Fondly, Pennsylvania
Fondly, Pennsylvania
Fondly, Pennsylvania is HSP's main blog. Here you will find posts on our latest projects and newest discoveries, as well articles on interesting bits of local history reflected in our collection. Whether you are doing research or just curious to know more about the behind-the-scenes work that goes on at HSP, please read, explore, and join the conversation!
When I started interning in the Digital Collections and Systems Department here at HSP several months ago, I had no idea what was in store. Though I had recently completed my MLIS degree from the University of Pittsburgh, the fact that I was working full-time in another field unrelated to library science, archives or collections made it so that this internship, along with another internship I’m doing here this summer in the Collections area, constitutes the first actual job experience I have in my chosen field.
Given all the headlines about the struggling economy over the last couple years, it feels remarkably timely to be transcribing documents from the early months of the Great Depression as part of the Greenfield Digital Project.
Recently, I’ve been working on letters from depositors of Bankers Trust Company, which became one of the first large banks to fail in Philadelphia when it closed on December 22, 1930.
The Magdalen Society of Philadelphia was founded in 1800 to help reform “fallen” women. White-Williams Scholars is a funding organization in Philadelphia provides scholarships to select high school students in need. What could these seeming unrelated institutions possibly have in common? Read on to find out.
Last week, we said a sad goodbye to Celia, Michael, Holly, and Courtney of the PACSCL Hidden Collections Processing Project. They're moving on to other repositories, but in their wake here they left a trail of fantastically processed collections! One of the final collections they processed at HSP was the William Penn papers (Collection 485). Click here to read about their work with
How about a quick game of word association? What's the first thing that pops into your head when I say the word...
...gremlin!
Now that we’re elbow-deep in encoding the 300 or so documents for the Greenfield Digital Project, my colleague Faith Charlton and I are spending a lot of time at the keyboard.
Archives, like nearly all fields, are being forced to do more with less. Coupled with the denizens of the internet growing desire for more content at a more rapid pace and we have quite the dilemma. Luckily, there are still a few tricks about that can help to lessen both of these trials plaguing cultural institutions. The most recent of which I was able to experiment with was the usage of long-distance interns.
Out of some 600 items in HSP’s collection of cased photographs, the very first one I opened was an absolute gem. My work lets me examine and admire many old photographs, but never before had I encountered one with its own accompanying love letter which brought the photograph to life.
When we chose the Belfield papers (Collection 3159) for the PACSCL Hidden Collections Processing Project, we weren't entirely sure what the processors might find in those 3 Musketeer boxes. We only knew for certain that (1) they contained papers of members of the Wister family, the Starr family, Logan family, and Daniel Blain.
As part of the NHPRC Civic Engagement Project we’ve begun arranging the papers of Morris Milgram.
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