Here are the facts as reflected in officials reports.”
“During an outing in 1948 in Stuttgart, Germany, Edith’s sister, 16 years old, climbed a walnut tree and while shaking the nuts from the tree, fell and fractured both arms. She was subsequently notified to appear at police headquarters for questioning. Edith, although not summoned, accompanied her sister because of the latter’s injuries. At police headquarters, both of them were charged with stealing walnuts from a tree, which was the property of the city of Stuttgart. The two girls paid a fine (roughly equivalent to 10 cents) but Edith Kunick, now Mrs. Paul William Smith, has been refused a visa.”

I find these cases extremely interesting. In both, the protagonists are wives of servicemen, whose husbands attempted to bring them over to the United States, only to find them excluded on a technicality. This admission of military brides had by this point already become a contentious topic in immigration policy, and I think it is telling that instead of using any other type of migrant (laborers, noncitizen military personnel, male immigrants from Europe, etc.,) Celler’s staff chose the spouses of servicemen. Whether this was simply to highlight the plight of “our boys overseas” who couldn’t bring in their wives, or whether it had more to do with the gendered nature of the migrants is unclear, but interesting nonetheless.

Each case references crimes committed in postwar West Germany, which seems to me to be as much of a criticism of the rule of law in West Germany (and the sorry state of its postwar society) as in the U.S. – i.e. although we refuse to allow these women in on technicalities, conditions in West Germany forced them to commit these petty crimes in the first place.

The case of Anneliese Neumann also states that Congress had to resort to a privately sponsored bill to admit her. The report implies that the McCarran-Walter Act not only discriminates unnecessarily, but also creates more work for Congress, since private bills are now required to correct its injustices.

Lastly, in the case of Edith Smith, the report goes out of its way to mention that the military had already approved the marriage, (which on policy they would do only if the spouse would be eligible to enter the U.S.,) while the consular officials, acting under the McCarran-Walter Act, denied them entry. This clash between military and civilian agencies, coming in the post-WWII and Korean War era seems to me a good way to draw on pro-military sentiment, especially overseas, to push for immigration reform. In this light this line of argument can be viewed as showing the superiority and inherent “rightness” of military authority over consular/legislative.

I’m not convinced, as Celler’s staff seemed to be, that these cases represent a failure of law rather than a failure in the interpretation of law, but the interplay between gender (military brides,) foreign diplomacy (U.S.-West German relations,) and the rule of law makes these cases an ideal window into the complexities of immigration policy after WWII, and an excellent find.

The Importance of International Affairs in Immigration Policy, Part 1

2008-07-08T17:44:00.003-04:00

I’ve been spending more time in the Library of Congress lately, and have found a couple of really interesting documents. One in particular I’d like to talk about today:

The first is a document entitled “Refugee Problems, World Survey,” a State Department report from 1958. The document outlines U.S. refugee policy throughout the world, and U.S. interests in various refugee crises. Of interest to my work are the sections on Hong Kong. The document states

It is a basic policy of the United States to seek to promote friendship for the United States among the captive populations and to bolster their hope and faith in ultimate freedom. As long as the Chinese refugees in Hong Kong, having rejected Communism, were willfully enduring unexampled misery and hopelessness rather than return to their Communist-dominated homeland, the United States could not remain unidentified with efforts to meet the problem.

State then lists three possible courses of action – to “remain indifferent”; to offer substantial aid; or “to begin a program of limited and selective assistance.” State recommends the latter.

On the surface this decision isn’t surprising – while supporting Chinese refugees in Hong Kong was seen as an important part of the fight against Communist China, by discrediting the regime and by giving hope to others still inside the “Bamboo Curtain,” in practice, the U.S. focused their refugee efforts much more on eastern Europe, and on escapees from the Iron Curtain. Legislators designing refugee legislation spoke of “token numbers” of refugees from China, and shied away from any effort that would admit great numbers of Asians.

But by viewing only the domestic picture, or the legislative debates, a rather one-sided picture emerges – whatever their motivations, legislators did not want to resettle large groups of Chinese refugees. But, going back to State’s report, the reason given for advocating only limited intervention is illuminating. After discounting the first proposition (doing nothing,) on principle, the report states

The second alternative was not practicable, since it constituted a virtual assumption of responsibility at vast cost to the United States for a matter that properly rested with the sovereign British authorities in Hong Kong. Moreover, such a program would have been in conflict with the British political position and would have contained a threat to British prestige in the Far East.

While we can’t simply take the report’s word on face value, the added element of U.S.-British diplomacy incorporates another dimension to the pros and cons of refugee intervention. I need to play with this idea more, but I think the Colonial, and specifically British, interests in Hong Kong need to be considered, when analyzing East Asian refugee policy. (I’ve also found a number of other documents referring to Britain’s interests in Hong Kong, to the point where one State Department dispatch writes that Britain most probably recognized the government of Communist China to protect it’s own business interests in the territory.)

In my next post I’m going to talk about a series of cases prepared by Congressman Celler’s staff, to highlight the restrictiveness of the McCarran-Walter Act (Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952.)

Happy Independence Day!

2008-07-03T21:51:00.003-04:00

This 4th of July weekend I plan on doing a number of patriotic, all-American things. First, I plan on watching baseball games (nothing particularly new or special there - I'm a huge sports nut). Baseball and American flags waving just seem to go hand-in-hand. I reference, on left, a guide to the flags of Wrigley Field. I just LOVE this illustration and many of the others from the same era. Check out this neat website of Cubs scorecard art through the years and remind me why I don't study the history of something more like this. Many of the drawings were done by the same artist who did many of Wrigley gum's early ad campaigns.

