#pittarchives

Name:  Robert Bartels

How did you get interested in working in the archives?

I have always been interested in history, and always assumed I would go into that field, until I found out that history degrees and jobs don’t always go together. My first experience working in archives was as an intern for three summers at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland. Not only did I realize archives provided career opportunities, I loved the work as well. It’s a great way to channel my interest in history. Tell us about what you are working on at the ASC: I’ve mainly been processing the collection of jazz pianist Erroll Garner, who was born in Pittsburgh. This has included over 50 boxes of his personal papers and professional materials. Currently I’m working processing Garner memorabilia, which includes lots of fascinating objects, from promotional concert posters to his personal jewelry. It’s both a fun and educational collection to work with, perfect for the aspiring student archivist.

What’s something fun or interesting you’ve found while working with archival material?

Garner’s correspondence includes many famous names such as Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood, Dudley Moore, and Johnny Carson. To see these stars write their appreciation for Garner’s music makes you realize how big an impact he had. That said, some of the most interesting letters come from non-celebrities about relatively mundane topics, but provide a window into the times when they were written and who wrote them.

What is something you learned from working at the ASC?

Name: Bryan Colvin Tell us a little bit about your background. How did you get interested in working in the archives?

When I was an undergraduate at Seton Hill University studying history, I did an internship at the university archives. At the internship, I had the wonderful opportunity to work with the papers of the retiring university president, which was very interesting and fun. When I went to graduate school at Indiana University of Pennsylvania to get my masters in history, I took an archives class where I learned more about the theory. In this class I decided to change my path from being an educator and going on to get a PHD in history to getting an M.L.I.S. degree and focusing on Archives as my future.   Tell us about what you are working on at the ASC.

At the ASC I, along with fellow Pitt Partner Robert, have been working on the Erroll Garner Collection. It has been a wonderful opportunity to work on such a prestige collection. Processing the 155 boxes of material and creating the new finding aid has been a wonderful educational experience. Now I am working on Martha Glaser’s papers, who was Erroll Garner’s manager. Reading about her life and seeing what evolve through the years is amazing as I process the collection.  

What’s something fun or interesting you’ve found while working with archival material?

Signatures of famous people like JFK to Johnny Carson. I did not think that holding a piece of paper that a famous president or person would have held would made me as emotional as it did, but it’s a connection with the past on a whole new level.  

What is something you learned from working at the ASC?

Name: Emily Enterline Tell us a little bit about your background.

I graduated from Clarion University in 2013 with a degree in library education. I had been working for the federal government as a student intern since graduating high school, and continued in that capacity until starting the MLIS program part-time in 2014.

How did you get interested in working in the archives?

While I enjoyed my time in school libraries in my undergrad experiences, I did not see myself in that role. I began volunteering at a local historical society, and realized I really enjoyed working with those types of materials and records. I thought that I would like working in a museum or similar setting, and the Archives and Information Science specialization in the MLIS program at Pitt seemed like the perfect fit. I had some friends who went through the program, and they encouraged me to apply for the AIS specialization.  

Tell us about what you are working on at the ASC.

I recently finished working on the Congressional Papers of John P. Murtha, a project that had been ongoing here for about 2 years before I started at the ASC. Murtha was the longest serving Pennsylvania Congressman, having served from 1974 until his death in 2010. A Pitt alum, Murtha was practically an institution himself in this area. He was a staunch advocate for the residents of his 12th Congressional District, and had a long history of fighting for the people of Johnstown and Pennsylvania as a whole.

I was able to help the project archivist finish processing the papers and memorabilia and prepare the finding aid. I then had the opportunity to work with the design team working on the John P. Murtha Center for Public Service (at Pitt Johnstown) to help gather memorabilia from the collection. I also got to write some text and select photographs to be displayed on the collection’s website. I’ve had quite the range of experiences with this collection!

[Note, for me info on Rep. Murtha, read Emily’s post on the congressman from last week!]

I recently started to work on the papers of the Public Administration Service, a consulting firm with many ties to the University of Pittsburgh.

What’s something fun or interesting you’ve found while working with archival material?

Getting a chance to look at and handle the photographs and memorabilia from the Murtha collection was incredible. Murtha had the opportunity to meet with many different U.S. Presidents, foreign dignitaries (including Queen Elizabeth!), and travel the world. He was also given many things from people all over the world -  medals, flags, awards, and gifts from U.S. Presidents, others congressmen, foreign dignitaries, and constituents. One of my favorite things from the collection is a golf club from President Bill Clinton – he wrote Murtha a personalized note to accompany the club! There are also a few ceremonial sabers, which are always fun to handle.

