Brittany F. - The Cambridge Historical Commission Blog

Getting to Know Your CHC Staff: Part 9

Posted on November 5, 2019August 17, 2020 by Brittany F.

Welcome back to our ongoing series featuring the staff members who work here at the CHC! This post introduces our Archives Assistant, Brittany Fox.

Where did you grow up?

I’m a Massachusetts local, through and through. I’ve lived outside of Boston in the very small town of Hopedale for most of my life. Currently about 6,000 residents, it was originally established as a utopian commune.

Where did you go to school? What was your degree?

I got my Bachelor’s in History with a concentration in European history and two minors in English Literature and Film Studies from Salve Regina University, in Newport, R.I. After I graduated, I jumped into my current studies at Simmons University. By the Fall of 2020, I will graduate with two Master’s in History and Library Science with a concentration in archival studies from its SLIS program.

Ochre Court, Salve Regina’s first building

What are your interests or hobbies?

One of my biggest passions is advocating for environmental protection against climate change through my daily activities. I spent four years cleaning up Newport’s beaches as a member of Clean Ocean Access and my undergrad’s Protect Our Wildlife club. My concern also led me to become a vegetarian 4 years ago and I more recently became a vegan almost 2 years ago. I’m also very conscious about my energy and waste consumption– I do a lot of advocacy for proper recycling practices, the benefits of composting, and I often go home to assist my family’s bountiful garden. I bring environmental concerns into my professional roles as well. I follow ProjectARCC, a group of archivists dedicated to protecting collections from climate change, and I give support to many environmentalist efforts, both locally and nationally. Additionally, I’m dedicating my studies in history to becoming a scholar in environmental and ecological history.

The average bounty of my family’s garden on a summer day.

Name some fun facts about you.

I absolutely love to bake! I really love the challenge of making traditional recipes vegan and gluten free.

I have a very close-knit family. Back home, three generations live under one roof. Plus two dogs, Winnie and Daisy, and a cat, Ellie. It’s a full house!

Winnie, Ellie, and Daisy (a self-identifying lapdog)

I quilt and embroider in my down-time.
Once upon a time I was training to become a professional ballerina. And I could sit on my hair; it was that long!

When did you start working at the CHC?

I started as an intern at the CHC last spring as part of my SLIS studies. I had prior experience working at my undergrad’s archives for 4 years, an internship at the Naval War College in Newport, and a summer fellowship at the Newport Historical Society so I was already well-versed in the archival profession. But I fell in love with the CHC, its staff, and Cambridge and they were kind enough to keep me on as a part-time archivist assistant.

What do you like best about working at the CHC?

By far the best part of my job is working with my co-workers. We are truly a team. We both get the work done while having fun doing it. It is also really rewarding to reveal facts and stories about Cambridge that had been hidden until we delve into the topic. We encourage each other to pursue the rabbit holes we stumble upon and I love hearing what the others have found. Cambridge’s history is overflowing and I am so excited each morning to get to work knowing that I will learn something new.

Do you have other professional pursuits?

I am a member of the New England Archivists, the Society of American Archivists, and the Progressive Librarians Guild, three professional organizations that keep me in the thick of things. But I also engage in less formal pursuits– whenever I can, I volunteer at community archives and Digitization Days for repositories largely run by voluntary efforts.

“How Carter’s Ryto Cathedral Bottles can be Converted into Beautiful Electric Lamps” How-to Guide, undated. The leaflet gives detailed instructions on how to repurpose the Cathedral bottles into lamps.

Give us a glimpse into your daily work or a current project.

Currently, I am processing some really interesting collections. I just wrote a finding aid for the Carter Ink Company, now available online HERE (https://www.cambridgema.gov/~/media/Files/historicalcommission/pdf/findingaids/fa_carterink_newoct2019.pdf?la=en) . Processing a collection involves many components. I have to do background research on the history and creators of the records so that I can write a Bio Note. I also physically arrange the collection and gain intellectual control over the material. This includes performing any preservation needs and finding suitable housing. The next step is to reflect its organization in the Description of the finding aid so that the records are findable, and therefore usable. It’s a true balancing act– I have to honor the collections original order while considering how people will likely use the collection. I also make sure to take the time to consider all of the biases inherent in the collection as well as my own personal perspective. Archivists aim for complete transparency and ethical decision-making.