After checking in on my favorite National League (Cubs) and American League (Twins) teams, I plan on drinking a Leinenkugels beer. While I usually give Wisconsin a pretty hard time, those guys really got it right with this beer. The Leiny's factory in Chippewa Falls is pretty much the beer version of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.

Once I've completed one or more delicious midwestern brews, I plan on eating about four Hebrew National hot dogs. Hebrew National's slogan is "We Answer to a Higher Authority," and boy do they ever, those things are damn good. Man, if you think I'm bad, it could be so much worse. Seriously (if you only click on one link today, let it be this one).

I also plan on participating in the great American tradition of blowing crap up (or watching others professionally blow crap up).

On the academic side of things, my research really sped up this week in the archives. I set a new personal record for most time spent with a single box last week while working on the Committee on Anthropological Research in Museums (CARM) records. I immediately broke that record when looking though the very next box. Thankfully, God heard my prayers and the last couple of boxes were filled with only moderately useful documents.

In other words, I've been productive enough to take a long weekend over the next few days. I have to keep reminding myself that I still have a few more weeks to scratch a few more things off the summer to-do list. And yet, I still feel like I've blinked and missed half of the summer.

Have fun this weekend! And please be careful if you plan on blowing anything up yourself. You need most if not all of your fingers to read this blog the rest of the summer.

And this is why Jersey gets a bad rap...

2008-07-02T13:39:00.001-04:00

The following is the text of an add in U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 11, 1965.

See if you can spot the inaccuracies (hint: look for things like "a never-ending choice of places to visit...)
--

Here’s Why Industrial Parks in New Jersey Offer You the Perfect Plant Site

New Jersey has a great number of made-to-order industrial parks – spacious, well-planned areas that provide industry with everything it needs to succeed: heavy-duty roadways and rail spurs, all utilities, help in building and financing, local community cooperation. The list is endless…and it’s important frosting on the cake. But look at the cake itself…look at New Jersey!

First: the market. New Jersey sits right in the middle of Megalopolis, the most concentrated area of wealth and influence in the world. It is served by the nation’s two largest deepwater ports. It has the highest ratio of scientists and technicians. Eighty-five of America’s 100 largest industrial firms are here. And, of great importance, New Jersey offers a never-ending choice of places to visit and things to do.

Get the full story on plant site opportunities in New Jersey. Return the coupon today for your free copy of the informative 48-page booklet entitled: “New Jersey – Land of Amazing Advantages”

- Public Service Electric and Gas Company

One Down and CIS Records

2008-07-01T15:00:00.000-04:00

For the second week in a row, I came to NARA I on Monday to find a cart full of boxes, and again only managed to get about two days worth of work from the materials. This week I found some great stuff in the House and Senate records around some of the major pieces of legislation from the period I’m looking at (1943-1968,) but most of Bill files had only a few documents. At least 5 of the 9 boxes I pulled this week weren’t useful at all. It’s frustrating, but at least I’m finding some stuff.

I’ve been working with one of the legislative archivists here at NARA, and from what he’s told me, I’ve seen just about everything I can at this point (a few things are still classified, and Congressional records are not subject to FOIA. Ironic that Congress wrote themselves a exemption…) I’m sure there will be more materials to look at once I get a better sense of my project, but for now I think I’m done at NARA I. I’m planning on spending the rest of my time here moving between the Library of Congress (19 boxes of Celler Papers left,) and NARA II (endless supplies of State Department, Displaced Persons Commission, and Department of Agriculture records.)

The legislative archivist did take me around the bound finding aides for Congressional Committee publications, prints, and hearings. If nothing else, learning how to use this collection was well worth my time at NARA I. The Congressional Information Service (CIS) put together all of the Congressional publications, and indexed them in some of the most complicated volumes I’ve seen.

There are two major sets that the archivist showed me: The CIS US Serial Set Index, and the CIS US Congressional Committee Index. Both run from around 1900 to 1969, relate to Congressional publications, and allow you to search by subject keyword (“immigration” “refugees”, etc.) or by Congress (81st, 82nd, etc.). Once you find the proper call numbers from each set, you then go to the appropriate set of microfiche (published by CIS as well,) to view the documents. Supposedly UCB should have copies of both, either in the Main Library, or in the Government Reference Division.

The US Serial Set Index (Z1223.Z9C65) is divided primarily by time period, and then within each time period, by Subject Index, and then by Finding Aid List. The Finding Aid list contains the numerical list of reports and documents published by each Congress, as well as a list of private bills enacted for individuals and organizations (especially useful for immigration studies.) Entries look something like the following:

“Amend Sec. 319, Immigration and Nationality Act”
H.rp. 877 (90-1) 12753-6

The first line contains the title, while the second contains the Branch of Congress (“H”); the type of documents (rp = report); the publication number (“877”); and Congress and Session (90th, 1st session,) and finally the Serial Number needed to retrieve the document itself (“12753-6”).

Got it so far?

OK. The CIS Congressional Committee Index (Z1223.Z7C6 ) is the list of committee prints from all of the various Congressional Committees. Like the Serial Index, it’s broken up into subject files and lists of prints. According to the introduction, the proper way to do research in the Congressional Committee Index consists of 3 steps:
1. Scan the subject index for keywords (“immigration” “refugee”, etc.) to get the accession numbers.
2. Refer to the main entry/entries in the Ref. Bibliography, using the Accession # this gives the full data, and also the Subdocs (Superintendent of Documents) Number.
3. Retrieve the publication from the microfiche, or from the library if available. (According to the archivist, if the Subdocs number starts with a “Y4” they probably have a hard copy at NARA I.)

If all of this sounds complicated, it is, and I really have to wonder why the process of producing a reference volume makes the final product even more complicated. Still, this is probably the best way to get a comprehensive overview of what’s out there. Up to this point I’d just been using UCB’s library catalog to search for Committee reports, etc. on my topics, but now that I know how to use the CIS collections, I should be able to get the full range of Congressional documents available.