What is something you learned from working at the ASC?

Name: Kyle Conway

Education: I just graduated from Pitt in April with a BA in History and English Literature, and I’m headed to law school in August.

How did you get interested in working in the archives?

I was looking for an internship to fill some free time during my last semester and I came in for an interview. There was a photo series set up of the development of the Point that was on its way to Hillman to be put on display, and I immediately loved how the ASC traces Pittsburgh’s history so thoroughly and so well.

Tell us about what you are working on at the ASC:

I processed the addition on the American Left Ephemera Collection when I started, which was fascinating. I just finished processing the records of the Pittsburgh chapter of Ikebana International, which is a garden club based on the Japanese art of flower arrangement. Now I’m processing an addition to the Tim Stevens Papers.

What’s something fun or interesting you’ve found while working with archival material?

While processing Tim Stevens’ Papers I found his invitation to President Obama’s inauguration in 2008, which is so incredibly cool. Also, I’ve been going through a lot of newspapers from the 1990s and I’ve found three very mixed reviews for the seminal classic Space Jam. The jury’s still out on which find is more priceless.

What is something you learned from working at the ASC?

While most of the content the ASC encounters deals with the history of Pittsburgh and the surrounding Western Pennsylvania region, a few collections are a little more far-flung, especially one group of records from Special Collections that we recently helped to process. The University of Pittsburgh’s University Library System is home to a very robust East Asian Library- in fact, one of the largest collections of East Asian materials in North America! The collection got its start in the 1960s, and has flourished in the past two decades with the encouragement of retiring ULS Director Rush Miller. The collection includes everything from books to microfilm to online databases, and focusing on advancing Chinese, Japanese, and Korean studies at Pitt.

In 2011, Haihui Zhang, Head of the East Asian Library, purchased a unique collection, even by their standards: a collection of Chinese land records dating from the time of the Ming Dynasty to the 20th century. A diverse collection including land deeds, bills of sale, tax information, trade documents, and more, the records reveal an interesting and evolving history of land ownership and management, as well as cultural and legal documentation of familial possessions. Representing eras in Chinese history from imperial times through the end of the Cultural Revolution, this collection reflects huge cultural, political, and economic changes.

The earliest record is from 1584, which dates back to the Ming Dynasty.

A visiting librarian to the ULS, Yi Xu, came to us from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in 2014, and the perfect opportunity presented itself to form a partnership between the East Asian Library and the Archives Service Center. With the aid of Haihui and the ASC Head Ed Galloway, Yi (who is fluent in Chinese of course!) began processing the land records, recording (and translating) such relevant information as location, owner, seller, and date. He arranged the records chronologically and then scanned each item, finishing up by writing a guide to the collection in both English and Chinese. The land records can now be viewed online in their entirety, and Yi’s collection guide is the ASC’s first bilingual offering.

Though they might topically be a bit removed from Western Pennsylvania, these land records are truly a treasure- no other library in North America has such a collection. The arrangement, description, and scanning of these records took a good deal of collaboration, both international and between ULS departments, but the end result is a very unique archival gem!

A later record from the era of Mao Zedong, in 1954.

October is American Archives Month, which gives us, as archivists, an excuse to come up with fun events to bring more of what we have to our users- and to people who might not even know about us yet! We created an event a few weeks ago (you may have seen it on Facebook) that focuses on one of our most popular services, the Historic Pittsburgh website! HP, for those of you who might not be aware, is a partnership between 14 area collecting institutions, including the Archives Service Center. The goal of the website is to make historic documents, images, maps, and more available to people interested in Pittsburgh history. We hear from a large number of patrons, from academic professionals to causal researchers looking for cool old images of the city, who say that the site has really helped them find what they’re looking for.

In fact, we’re so proud of our website- and so glad that our users love it, too- that we’re aiming to bring Historic Pittsburgh to you in person! On October 21st, at the University Club on the University of Pittsburgh campus, we’ll be hosting a Historic Pittsburgh Fair from 1:00 to 5:00 PM. Have you seen our previous posts and the Facebook event but aren’t quite sure what’s happening, or why you should attend? Here are a few reasons:

Two speakers- Steve Mellon of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Angelique Bamberg from the History of Art and Architecture Department at Pitt- will be giving short presentations at 1:30 and 2:30, respectively. They’ll be talking about the way they used HP and other archival resources in their research. It might open your eyes to some uses of the site you weren’t aware of, and will give you a chance to ask the speakers questions!

