May is Preservation Month

Many good causes have a day, a week, or even a month, to raise awareness and celebrate accomplishments. Those who love old buildings, neighborhoods, and downtowns, and work to save the places that matter to them have Preservation Month in May. What a fitting time, with new growth and life all around us during spring, to celebrate the new life and rejuvenation that historic preservation projects can bring to communities. (May is also Mental Health Month....maybe you sometimes need to be a little crazy to try and save historic places.) Preservation is about the past, but first and foremost it is about the present and future, providing folks today with creative and unique places to live, work, worship, and relax, and giving future generations those same opportunities.

The theme for Preservation Month this year is Celebrating America’s Treasures. Here in South Carolina, the State Historic Preservation Office created a poster that features some of South Carolina’s very own treasures that have been recognized as National Historic Landmarks. The poster can be viewed online at http://shpo.sc.gov/. (For more information about NHLs see http://www.nps.gov/history/nhl/.)

So during this most beautiful of months, remember Preservation Month. Take a moment to look around your community to see its historic treasures…both the diamonds in the rough that may need some repairs, and those that are sparkling and well-cared for. Thank those owners and leaders who are dedicated to the good stewardship of these treasures. We are all the richer for their presence…the buildings and the people who care for them.

The Never-Ending Document!

One of the volunteer projects we've been working on around the archive is rehousing the Charleston Equity Court Bills, and we found a very interesting one last week. The clerks actually pasted pages together to create a longer document, which we've seen before. However this particular one was 88' long! Yes, feet. We unrolled it in the lab to measure and we had never seen anything quite like it before. Ergo, it merited photos to share. (This is in the conservation lab, one of our very long rooms, containing fancy humidification chambers, book presses, document spas, and lots of other fabulous things for making your treasures last a long time. Shameless plug.)

And in case you're thinking of doing this yourself, know that eventually that glue will break down and the pages will separate, and no, they are not numbered. Which is why you should bring it in for us to fix up for you. =)







Thanks to our wonderful volunteers - we need you more than ever now!

Updates! and Notes on the Zen of Archiving

So it's been a while. Busy couple of weeks. Not a lot of good news floating around the archives, but on the up side, March 13 is the first Saturday of four that we'll be open with extra hours (8:30-5pm). Take advantage while you can!

It's contest season for those of you who are interested in the National History Day program, and for those of you who want to participate, they always need people to volunteer, whether as judges or simply to post signs. Odds are that there's a contest in your region, going on now. Or very soon. And of course, there's the state contest here in April. Start looking here.

Now, onto the zen of archiving. "Zen" being used loosely here, of course.

I've been chewing over the dichotomy of archival work, specifically that of public history. On one hand, as a professional, you're obligated to protect and defend, as it were, the records that constitute the known history of said particular locale (in this case, a state). On the other hand, you are summarily required to provide access to these records. Very often, these two demands are at odds - excess handling, copying, usage, etc. tends to destroy documents over time. But locking them away in a climate controlled, sterile environment for all eternity is (while perhaps best for preservation) contrary to everything the historical community stands for (knowledge and truth seeking), and in this case, possibly illegal (hence the public in public records).

Trying to find a happy medium, then, is the best one can presumably achieve. But how does one define balance between destruction and preservation, access and exclusivity? At what point is the line drawn, and a decision made: to prioritize preservation over access, or knowledge over future existence, or worse yet, that no one cares? Is there a way to do it all?

A Noble Profession?

Do you remember the fuss about a couple years back, when there was a spike in couples marrying on the seventh of July, 2007, all for the auspicious anniversary combination 7-7-2007? Imagine what it will be like on July 7, 7007. Yes, five thousand years from now. All those sevens. And what will these luck-chasing optimists know of us today?

You see, we have records from five thousand years ago, in one way or another. We have archaeological remains of temples and homes, we have bodies and mummies and bones, we have dendrochronology telling of climate change, we have ice cores and pollen counts to tell us what was growing and how far along agricultural practices had developed, we have DNA to trace the domestication of animals, and we have the lasting trails of metals from Copper Age mines - five thousand years ago - showing us clearly that our ancient forefathers, in their ignorance, were subjecting themselves and their families to heavy metal poisoning all in the search for a better axe. We also have records, and languages, and enough to figure out a general idea of population movement and cultural change.

Archivists - and those who work in or with records management - and librarians - all of us - can get buried in the mundane chores, the technical hang-ups, the red tape. We forget that we're all in the same business and on the same team. We're here, every day, doing what we do, for the quiet glory and stubborn persistence enabling the preservation of the records of humanity.

Because one lucky day, a generation that cannot fathom us will stand on the cusp of their future. And some of them will look at brittle papers and ancient bindings, and some of them will ask questions, and some of them will dream of those who came before - us.
-AL

Our House, In The Middle of the Storm

Who doesn't love an old building? The charm, the sense of past, the character, the architecture, the way the drafts just seep in and drive the utility bills sky high - well, everything has its price.

Now you can check out the weatherization guide for historic and older buildings. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has some great tips for energy efficiency and keeping costs down!

Hope Springs Eternal

Or at least for a good while longer. Congratulations to the Hope School Community Center!

The Hope School Community Center is the name of a Rosenwald School located in rural Newberry County near Pomaria. This little gem of a building was named for the local family who donated the land upon which it was built. It also represented the hope for a better future of the African American children who attended this two-room school from 1925-1954.

And on Saturday August 22, 2009, “hope” captured the feeling of the many guests who gathered in the recently renovated building to celebrate its new life as a community center. Guests marveled at the natural sunlight flooding through the windows, the freshly painted walls and ceiling, the well-worn but newly shined wood floors, the beautifully restored metal roof. Folks in their 60s, 70s and beyond, told stories of what it was like to attend school in this sturdy building, of the miles walked each day, the fires built on cold mornings, of the discipline and love of their teachers.


The restoration process is a remarkable story of many folks coming together – alumni, children of alums, descendants of the Hopes, students at Clemson, and many others—to make the vision of a restored school possible. And it is through their generosity in donating original school desks and a pot belly stove, the school sign, and oral history interviews to the Smithsonian, that future visitors to the National Museum of African American History & Culture, will learn about and share in this hope as well.



To read more about the Hope School Community Center go to http://www.hopeschoolcenter.org/.
For more information about Rosenwald Schools in South Carolina go to http://www.state.sc.us/scdah/afamer/hprosenwald.htm
For more information about the national Rosenwald School Initiative go to http://www.preservationnation.org/travel-and-sites/sites/southern-region/rosenwald-schools/