Photographs of local families mounted on card stock taken between 1919-1921.

What is your favorite photograph, artifact, or collection at CHC?

One of my favorite collections is actually one of the first collections I processed. Although a small collection, I love the Benedict Daniels Photograph collection. It contains scrapbook pages created by Miriam Benedict, a Cambridge nurse. The individuals in the collection are unidentified but they may be families or patients she helped during her time as a nurse in the early 1900s. The photos are really heartwarming, and I am enthralled by the mystery of the families’ identities. Maybe someday we will be able to learn their stories. Most of our records relate to the built environment so more personal collections like this one really stick out to me. Check out the collection’s photos on our Flickr page and the finding aid.

What do you like best about living or working in Cambridge?

As of right now I live in Boston proper– near the Fenway. However, it is my ultimate goal to move to Cambridge when I graduate. Fingers crossed!

Thank you, Brittany!

National Preparedness Month

Posted on September 28, 2019August 17, 2020 by Brittany F.

September is National Preparedness Month so we at the CHC want to share some crucial information on emergency management and disaster planning in archival and office spaces. This year’s theme is “Prepared, Not Scared,” which highlights how active planning can facilitate ease in emergency situations.

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FEMA’s National Preparedness Month 2019 logo

A disaster plan is the foundation for a confident and successful disaster response. It has many elements that factor in the health and safety of all parties. In an archive, these include the patrons, staff, as well as the collections; human safety is always the paramount concern. Archivists have been trained in merging broader disaster plans with unique archival factors. An archival repository’s disaster plan’s various components include: an updated emergency information sheet of internal and external contacts, a communication plan, a list of delegated disaster response team members, collection salvage priorities, recovery supplies, as well as pertinent forms and inventories.

It is important to keep in mind that a disaster plan is a living document that must be updated regularly. An outdated list of bygone local help and recovery vendors is unhelpful in the here-and-now and especially tomorrow. Don’t forget that disasters and emergencies are not pre-planned; you will never know if or when you will be faced with a situation but you can guarantee your level of preparedness.

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Graphic from Cambridge Fire Department’s E.P.A.C. webpage

This preparedness is part of a larger cycle of emergency management. The first step to consider is Mitigation, which is the time when you perform risk assessment of what is most likely to happen. With that in mind, you can develop prevention practices, such as fire, water, mold, and pest prevention (the big 4 in archives). From there, archiving Preparedness becomes a long and laborious process. However, taking the time to consider plans and procedures and performing drills can help save lives and minimize damage. When you know what to do in a given situation and who to call, your Response and Recovery are much more efficient and successful.

1997 flood at the Records Centre of the Archives of Ontario. Image credit: Archives of Ontario found in “Markings: Your Archives Interchange” Vol 27 No 4, Winter 2007.

In the event of a disaster consider: Who do you call? What volunteer assistance or professional conservators are available to you? Who should you build relationships with? Who are your local emergency responders? What is the state of your insurance and financial status? How will you ensure safety of people and collections? Which items should be prioritized? How can you reinstate normal activities?

Archives are faced with many possible forms of disaster and they are particularly susceptible to irreversible damage.

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Official military personnel file damaged from National Personnel Records Center fire on July 12, 1973. Image credit: National Archives photo found in Lawrence, Kerry. “Archives Recalls Fire That Claimed Millions of Military Personnel Files.” National Archives News, July 23, 2018.

Along with institutional external concerns, such as flooding and fire, archival holdings face agents of deterioration, like pests, mold, UV rays, and pollutants. Archival holdings generally consist of unpublished unique records of human activities. Sometimes there is only a singular copy of evidence for an event or action. Due to this historic and irreplaceable tendency, once a record is lost, it may not be able to be replaced. Therefore, archives must dedicate time and effort to planning and training. You would be surprised at what can be saved or recovered when archives have evaluations and triage plans in place. There are many successful salvage options; knowing which works best in a given situation is a huge time-saving benefit. Archivists utilize many resources in this decision-making process, such as the National Park Service’s “Conserve O Grams”

conserveogram National Park Service Conserve O Gram logo

We at the CHC archives are constantly contemplating our disaster planning and response. Awareness is a key component to formulating strong preparedness in any situation in any place. Therefore, we are doing our part in distributing information about ways in which you can personally become more prepared. Check out the national and local resources we’ve compiled below:

