NEDCC’s Crowdfunding for Preservation

SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY AND A&M COLLEGE
Baton Rouge, LA 

The John B. Cade Library at Southern University is seeking donations to conserve a rare photograph of Frederick Douglass and his youngest daughter Annie, taken about 1858.   DONATE

HISTORY OF THE OBJECT

The John B. Cade Library is in possession of a rare and fascinating portrait of Frederick Douglass, taken about 1858. Douglass was an American social reformer and statesman known as a national leader in the abolitionist movement. Of all the photos of Douglass, there are three elements that make Cade Library’s portrait the most fascinating of them all. One reason for the photo’s enthrallment, Douglass is sharing the shoot with his youngest daughter, Annie; and, he has his arm around her. Douglass was married twice and had five children, all with his first wife. This picture is the only portrait of him with his arm around anyone. Another reason for the photo’s fascination is Annie was eight years old at the time of the photo. She would pass two years later of a brain hemorrhage. The final reason for the photo’s prominence is that this is the only photo of Annie Douglass at her most mature age.

BENEFIT OF CONSERVATION

This rare 165-year-old photograph of Frederick and Annie Douglass is in dire need of conservation and long-term preservation. The photograph was examined and determined to be in poor and unstable condition. The photograph is distorted with moderate cockling and there is a major tear diagonally across Annie’s left arm and body. Additional, peripheral tears and minor losses are also present along with soiling and moderate mold and water damage around its bottom margin. Conservation treatment to physically stabilize the portrait by photograph conservation experts at the Northeast Document Conservation Center will stabilize the image for its historic preservation and for future generations to appreciate.

Dawn Kight, Ph.D., Dean of Libraries
Southern University and A&M College

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA, ELMER E. RASMUSON LIBRARY, ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
Fairbanks, AK 

Recovering the Damaged Recording of Native Alaskan Dialect Using the IRENE Technology DONATE

HISTORY OF THE OBJECT

The Alaska and Polar Regions Archives at the University of Alaska discovered four 78 RPM glass-based discs in the collection of Anthropologist Dorothy Jean Ray.  Robyn Russell, Collections Manager of the Library’s Oral History Program says: “I opened the archival box, and inside there were four 78 rpm glass-base records in faded paper record jackets. The only information we had was the hand-written labels. For example, “Aleut (ATTU) #7 12/4/1945 ‘Song sung by father to child upon return after long absence.’”

Robyn explains, “With audio collections, you can’t look in the table of contents – you can’t thumb through them like a book to find out what it contains. You have to have playback. We knew that these recordings were unique and we could see that they were extremely fragile.  We didn’t dare put a stylus to them.  They were essentially hidden gems.” 

BENEFIT OF DIGITIZATION

The discs were sent to NEDCC to be transferred using the IRENE system, a ‘touchless’ technology developed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and tested at the Library of Congress.

The discs were in relatively good condition and the Audio Preservation team was able to get sound from 7 of the 8 disc sides. The recordings were of a married couple from the island of Attu in the Aleutian Islands, speaking and singing. The recording was made on their return from a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp after WWII in 1945. These recordings are some of the only existing examples of the dialect unique to the Attu Island, and add to the little-known story of the fate of the Attu Islanders during WWII.  The recordings can now be fully transcribed and the music studied.

The Oral History Program is now in the process of fundraising to complete the complex manual tracking with IRENE of the final disc side, which is delaminating, a condition common to the glass-base discs of this time period.  The label is marked “Conversation Concerning Basket-making.”