Researching the Library of Congress

2008-06-28T21:52:00.002-04:00

OK, so now for the substantive post about doing research at the Library of Congress (and a bit more on the National Archives at the bottom...)

After assorted computer and access issues (see below) I finally got to pend two good days in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division. The LOC itself is split into three buildings, and the MS division is in the Madison building, away from the main reading room. Unlike the National Archives, you store your stuff in lockers inside the Manuscript reading room (though before passing through security.) Each day you check in at the security desk, and they hand you a key for the lockers (also unlike NARA, where the lockers cost $.25.) Your locker number is more or less your ID number for the day, and every time you enter or leave the room, you give the guards your number, and they mark down time of entry and exit (presumably for security reasons...I'm guessing no one really cares how long I take to use the restroom...) The reading room itself is pretty large, and even during the middle of the summer, it seems as though it can hold probably four times as many people. In general it seems like the vibe is much more casual here - most people are wearing shorts, most seem like graduate students or young professors (i.e. much younger than NARA,) and there doesn't seem to be as many casual researchers. People flock to NARA to look through genealogical records, but the LOC collections are mainly personal papers and organizational records, so I would imagine most people have a more serious research interest. (Although I did see one girl watching a movie while going through her materials!)

The advantage to doing research in more clearly defined collections like personal papers is mainly in the organization of the collections. The papers of Congressman Emanuel Celler that I came to look at were donated in two batches, instead of over time like some of the Congressional or State Department Records in NARA. This means that the collections were organized and indexed in one period, so the finding aid is pretty well put together, and pretty comprehensive. Granted it's still a print-only finding aid, and the paper itself looks like a dog might have chewed on it at some point, but it's still all there, and easily accessible. There are something like 500 boxes in the collection, and the finding aid contains an annotated list of the boxes and their contents (i.e. Box 19: Immigration, Notes and Clippings through 1954.) After looking through the collection, I think I'll need to see about 24 boxes of materials.

The archivists at LOC are incredibly helpful and friendly, and seemed very eager to try and help me with my research. Unlike NARA there are no "pull times" for materials, so you just fill out a call slip and they bring you your boxes about five minutes later. They only let you take out four boxes at a time, but again, since you can request materials at any time, it's really not a problem. (The one interesting quirk I found is that they make you fill out a new call slip every day, even if you've placed boxes on hold already. One of the archivists told me that the only real advantage of placing things on hold here is that the carts are left at the front of the stacks, instead of filed away, so you save a minute or two.)

Other advantages of researching in the Library of Congress is that they have free wifi (really helpful for googling names, acronyms, etc. that you come across while researching,) and that the desks themselves are really spacious, and don't have dividers (only two people per desk, though because of the amount of space, no one seemed to be doubled up.) The major disadvantage I've found is that while the room is pretty bright, it's not particularly well lit for taking photos. The images I'm getting from the LOC are much poorer in quality than those from NARA. Oh well...I'll need to spend much more time here before I can get a better sense of the collections, but so far what I've found has been really useful.

On a separate note, it seems like I'm starting to run out of materials at NARA I. I've looked at a lot of the materials from the 1950s, and am trying now to access some of the stuff from the 1940s, but it seems as thought the records from the 1960s are much harder to get at. For one thing, there is a blanket 50 year rule on records containing personal information, so at the very least I'd have to wait another two years before seeing the records (and up to another 10, considering my project goes through 1968.) Congress is also exempt from FOIA, so I can't exactly press for their release. There might be a workaround or two, but I think after this coming week I'll be spending the majority of my time left here at NARA II and the LOC.

Tombstones From My Home State? In Front of the Archives? Should I be Worried?

2008-06-28T13:11:00.008-04:00

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the National Anthropological Archives is located in the Smithsonian's Museum Support Center in Suitland, Maryland. It is a haul for me to get there from where I live in the city, but I find it to be worth the wait, especially considering some of the factors highlighted in Phil's recent posts (going to bigger archives can be a pain).

As far as I can tell, the Museum Support Center consists of two main buildings. The one pictured above is the main facility housing much of the behind the scenes material for the museums on the Mall. At the same site the National Museum of the American Indian has its new Cultural Resources Center (CRC). I've never been in the CRC myself, but I've seen pictures and it look like a stunning new facility.

Down the road, the museum has another support facility for the Air and Space Museum. You can tell its not a regular office building because they have one of these sitting in the parking lot. Just chillin'.

Upon walking onto the grounds of the Museum Support Center (after showing ID of course) you have a pleasant walk towards the main building, pictured above. The Smithsonian has done a nice job adding outdoor sculptures to what would otherwise be a normal looking government building. Still pretty plain, right?

Not so fast.

I noticed one day when walking into the building that a number of tombstone-like objects adorned one side of the facility. Upon closer inspection, the objects all bore the names of places and quarry companies, most of which were from my home state, Minnesota. You can probably see why I walked past these things for a couple of weeks thinking that they were, in fact, tombstones. When I looked more closely, however, it was clear that the inscriptions bore no names or dates, just the name of quarry companies and cities, including Minneapolis and St. Cloud.

I finally asked around inside the Museum Support Center this week. Most of the security guards I asked shrugged their shoulders. They asked me to let them know when I finally figured out what the heck they were. My archivist at the NAA told me that she wasn't quite sure what they were, but she promised to e-mail around. She mentioned that they just kind of showed up one week awhile back -- as if the secret geology police had moved them there in the middle of the night. A few hours later she was able to give me a tentative answer.

Apparently, geological specimens, at one point, would be carved and adorned in order to show where they had originated from. The collection comes from the Smithsonian's mineralogy collections and may have been on display at one point.