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FEMA’s 2019 weekly themes

All this month FEMA is showcasing weekly themes to make the preparedness process easy to tackle. Check out their social media presence as well as their website to learn how you can become more prepared for any emergencies thrown your way: check them out here

In Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), the Boston Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management, and Cambridge’s E.P.A.C. (Emergency Preparedness and Coordination)offer fantastic resources for how you can achieve your own level of preparedness. Learn about: insurance and financial planning, which natural disasters you are most susceptible to and how to sign up for area alerts, how to communicate with your family and Community Emergency Response Teams, and where to take classes on lifesaving skills. You can also learn about how to get your kids involved with #YouthPrep on Twitter.

#BeReady

#PreparedNotScared

#PrepareNow

Deteriorating Negatives

Posted on June 7, 2019August 17, 2020 by Brittany F.

This blog post was authored by our spring Simmons University archives intern, Brittany Fox.

Sometimes the life-cycles of records must come to an end. Despite unremitting efforts to preserve our holdings, the nature of the material can lead to irreparable damage. Recalling that April 21-27 was Preservation Week, today we are highlighting how sometimes items must be removed from a collection to protect the safety of other records.

Certain negatives from our Cambridge Engineering image collection have deteriorated due to improper chemical processing during their creation. The negatives have seized, buckled, and bubbled, which has compromised their physical integrity. There is no way to stabilize this type of deterioration and the mutation can cause damage to other negatives in physical proximity. When negatives undergo this type of decay, they can give off acetate gas. This anomaly, also known as Vinegar Syndrome due to its vinegar-like smell, can initiate similar decay in nearby negatives. Therefore, we have decided to discard these negatives.

But fret not, we have digitized and saved them as high-resolution images. Although they will no longer be preserved in their original form, we have maintained access to the content through digitization. Print copies have also been created as a backup precaution.

33-35 Pearl St 1971 — Scanned version of negative, 33-35 Pearl Street

Mass Ave at Everett St E-1983 — Mass Ave at Everett St

While the preservation of our negatives is a major priority, it is also important to learn about their context as well. They were part of a collection of over a thousand 5” x 7” negatives dating from the late 1920s through the 1960s that were given to the Commission by Cambridge former City Engineer James Rice in the early 1980s. Between the 1920s and 1940s a member of the City Engineer’s staff functioned as the city’s official photographer, collaborating with the City Solicitor, the Department of Public Works, and the Cambridge Police Department. Whenever a citizen filed a claim or directed attention toward an issue or hazard that arose in the city, such as potholes, dangerous sidewalks, and motor vehicle accidents, the City Engineer send a photographer to the site. These photographs were used when the complaints were taken to the city courts to be rectified.

The negatives were acquired by the CHC along with the City Engineer’s Graflex Speed Graphic camera. In order to make an image the photographer would have inserted a sheet of unexposed film into a film holder in the darkness of a light-proof bag. Once secure so that no light would inadvertently expose the negative, the film holder would be inserted into the camera. A film holder could accommodate two pieces of film, so to make a dozen images the photographer would have to prepare and carry six bulky film holders. This particular type of camera has a focal plane shutter and a removable dark slide. It was meticulous work to get just one photographic negative and we have hundreds in the collection! Executive Director Charles Sullivan took several photos with this camera for publication in the Commission’s 1988 book, East Cambridge. Large format film and photo-processing labs are difficult or impossible to find today, so the camera will probably never be used again.

Some of the damaged negatives pulled from the collection exhibit automobile accidents, buckling sidewalks, and an exposed pipe in a giant hole. While they were intended as evidence for court hearings, the images also have secondary uses. They incorporate everyday snapshots of life in Cambridge between the 1920s-1940s, from the fashion of the passersby to the models of the cars. While these few images do not tell a very broad story, the collection in its entirety has a high future research value.

Belmont Bird St E-9092A — Automobile crash, Belmont and Bird St.

If you are interested in this collection or any of our other resources, please make a research appointment at histcomm@cambridgema.gov. Our research hours are: Monday: 4:00-7:00 pm | Tuesday: 2:00-4:00 pm | Wednesday – Thursday: 9:30-11:30 and 2-4 pm.

