DHS: Other Projects
Aside from my work on the Garrett-Cremer Collection, I've processed several other collections at the Delaware Historical Society's Research Library.
The Wilmington Garden Day Collection
September 2022
One of my first projects at DHS involved putting the final touches on collections that students had worked on for Leigh Rifenburg's class the previous spring. The Wilmington Garden Day Collection offered a short, simple way to get my feet wet, as it only spanned two document boxes and was nearly finished--all I had to do was place photographs in envelopes and finish a finding aid. Its photographs shed light on Wilmington's historic houses and the families who opened them for public display.
Wilmington Garden Day still exists, and still offers their yearly charity showcase.
Although most of collection spans photographs dating to the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, it also includes ephemera like this 1982 booklet.
Photo by Chris Loos, courtesy of the Delaware Historical Society.
The Diamond Edge Foundation Collection included some videotapes, including this one of an exhibit by lesbian photojournalist Kay Lahusen.
Photo by Chris Loos, courtesy of the Delaware Historical Society.
The Diamond Edge Foundation Collection
September-October 2022
Another "finishing touches" project focused on the papers of the Diamond Edge Foundation, a non-profit from the late 1990s and early 2000s that sought to educate Delawareans about the LGBTQ community. It opened a window into an understudied field: LGBTQ activism in Delaware. My work involved rehousing documents per the collection's original order, as well as integrating formerly-embargoed material.
The John Ward Collection
October-November 2022
DHS Chief Curator Leigh Rifenburg and I almost literally stumbled on this set of typescripts, ephemera, and other documents, which belonged to Wilmington native and Philadelphia Gay News journalist John Ward. The papers provide some of the best insight into Delaware's LGBTQ communities, their social lives, and their political activism during the 1980s and 1990s. It also includes information on Wilmington local history.
John Ward collected many things related to LGBTQ+ life and politics, but some of my favorite includes the ephemera from gay-owned businesses in Rehoboth Beach. This stellar (ha!) brochure comes from Rehoboth's famous Blue Moon restaurant.
Image courtesy of the Delaware Historical Society.
The Anti-Tuberculosis Society Collection offers excellent insight into the histories of Black Delawareans, from their struggles to obtain quality healthcare at the segregated Edgewood Sanatorium to their service work in mobile x-ray buses.
Image courtesy of the Delaware Historical Society.
The Delaware Anti-Tuberculosis Society Collection
November 2022; March 2023
Previous students had already processed this collection, which spans photographs, letters, and administrative materials from the Delaware Anti-Tuberculosis Society. My task, then, lay in scanning this material, adding metadata, and uploading it to DHS's Digital Collections. You can check out my work here!
The Mordecai S. Plummer Collection
March 2023
The Plummer Collection offered a nice break after the huge Garrett-Cremer Collection, as it only filled up one metal box. Yet it still proved fascinating, and in my arrangement I uncovered letters from prisoners, newspaper articles, and a story about an escaped prisoner, a reform-minded warden, and an experimental "Honor System" at the brutal New Castle County Workhouse.
Perhaps the most haunting object in the collection, this crucifix belonged to Ernest Thomas, one of over a dozen Black men executed by the State of Delaware in the twentieth century.
Photo by Chris Loos, courtesy of the Delaware Historical Society.
Photo by Chris Loos, courtesy of the Delaware Historical Society.
Odds and Ends
You never know what you're going to find in an archive! As I was reshelving some boxes one day, I stumbled across a record album, probably from the 1930s or 1940s. Inside were nearly pristine transcription discs--like a vinyl record, but cut from pure aluminum, and used for at-home recordings and professional networks. Aluminum is very soft, so it's far too easy to damage this medium, and they also tarnish easily. This disc, which includes part of a speech from Delaware Senator Daniel O. Hastings, came from pioneering New York radio station WEAF and still has a mirror-like polish.