Again, this is the tentative answer the staff was able to provide. I've never seen any pictures of carved geological specimens on display, but it wouldn't surprise me. Moreover, I study mainly art and anthropology so I could have easily missed displays of this kind. It has long been commonplace for paleontology and geology exhibits to display polished petrified wood like this. Petrified wood, as it occurs in nature looks more . . . well . . . natural.

The Smithsonian's online catalogue contains a number of beautiful images of geology exhibitions including this gem (pun intended) from 1903.

But the 1903 exhibit shot does not show any of the mysterious quarry stones. Nor does this shot from 1919. The 1919 picture, however, clearly contains a polished stone, center right. The stone appears to be clean, however, and not adorned with its location like the stones outside of the Museum Support Center. Later images of gem and mineral displays at the Smithsonian show mainly smaller specimens. This image from 1930 provides an example.

My hunch would be that the answer may not lie in the geology exhibitions, but rather in the collections and displays of the Arts and Industries Museum. The main hall of the A&I Museum circa 1927 can be viewed here. I think it would make sense to consider geological mining an "industry" to be displayed in exhibitions showing the various geological resources in North America.

Apparently, my home state of Minnesota was reppin' it at some point in the nation's attic.

I'll continue to poke around to see if I can find a more complete answer.

What a Week...

2008-06-26T16:18:00.003-04:00

Apologies for the breaking in blogging...I was actually in the middle of writing a new post last night, when my hard drive died. So now, after spending a full day at the Apple Store, I have a new drive, more or less updated. (Thank God for extended warranties and external hard drives. I'm really glad I picked one up before I left, otherwise I would have lost all of the photos I've been taking in the archives.)

The dead hard drive capped a really mediocre week in the archives. This was supposed to be my first full week (without weddings, holidays, etc.) to work, but so far I've managed only to get in a full day on Monday, and two half days - Tuesday and Wednesday. I started the week with 14 boxes of materials at NARA, thinking that would take me the better part of the week. I found some great stuff on Monday, but when I got back to the archives on Tuesday morning, I realized that at least 8 of the boxes weren't useful at all, and much of the materials in two other boxes just didn't relate. (You just never know beforehand.) Plus the archivist I'd been working with wasn't going to be back in until Thursday, so I decided to call it a day.

With the lull in materials, I decided to head to the Library of Congress, to check out the Emanuel Celler Papers. It took me a bit of time to find the correct entrance ot the building, and to get to the research room, so by the time I got there, it was closer to 9:45am. I got to the front desk, and the woman tells me: "We're shutting the building. You need to leave now." Considering it was still early, I was a bit confused, but she reitreated. "We're shutting the building for an emergency preparedness drill in five minutes. If you don't leave immediately, you'll be locked in with no power in the building. Come back after 11." Great. Just great. So I came back at 11, with all of the other people who had been kicked out, waited on a very long line to get my reader's card, and finally go into the manuscript division closer to noon.

I've got a lot more to say about the Library of Congress and their collections, but I'll save that for another post...

Meet the Record-O-Fone

2008-06-26T14:20:00.013-04:00

I came across a reference today to a message being left on a "record-o-fone". I delight in futurama - particularly material culture and technology from the 1930s through the 1960s which were often given names intended to sound really futuristic. All you have to do to make me laugh is to make a joke somewhere in this genre. This is no doubt a big part of the reason I love the show Futurama, which riffs on these themes all the time. Historian Rob MacDougall cracks me up with his jokes about "electromail" and the "interwob".

From our perspective, many of these names sound deliciously outdated. When I noticed the reference to the device in a letter, I had to take a 15 minute break to find out what the heck it was. My guess is that fifty years from now, historians will no doubt view some of those engaging in today's Futurology or "Future Studies" in the same way.

I frequently mock the Bay Area's "Bay Area Rapid Transit" (BART) heavy rail as being the product of a designer in the 1970s imaging what the year 2000 would look like. See for yourself. The BART even has carpeted floors, which, as you can probably imagine, have not stood the test of time. They really should have chosen the shag carpet instead.

Here is an up-close picture of a record-o-fone, more specifically, the Bell RT-65 Recordophone.

Today, while looking at correspondence from the National Anthropological Archives, I found a reference to a record-o-fone from 1969 in a letter from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. The reference was fleeting, to paraphrase it was sort of a "We got your message on the record-o-fone," type of thing. Wenner-Gren is a non-profit which promotes anthropological and social scientific research. Apparently, the foundation had acquired one of these fancy devices that recorded the voices of those calling a phone with nobody on the other end available to pick up. The record-o-fone was the precursor to the answering machine, which is also known as the answerphone, or telephone answering device (TAD). According to Ye Olde Wikipedia, the answering machine was invented by 1935 by a man named Benjamin Thornton, about which Wikipedia knows nothing else. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the terminology here, "Hey there, this is Sam, leave me a message on my TAD." The lingo must have taken some getting used to.

The snazzy thing about the record-o-fone is that you could use it to tape pretty much anything with it, not just phone conversations. The Watergate Tapes were evidently created on a similar device, called produced by Sony, the TC-800B. You can see nerds talking about it here. Those working on behalf of Nixon had "bugged" the Oval Office with several microphones which allowed it to record the crazed ramblings of our elected officials for our listening pleasure.

Early answerphones used tapes to record the voices on the other end of the line. The digital answering machine was invented in 1983, but didn't catch on for millions of grandmothers (who still used those little tapes) until years and years later. Another letter in the archives complains that the one caller had a mere fifteen seconds to record a message for the Wenner-Gren Foundation before being cut off. Instead of recording the message, the individual in question, in his secretary's absence, chicken pecked a letter to the foundation instead. While snail mail may have been winning some minor victories over telephone recording devices, the record-o-fone was already well on its way to winning the war. The answering machine became standard in both the workplace and home in the United States in the later half of the twentieth century. The answering machine is still common place in American homes today, but voicemail has largely replaced the answering machine in the workplace and is also standard on mobile phones.