Representatives from 11 of the HP Partners Institutions- the ASC, Carnegie Museum of Natural History Archives, Historical Society of Upper St. Clair, Library and Archives at the Heinz History Center, Monroeville Historical Society, Northland Public Library, Oakmont Carnegie Library, Pitcairn Historical Society, Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Archives, and Rodef Shalom Congregation- will be attending to show off some items from their collections, give out information about their collections, and to talk with you about what you’re looking for. Ever wish you could gather all of the collective knowledge behind the site to one place and get some answers about your questions? Now’s your chance!

Interested in doing some research or archiving of your own, but aren’t quite sure where to start? We’ll have four professionals available to help you with some areas that we get a lot of questions about. ASC Media Curator Miriam Meislik will be giving advice about preserving family photographs, while Heinz History Center Archivist Sierra Green will be talking about the preservation of family papers. Heinz’s Chief Archivist Matt Strauss will have information on how to preserve personal digital archives, and professional genealogists Suzanne Johnston and Diane Klinefelter will be on hand to talk about researching your own family history!

Did you hear that the HP website is getting a makeover? Join us at 3:30 for a sneak peek at the new site!

Still not convinced? It’s a free event, and rumor has it that there will be cookies!

Stay tuned for some updates in the upcoming weeks. We really hope that you’ll make some time to come and see us! Any questions? Don’t hesitate to ask!

     Standards of living began to increase in both rural and urban populations in the early 20th century, which had mostly positive benefits for the people of the developing world- but also some unintended side effects. As a result of increasing sanitation, children were no longer regularly exposed to viruses and bacteria that they would often become immune to in the first months of life, which led to one of the fastest-growing and most fearsome epidemics of the century: the emergence of polio. This communicable virus attacks and inflames the spinal cord and brain stem, causing apnea and paralysis. Outbreaks of the disease were seen in Western Europe and North America in 1900; at the height of the U.S. epidemic in 1952, approximately 56,000 new cases were being confirmed each year (roughly 37 cases per 100,000 people). While the disease could strike adults, the fact that it heavily affected children made polio seem much more grim and frightening.

     There was (and remains) no cure for polio, and doctors could only treat the symptoms after the onset of the disease, such as the development of Iron Lungs to help ease breathing in patients suffering from apnea, and the development of braces and crutches for those suffering from temporary to permanent paralysis. The development of a vaccine to prevent future outbreaks was a goal of researchers at Pitt starting with the very first chair of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, William McDowall Hammon, in the late 1940s. Hammon developed a technique of passive immunization that stopped the advancement of the disease; though largely effective, it was impractical for large-scale distribution. This was the basis for the work of a later doctor who had become one of the most highly-regarded medical personalities of the century: Jonas Salk.

Jonas Salk and a nurse administer the polio vaccine to a young patient.

     The son of Russian Jews who immigrated to New York City, Salk was an exceptional student who, in medical school, focused his studies on virology. He made early impacts in the field by helping to develop a particularly effective flu vaccine widely used in the U.S. Army. In 1947, he came to the University of Pittsburgh, still working primarily with influenza vaccines. Due to his reputation, he was contacted in 1948 by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (the forerunner to the March of Dimes) and recruited in the fight against polio. Salk decided to primarily work with killed viruses as the foundation for his vaccine, which was a more conservative option compared to other researchers’ trials with live viruses which were more likely to kill or cripple their subjects than cure them.

     That’s not to say that Salk was known for playing it safe: once he developed a preliminary vaccine in November 1953, he announced that he, his wife and their three sons had been among the first test subjects. Field trials in 1953 and 1954 were at the center of national attention. The first community trials were done in the Pittsburgh suburb of Sewickley, with approximately 700 people inoculated by the end of 1953. After promising results, the study was opened to nationwide participation in 1954. Approximately 1.8 million children volunteered as participants in the trial in 44 states. The country waited with bated breath for the results of the tests, which were finally announced on April 12, 1955. Salk and his team’s vaccine was declared “safe and effective,” and the world rejoiced at the prospect of finally eliminating what was being called the most dreaded disease of the post-war era.

A Polio Pioneer card and accompanying button, given to Joyce Joynes as a child for participating in the 1954 field trial of Salk’s vaccine.

The Polio Pioneer card and button was given to the children who participated in the 1954 trials, and reflects a remarkable torrent of emotions. Parents were fearful of losing their children, but hopeful that if Salk was willing to risk the life of himself and his family, that this opportunity was the real deal. With the number of new polio cases growing exponentially each year, signing up for the trial seemed like one of the best chances for safety, given the circumstances. The 1954 trial was the largest single clinical trial in the world, which shows the degree to which people were willing to put their faith into Salk’s work. Materials related to the development, popularization, and legacy of the polio vaccine can be found in our Jonas Salk Polio Vaccine Collection.