READ MORE: HIDDEN GEMS: The IRENE Technology Helps Preserve a Lost Native Alaskan Dialect

Past SUCCESSFUL Crowdfunding Projects

	BLUE HILL OBSERVATORY AND SCIENCE CENTER Milton, MA Volumes of irreplaceable information from the early decades of the Observatory’s climate record, the longest-running, most homogenous climate record in North America. LEARN MORE:  Blue Hill Observatory Climate Record Books Project
	ASHBY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Ashby, MA The Amos Wheeler Orderly book, an original document that provides a firsthand account of history being made during the Revolutionary War.
	WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY VANCOUVER LIBRARY AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS Vancouver, Washington Reformatting of dictabelt tapes from the James E. Carty Collection. LEARN MORE: library.vancouver.wsu.edu/carty-project
	KENNESAW STATE UNIVERSITY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS Kennesaw, GA Conservation treatment of an 1843 copy of the Declaration of Independence. Learn More HISTORY OF THE OBJECT The Bentley Rare Book Museum (BRBM) is a unit of the Department of Museums, Archives and Rare Books at Kennesaw State University and is home to over 10,000 rare books and manuscripts. One of the BRBM’s premier holdings is a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence, originally penned on parchment in 1776, began to show signs of age and deterioration by the 1820s. Secretary of State John Adams commissioned William J. Stone to make a copperplate engraving of the Declaration which was then used to print about two hundred copies of the document on parchment in 1823. Twenty years later, Peter Force was commissioned to print 1500 additional copies of the Declaration on paper for inclusion in a nine-volume set of books titled The American Archives. Force did not complete the series and only printed five-hundred copies of the Declaration. Now, only half of Force’s printings are known to exist. The BRBM has all nine volumes of Peter Force’s The American Archives and acquired one of the 1843 Declaration of Independence printings inside volume one of the fifth series of The American Archives. The BRBM’s copy of the Declaration of Independence is now one of the most prominent items in the rare book collection. BENEFIT OF CONSERVATION The Bentley Rare Book Museum is proud to own an 1843 copy of the Declaration of Independence, however, the preservation needs of this document heavily limit its use. The document is in critical need of mending, reframing, and an inert backing to protect its paper from further deterioration. Enhanced conservation treatment from experts at the Northeast Document Conservation Center will stabilize the document and prepare it for wide public engagement. Once conservation treatments are complete, the BRBM will facilitate in-person and digital outreach programs including exhibitions, online modules, and presentations that feature the Declaration of Independence copy and promote its historical significance to the public.
	ASHBY, MA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Conservation of a late 1800’s copy of the 1775 Orderly Book of the Wyman Company an Ashby company during the siege of Boston in the Revolution.
	WESTFORD, MA MUSEUM AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY Conservation treatment of a pastel portrait of Governor John D. Long.
	LEXINGTON, MA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Conservation treatment, rehousing, and digitization of the 1776 Jonas Clarke Commemorative Sermon.
	SANDY ISLAND FAMILY CAMP ARCHIVES Wolfeboro, NH Conservation and digitization of rare landscape plans created by the Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architecture Firm. Learn More Sandy Island began in 1899 and was originally known as Camp Buena Vista, offering a vacation destination exclusively for men with simple tent camping. Owned by the Boston YMCA, the camp was renamed Sandy Island Men's Camp in 1920. By 1932, the camp, still exclusively for men, offered two dormitories with combined accommodations for fifty men. With declining enrollment, Sandy Island offered an experiment in 'family camping' for one week in the mid-1930s.  The idea proved a great success and throughout the 1940's an increasing amount of camper enrollments were offered to single women and to families.  The camp gradually changed its focus from a men's camp, to a co-ed camp for adults, to its current status as a camp for families and single adults.  It is now known as Sandy Island Family Camp. Sandy Island Family Camp is now over 110 years old. The island comprises 66 wooded acres. 54 lakefront cabins line the north and south sides of the island. The Lodge, the center of the camp's social activities, reminds campers of its history, with its large stone hearths, exposed beams and wood floors.   LEARN MORE about Sandy Island Family Camp
	NEW ENGLAND ELECTRIC RAILWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Kennebunkport, ME The Seashore Trolley Museum raised funds to conserve and digitize the contents of a significant resource of Maine transportation history; the Portland-Lewiston Interurban (PLI) Employees Reunion Scrapbook (1938-1941). For more information on the scrapbook and the Narcissus Project, visit the Museum's great blog post showing extensive detail of the scrapbook contents.
	SOUTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Charleston, SC Conservation of the Sandy Island Plantation Journals/Almanacs 1792-1798.