For further proof that the web is amazing, and my life is awesome, moving picture of a recordofone in action can be viewed here. While this video borders on the verge of life-changing, I'm not exactly sure what is up with the leopard print blanket in the background.

Clearly, the record-o-fone has little to with my research on the history of American museums. While the device has little to do with my research, I like to tell myself that by taking a 15 minute break to learn about it may just help me understand the people I study just a little bit better.

The "Linear Foot" and other Sexy Archival Terms

2008-06-18T10:20:00.007-04:00

Before arriving in D.C. for the summer all three of us conducted a certain amount of internet research. Grant proposals typically require a description of your proposed project, plus a timetable of how long you expect the work to take to complete. For historians who work in archives, the term "linear foot" should be a familiar one. Archives typically have online catalogues, sometimes with finding aids describing what is available in each collection. If you're lucky, you will get all of this plus a notation of how many linear feet the collection is. Two of the collections I was interested in peeking at this summer were noted as being about four linear feet.

The Society of American Archivists (SAA ) defines a linear foot as, "a measure of shelf space necessary to store documents," or alternatively, "a measure of motion picture stock; film footage." The SAA provides a little more detail here: linky.

So what does that mean for you, Joe Grad Student? Not much, unfortunately.

Preparing for this summer was really my first experience in writing grants based on archival materials measured in linear feet. Most of my archival experience up to this point has been based in museums, or in archives nearby where I lived. So I guess you could say that this is my first trip taken specifically to visit an institution that bills itself as an archive, rather than requesting to see files in museums that could be considered archival.

In fact, the majority of the museum archives I have worked in sort the files I look at by catalogue number or accession. An accession can basically be defined as a specific acquisition to a collection. Museums change how they register collections over time but accessions are usually discreet groups of objects brought into the larger collection. Let's say I donate my collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures to the Smithsonian. It would be considered a single accession with each of the action figures being assigned individual catalogue numbers. The museum then creates an accession file and places in it all of the relevant documents recording the acquisition. An accession file could include a huge number of documents, an academic journal article a famous scholar wrote about the significance of my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle collection, or an article based on an interview I did with the New York Times on my collection. The accession file might also simply contain a catalogue card recording that I had four action figures and donated them to the museum on X date. The accession file could be a single sheet of paper, or it could be several inches thick.

You get the idea.

Unlike an accession file, an archival box is consistent in size. About four inches. A linear foot, based on my California Math, is about 3 boxes.

But, as I've been reminded this summer, the fact that a linear foot is consistent in size does not mean that it will be consistent in the amount of time it takes to trudge through as a historian. The first collection I looked at this summer was listed as containing correspondence, catalogue information, and other miscellaneous items. I was mainly interested in looking at the correspondence in the collection, and, in all, it turned out to be a little less than a fourth of the collection.

When I wrote to archivists preparing to take this trip this summer, I continually asked, "How long do you think it will take to get through this collection," or, "how long does it take to get through a linear foot?" The answer was always the same, "it depends." While this was frustrating for me as I tried to write grants, it has turned out to be painfully accurate. For some reason, granting agencies don't really like, "I'm not really sure how long," written in crayon all over grant applications.

Here are some of the compounding factors I've begun to think about when estimating how long a collection will take.

When was the collection created? In the very late 19th century and early 20th century, carbon copies of correspondence started to become more common. Carbon paper, while invented much earlier, seems to have become more widely utilized when married with typewriter. In my experience, handwritten correspondence, despite the fact that it is written on thicker paper takes longer to comb through. Cursive writing of the 19th century almost has to be translated, as if in another language. Part of what I was hoping to accomplish this summer was to become more proficient in reading post Emancipation American scribble. Later documents, often typed on carbon paper, are typically easier to read, but are often printed on the super-thin duplicate copy paper. Because of this, I've found that archivists are typically able jam more information per linear foot in collections created later. As you move back in American history, collections tend to be more fragile and the paper becomes thicker, so it takes up slightly more room on the shelf.

I'm sure that by now you're really, really curious about the history of carbon paper, so click here for the non-stop action of paper history.

An additional factor when thinking about what an archival collection contains is to ask, how much of the collection will be useful to you? While an undergraduate, I looked through some of the YMCA archives at the University of Minnesota. The collection contained a large number photo slides that were of interest to me. The slides, held in thick plastic sheets, take up a lot of room compared to paper. In other words, if your linear foot contains only correspondence it will probably take a bit longer to trudge through. If the collection contains things like photo slides, pamphlets, or, I don't know, how about credit cards and gift cards (really?), the collection should take less time to examine per linear foot. This picture is closer to what I'm thinking of, except, instead of some nerdy card game, the sheets contain sweet historic slides.

Finally, what type of notes do you take when visiting archives and how much do you intend to copy or photograph? Historians frequently talk about their methods of taking photographs in the archives, but we often fail to create dialogue about how we take notes. I use Microsoft Word's note taking feature on my MacBook. I find this to be must faster than taking notes by hand and it allows me to transcribe a much larger number of documents word for word. If you hope to take photographs of archival materials, make sure the archives allow you to do so. If not, inquire in advance how much it will cost to make photocopies and budget the added cost into your grant proposals. If you're taking notes by hand, it will probably take you much longer to get through the "average" linear foot. If you're taking photographs, you can get through documents much faster, because you only have to skim them to see if they are relevant to your project (I'll only add that having a camera that snaps and reboots quickly is essential for efficient work in the archives).