New Collections Available

Posted on March 5, 2019August 17, 2020 by Brittany F.

We have recently processed four small collections from our holdings and are currently working on updating their accompanying finding aids. Scroll down for sample images and descriptions from these collections. They include: the Hurley Family Photograph Collection, the Benedict Daniels Photograph Collection, the Harry Bagan Photograph Collection, and the Alfred E. Vellucci Snapshot Collection.

Hurley Family Photograph Collection

This collection consists of copy prints and original photographs donated by Virginia Hurley in 1994. Virginia lived at 5 Ellsworth Park in Cambridge and she was an active participant in city politics. As the secretary of the Gold Star Wives of America Inc., she helped protect widows from increased property taxes after the deaths of their husbands. For a period, she worked for the City of Boston as a secretary for Judge David Nelson and then for the Elder Affairs office. She later passed away in 2011.

The photographs in this collection are of the Hurley family’s ancestry, including the Moran, Graves, Welsh and Ward families. The images comprise of group and individual portraits of family members ranging from the late 1880s to the 1920s.

Joseph C. Moran Sr. posing in full Colonial militia attire for the 150th Anniversary of Washington taking command under ‘The Elm.’ Photographer unknown.

While some of the people in the photographs are unidentified, we do know that the Morans were an East Cambridge family of glass workers who were employed by the New England Glassworks company until 1888. Interestingly, on the other side of the Hurley ancestry, David Gregory Welch was known as Peter McGurr during the Civil War.

Portrait photograph of David Gregory Walsh. Photographer unknown.

Additionally, there is an outlying photograph of Marshal Ferdinand Foch at the Cambridge Parade after WWI. He was a French general and he served as the Supreme Allied Commander during the war.

Marshal Ferdinand Foch at the Cambridge Parade. Photographer unknown.

Benedict Daniels Photograph Collection

This collection contains scrapbook pages donated by Helen Benedict Daniels in 1980. Helen was a member of the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor (Y.P.S.C.E.) and a volunteer for the Red Cross. After she received her degree in natural history from Radcliffe College, she married and moved to Orange, New Jersey. The scrapbook was created by her sister Miriam Benedict, who was a nurse in Cambridge during the 1920s.

A page from the Benedict Daniels scrapbook. Photographer unknown.

Miriam probably worked for the East Cambridge Health Center, which directed attention towards programs that taught young mothers how to care for their newborn children. The unidentified people in the photographs were probably affiliated with the center.

Harry Bagan Photograph Collection

This collection includes three photographs with Harry Bagan, a Cambridge police officer. The collection was donated by Maria Sousa in October 1995; little information has been found on Sousa.

Photograph of Harry and Helen Bagan. Photographer unknown.

Harry Bagan was married to Helen Bagan, who is showcased in one of the photographs. They were known to be close to the Roosevelt family. He was also a prominent member of the Fat Men’s Club in Cambridge. The Fat Men’s Club was a widespread trend that began around 1910 which celebrated physical girth and required a weight qualification of over 190 pounds.

1951 Fat Men’s Club Outing at Silver Lake, Thompson’s Grove, Wilmington, Mass. Photographer unknown.

Alfred E. Vellucci Snapshot Collection

Included in this collection are mounted photographs conveying a “day in the life” of Cambridge Mayor Vellucci. He became a Cambridge School Committee member in 1951 and by 1955 he began his 34-year position on the City Council. This snapshot collection comes from 1976 and it displays Vellucci’s daily activities, such as conducting desk work, holding meetings, drinking coffee, and attending city council meetings. Vellucci later retired from public office in 1991. The collection was donated by Juliet Turner from the City Hall’s Finance Department in 2011.

Images forthcoming.

The finding aids for these collections will soon be made available online. Please check back soon to access them. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to process collections and make them available for research!

Most of these photograph collections were donated in the 1980s but we are always accepting personal donations and family memorabilia related to Cambridge, Mass. We encourage you to contact the Cambridge Historical Commission if you have items you wish to offer. Please contact egonzalez@cambridgema.gov with any inquiries about the process.

To view the above collections, please make a research appointment at histcomm@cambridgema.gov. Our research hours are: Monday: 4:00-7:00 pm | Tuesday: 2:00-4:00 pm | Wednesday – Thursday: 10-12 and 2-4 pm.