The difference between the two collections I've chosen to look at for this summer could not be more striking. While both involve museums, one consists of documents from the mid-19th century while the other comes from the mid-20th century. The first contained thicker documents and more miscellany that wasn't useful for my project. I moved through the collection fairly quickly and certainly much faster than I anticipated. The collection I am working my way through now contains hundreds of information filled sets of correspondence, all typed on extremely thin carbon paper. The work is extremely slow.

So how long will it take you to get through that linear foot of archival documents? The answer, unfortunately, is "it depends".

FOIA!

2008-06-17T22:12:00.003-04:00

Update (6/19): Amazing how much can change in one day...yesterday I FOIA'd 119 boxes of material. 119. Just about everything I tried to access yesterday (from State Dept. records on refugees to Congressional files) was still classified. Lovely. Setting aside the issue of State granting my request, every single file would have to be screened before I could see it. Chances I see these boxes before I finish my Ph.D.? Slim. (Granted if there was an actual list of boxes, rather than just a collection description, I wouldn't have had to request all 119 boxes - I probably wouldn't have had to request more than 20 or so, but since there isn't, there's no way to know. What a wonderful catch-22.)
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I filed my first Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) today. The request was surprisingly easy – I just had to fill out a brief form with the location and description of the documents (indicated by a slip of paper in the archival file, stating that the documents had been removed for security reasons,) and my contact information. No reason needed or requested. They are required to respond in writing within six weeks, though this doesn’t mean that I’ll actually get the documents.

For some reason filing this request made me very happy. We’ll see what happens…

Delving into State…

2008-06-16T17:44:00.001-04:00

I finally got out to the National Archives College Park today. The shuttle from NARA I took about 45 minutes each way, and the building itself is pretty set off from the highway. The archives building is massive and quite beautiful, though very modern and minimalist - supposedly it’s the biggest archives building in the world. The reading room has massive floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over a forest that makes for a really pleasant experience, especially when the sun is shining. As opposed to the neoclassical (or just plain antique) reading room of NARA I, the entire College Park building is relatively new, spacious, and brightly lit.

The amazing thing about College Park is that many if not most of the procedures are completely different than those used by the downtown facility. For one thing you check your bags in lockers BEFORE going up to the research floors, meaning that you don’t have to have security look through all of your stuff on the way out, since your bags were never anywhere near archival materials. Also, whereas at NARA I, the archivists filed all of my requests (and found the boxes themselves as well,) here the archivists help you with the massive binders of finding aides, and then help you fill out the call slips. (Granted there are MANY more people using the College Park archives, but still.) They are also much more strict about security clearances – to copy, or even photograph, declassified materials you have to first get the boxes checked by the staff, and they give you a small tab (with the collection number and DECLASSIFIED on it,) to place on each page before copying.

There are a number of collections at College Park that I wanted to look at, but I came today to look at the State Department Collections (RG59,) so that’s what I’ll talk about.

Holy. Crap.

I had been warned that the collection is NOT easy to access, but wow was this was a challenge. The issue isn’t so much getting access to the actual records, but navigating the finding aides. There are two types of aides for the State Department records: Central Decimal Files, and Lot number files. The Central Decimal Files are basically just subject index guides, arranged chronologically (so there is a 1910-1949 binder, a 1950-1963 binder, etc.) These binders are broken up into different “classes” of records (and the classes don’t carry over from one binder to the next.) Even working within the classes themselves is difficult. Once you find the numbers you’re looking for (say, 150 for immigration,) you then fill out a call slip with the number and the years. The kicker is, there’s no way to tell how many boxes you’ll get, and you can only request a total of 24 at a time. (My first try netted 10 boxes for 6 call slips.) Also, many of the Central Decimal Files that involve correspondence between two countries require you to find the special country code for each before submitting.

Lot number files are arranged in binders by category – Wartime Refugees, International Organizations, certain major figures, etc. With these files you have to first find the proper Entry number that you are looking for, along with the box numbers that you want. Then you have to go to the location files (marked with a blue dot), and look up the stack location, shelf position, etc., before filling out all of the information.

The archivists have to check all files to make sure that (a) they’re not a microfilm, and (b) they’re not classified. Even if they’ve been declassified though, they can still be harder to get – if the records are in the “631” area, they can only be pulled twice daily. Oh, and did I mention that regular files are either housed in the “150” or “250” section of the archives, and you can only request files from one location per pull? Thankfully the archivists are very patient and helpful…

I think I’ve got the hand of the system, but honestly, there is a TON of material out there, and unlike the legislative records I’ve been working with, it seems like I’ll have to do much more digging to get through these records.

I have some more thoughts on the State Department records themselves, and the range of equipment being used at College Park to document the materials, but I’ll save that for another post.

What I learned today...

2008-06-11T20:18:00.003-04:00

A few random thoughts on my time at NARA today:

I started on the Senate Judiciary Committee records today, and the first thing that hit me was how well organized these records were. Each box and file was clearly labeled (and the label matched what was inside,) the boxes had indexes in some cases, and more or less the records were in good shape. 16 boxes so far...and these only cover 1954-1960, and only on refugees.

I also found out that I can only take about 170 pictures (w/o flash) before my camera battery dies. I need to start bringing my camera charger with me - I think this is going to be brutal on my rechargeable battery.

From what I read today it seems like the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 was much more controversial than I had previously thought (or had previously seen in the literature.) The Act is usually portrayed as either an emergency piece of legislation that only functioned on a very narrow level, or as one of the first to break down the strictures of the McCarran-Walter Act, by letting in refugees over and above quota limitations. From what I saw today, it seems that while the Act itself contained a number of more liberal provisions, the administrators dragged their feet and really slowed the numbers being admitted. This led to a showdown between between John Foster Dulles (the Secretary of State,) and Edward Corsi, a former Commissioner of Immigration in 1955. The archival record seems to show much more pushback on the restrictiveness of the RRA in general, and much more of a connection to the Refugee-Escapee Act of 1957 than I've seen anywhere. I'm still working out what exactly this means for the greater story of postwar immigration and refugee policy, but it is promising...

Adventures in the Library of Congress

2008-06-09T18:45:00.002-04:00

I went to the Library of Congress today as the National Anthropological Archives are closed on Mondays. I think I nearly avoided a lifetime ban from the Main Reading Room.

In the midst of my afternoon, with my pile of books sitting next to my laptop, I heard some noise and fuss next to me. I was sitting in the last row, up against the wall, with only two other patrons. By the time I looked up, the lady sitting next to me was packing up her things and whispering loudly to the man next to her in an upset tone, "This is a library!" Obviously, the man next to her had done something inappropriate. It was clear that she was getting up to immediately report him to security, but I had visions of her saying to the guard, "the man in the back said something inappropriate to me," causing the guard to flip a coin and ask me, instead of the man next to me, to leave the reading room never to return.

Thankfully, the accused was given a verbal warning and he picked up and left. Anyway, I am grateful that the other library patron gave security a detailed description of the man that was bothering her. Thanks to her description, I will be allowed in to the Library of Congress again next Monday.

Welcome to DC or Spinning My Wheels

2008-06-05T18:33:00.002-04:00

I finally made it into D.C. yesterday, and stepping off the train the first thing I felt was the heat and humidity. I forgot just how hot it is here, and I think after two years in California, I’ve lost my tolerance for anything other than temperate climates. I also forgot about the flash thunderstorms on the east coast, but thankfully missed the vast majority of the heavy rain. (There is something really beautiful though about sitting inside watching the lightning.)

This afternoon I went to NARA (Downtown) for the first time. I had already spoken with the INS archivist (see previous posts,) who assured me that there were two boxes of materials already waiting for me here. I got to the archives and went through the registration process (signing into the building and going through the airport-style security; registering my computer and camera serial numbers; registering for a researcher card and going through an informational slideshow about preservation.) At this point the archivist on the main floor told me my materials should already by in the reading room, so I headed to the second floor. When I got into the reading room and went through security, the people at the desk told me they had no record of my materials, and sent me back to the first floor. Back again on the first floor the front-desk archivist sent me to the finding aid room, where they also could not locate my files or an archivist who knew about my case. After about 45 minutes we finally reached the INS archivist who came down and found my boxes. By this time I had missed the 1:30pm pull time, and had to kill another half an hour before the 2:30 pull time (basically I had to wait for a page to literally bring the boxes two flights up. This is only done at specific times during the day, naturally.)

Thankfully while I was waiting I did have the time to meet with an archivist from the Legislative Division, to talk about Senate and House Subcommittee Hearings. Hopefully I will be able to get unpublished documents on committee hearings for various Congressional legislation, but again, since everything needs to be screened in advance, I need to write up a list of the House and Senate Bill Numbers for each piece of legislation I’m looking for, and email it to the archivist to see if they have the files I need.

At 2:30 I headed to the reading room and finally got 2 boxes of materials. Surprisingly, considering all of the security getting into the room, the staff basically leaves you alone once you’re there. I was also struck by how noisy the room was – people freely talking loudly…shocking for a library. Of the two boxes of materials, one contained nothing really relevant – mainly documents too early for my project. The other box seems promising, and I was able to photograph most of it today. Unfortunately it’s mostly correspondence INTO the INS – I was hoping to find responses FROM the INS as well. I may just be missing an obvious oversight, but where do I find the outgoing records???

In terms of equipment – I bought a new tripod before I left California, and it’s made life a lot easier. I’m using a Cannon PowerShot SD400 (5 Megapixels) to document my work. So far so good…

National Anthropological Archives: Day 1

2008-06-03T19:08:00.008-04:00

After taking a bus to the train station, then a train to the Mall, then a shuttle to the Smithsonian's Museum Support Center, I began work in the archives this morning. The trip takes a little over an hour. I plan on trying a different route tomorrow to shorten things up.

Getting started was a pretty painless experience, given the fact that the Smithsonian is a big place and the archives there are pretty vast. The people have been exceedingly friendly and helpful.

This morning I dove into the Army Medical Museum files. Combing through this material is somewhat like looking for needles in a haystack, except that I find a needle every couple of hours. So maybe it is more like buying a bunch of lotto scratch tickets, winning big from time to time, and winning just enough to buy more tickets with a few others. The general narrative of the transfer of human remains has been laid out pretty clearly by other scholars, but little has been done to illuminate the details of how this collection was brought together and later transferred to the Smithsonian. Some of the details, as I learned today, are more than a bit gruesome and bring to light some of the more painful legacies of the racial struggles of our nation's history.

As a side note, this project is also giving me an opportunity to work on reading 19th century penmanship. If you have any words of wisdom on reading mid-to-late 19th century writing, I would love to hear them.

Pre-NARA part 2

2008-06-02T20:05:00.004-04:00

Still not quite in D.C. yet, but I did hear back from the NARA archivist in charge of the INS collections. I had sent him a list of about 40 files that I wanted to look at, to see if they existed, and to get them approved. Of the 40, he's gotten through about 20, and of those 20, about half don't exist. Interestingly enough, almost all of the missing files are categorized under the keyword "children." I'm not quite sure if I should take that as some kind of sign...Still, it's nice to know there are already 2 boxes of materials ready for me to look at.

I've also sat down and compiled a list of all the collections I want to look at - INS records and legislative archives at NARA Downtown; State Department and Displaced Persons Commission Records at NARA College Park; and the Emmanuel Celler records at the Library of Congress. There's also a number of items related to "National Origins" in the Secretary of Agriculture's "Foreign Policy" files. I'm still not sure what immigration, foreign policy, and national origins have to do with Agriculture (at least post-WWII), but I guess we'll find out!

Arrival in D.C.

2008-05-30T22:45:00.002-04:00

Emily and I have arrived safe and sound in the District of Columbia. I had forgotten that the license plates here read, "Taxation Without Representation," a fact which gave me a chuckle.

Our stay in New Jersey was pleasant. We made a brief trip into New York City and I was happy to get a tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art with an experienced tour guide.

Tomorrow I will spend the day playing tourist with a friend of mine from Minnesota before meeting up with a couple of friends from Berkeley.

Diving Back In

2008-05-29T10:57:00.001-04:00

I return to the archives this summer after devoting a semester to learning how to teach American history. Admittedly, a part of me is apprehensive to dive back into my project, having grown comfortable in my routine. And yet, I love research and writing. The unmistakeable smell of archival documents will no doubt trigger some of the more sensitive synapses in my brain. Unfortunately, my passion for my research is not yet reflective in my scholarly writing, which is still a work in progress.

UC Berkeley's Department of History has asked us to complete a pre-dissertation prospectus. Our goal for this summer is sort of analogous to accepting a promise ring. After this summer we will all be somewhat like a high school cheerleaders; we won't quite be engaged to our projects, but will certainly take a step in that direction.

My planned dissertation, Making the Modern Museum in the United States: Art, Anthropology and the Desire to Understand Human Culture, intends to examine the history of anthropology and art museums in America past their foundations up to the post-Second World War Era. This summer, I will be conducting research at the National Anthropological Archives, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution. The overarching theme of my research is to examine how the operation of institutions influence and shape ideas.

This summer, I will specifically be looking at an archival collection documenting the transfer of human skeletal remains from the U.S. Army Medical Museum to the Smithsonian. I have, for some time, been interested in the process of building museums collections and, moreover, deciding what types of collections belong where. Does a Moche statue belong in an art museum or a natural history museum? While these questions are pertinent to the process of founding museums, I am more interested in how museums continued these debates after they were already established.

I am particularly sensitive to the idea of constructing collections of human remains in museums, having worked with these types of collections first-hand in several museums. This summer, I don't anticipate any need to work with the remains themselves, instead attempting to understand the historical process of their collection and care over time.

The collection could serve as a jumping off point for my dissertation. The U.S. Army Medical Museum, in attempting to build an encyclopedic collection of the various kinds of battle injuries experienced by troops, starting collecting human skeletal remains around the time of the Civil War. The institution eventually requested that Army field surgeons send skeletal remains from around the globe. The museum was especially interested in obtaining examples of human remains from the Native Americans of the American West.

After building a vast collection of human skeletal remains, the Army Medical Museum grew to be more interested in soft tissue samples. The collection of skeletal remains was transferred to the Smithsonian between 1898 and 1904. This summer, I will be studying how this process took place. What was the rhetoric surrounding the transfer? Who made these decisions and why? How did the operation of these institutions shape the type of research that was conducted? What type of legacy do these remains possess?

For more about my work, I'll point readers in the direction of my webstite, click here.

NARA San Bruno

2008-05-22T14:09:00.005-04:00

I spent most of the afternoon yesterday at NARA's Pacific Region archive in San Bruno. At the outset I'll say that I think I'm more confused now, having gone to the archive, than before, but we'll get to that.

NARA San Bruno is a windowless space in an obscure federal building, sandwiched between a park and a newly developed housing complex. The first thing that shocked me about the site was the lack of security - no one checks your bags. They do require you to put your stuff in a locker, but really all I had to do was sign in and sign out, and no one really paid attention to what I was doing. (Even the New York Public Library searches your bags when you leave, not to mention every time you enter or leave a reading room.)

So why was I in San Bruno? Well, one of the collections I need to look at for my dissertation is the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) correspondence files. I had been warned in advance that the INS files are tricky to use, but wow was I not prepared for what I found: first of all, the correspondence files only run through 1957, so I already need to find a work around, since my project runs until at least 1968. Secondly, there is no finding aid. At all. What they do have is Record Group T458, a 31-roll microfilm subject heading list. Basically every time the INS added a box to the archival collection, they took a notecard, typed out what was in the box, and microfilmed it. Thankfully, at least these 31 rolls were in alphabetical order, but since the microfilm was created over the span of about 30 years, the keywords have changed (i.e. displaced person to refugee to political refugee,) not to mention the fact that a few of the key terms I expected to be there just weren't. On top of all of that, the microfilm only runs through about 1953, so I'm still not sure how to access 1953-1957. San Bruno happens to have a copy of T458, and archivists and researcher-friends told me I should look through it before heading to D.C. (especially since INS records have to be cleared in advance by the archivist in charge before you can look at them.)

So after spending a number of hours trying to come up with as many keywords as I could think of that would be relevant for my project (and hand-cranking the reals back and forth - they have the old style microfilm readers,) I now have a 5 page excel spreadsheet with what I think are box and file numbers. And even that I'm not quite sure about.

Next moves: Contact the NARA archivist in charge of the INS Collection, contact the USCIS Historian (formally the INS historian) for help, and find other collections for 1957-1968.

Welcome

2008-05-22T13:40:00.002-04:00

This blog is meant for us to chronicle our experiences working in different archival collections in D.C. We'll be blogging about the state of the archives and collections, difficulties in doing primary source research, and hopefully some good finds.

Emily will be working at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Sam will be working at the National Anthropological Archives.

and Phil will be working at NARA (Downtown and College Park), and the Library of Congress.

Feel free to let us know what you think!