As we began to explore in last week’s post, Hammon and Salk were among the earliest medical researchers at Pitt to impact the world, but they certainly were not the last. Thomas Parran helped found the World Health Organization and served as U.S. Surgeon General from 1936 to 1948. Peter Safar perfected and popularized the modern methods of CPR in the 1950s. Bernard Fisher’s research in the 1960s on breast cancer showed the efficacy of lumpectomy and chemotherapy over the more radical treatment of a total mastectomy. Henry Bahnson successfully performed the first heart transplantation in Pennsylvania in 1968, and Thomas Starzl’s work with the antirejection drug cyclosporine ushered in an era of more successful organ transplantation beginning in the 1980s. The Polio Pioneer card and badge serve as reminders that Pittsburgh has a long and far-reaching history as a center of American innovation.

Have you ever thought about what your house looked like when it was built? Wondered why there always seem to be water main breaks? Been curious about rumors of steps creeping up the side of Mount Washington?

With over 150,000 photographs taken between the years 1901 and 2002, you might just find the answer to those questions and more in the Pittsburgh City Photographer Collection. The photographs also provide insight into popular photographic formats throughout the early twentieth century, with images appearing on everything from gelatin dry plate negatives made of glass to modern 35mm polyester film.

An example of a glass plate negative from the City Photographer Collection.

The Pittsburgh City Photographer Collection is one of the most popular image collections held by the ASC. As with many collections that we acquire, the original reason for their creation and how they’re used now is often different. The original purpose of the City Photographer position was to provide visual documentation of city infrastructure by photographing general construction projects, often water treatment plants, and the condition and repair of streets, bridges, parks, and recreational facilities. All of these photographs were taken by members of the Department of Public Works (aka, the “City Photographer”).  Their photos often included prominent buildings and landmarks, modes of transportation, industrial sites, and neighborhoods, which provide evidence of the history and development of Pittsburgh. Additionally, we often find photographs of mayors and guests of honor (such as Mayor Charles Kline with Charles Lindbergh at Pitt Stadium), parades (such as the 1916 Centennial Parade), Pittsburghers enjoying leisure activities (including in city parks and pools), and notable sports figures (such Maury Wills holding a baseball clinic).

Today, many of the collection’s users aren’t looking for documentation of the city’s infrastructure, but more often for purposes like:

Historic reconstruction of homes and businesses (“What did my house look like in 1925? Did it have a porch?”);

Historic research (archaeologists frequently use the collection to see what was once located in an area prior to conducting an investigation);

Historic preservation projects (“What did the façade look like so we can restore this building to its former glory?”);

Wall decoration for local businesses, such as restaurants and shops.

All this helps us answer the overarching question, “How did Pittsburgh live, work, and play?”

We don’t have much documentation about the department and its activities outside of some recent log books, a handful of departmental correspondence, photocopied annual reports from 1906 and 1907, and negatives of photographic supply order forms used by the department to request supplies. Only a few photographers have been identified.  The earliest known City Photographer was Brady W. Stewart, whose name is found stamped on envelopes containing the earliest images. Stewart eventually set up his own photography studio in downtown Pittsburgh. Other City Photographers included Emil Kloes (1920s-1930s); Luke James (1930s); Joseph Mueller (1950s-1970s); and George Coppola (2000s). Originally part of the Department of Public Works, the position of City Photographer became part of the Department of Public Safety in the 1970s, where they served more as police photographers.

Fortunately, we know more about the photographs the department was charged with taking, since most of the clues are in or on the photographs themselves. All of the photographs bear some identification provided by the photographer at the time he took the picture. Additionally, for the over 14,000 images that appear online, the archives staff spends time reviewing each image, providing further description above and beyond what the photographer indicated in his caption that is usually physically attached to the original negative. We spend time adding the names of businesses, streets, and other details that we know people seek.

 As you can see here, only the critical information is usually provided by the photographer:

Let us translate the caption for you:

D. of L. - Department of Law

D. 2166- This is the court docket file number. It was issued during the County Court term 1932.

Seldon Street- Either the nearest street or the exact street so we know where it was taken. (Sometimes we have exact address!)

9-12-34*21444- This photograph was taken on September 12, 1934 and was assigned the unique image number of 21444.

What makes this photograph special is that extra documentation exists!

Not only do we know why this was taken, but we also have a map of the area!

When searching in the Pittsburgh City Photographer photographs, we often refer to the G. M. Hopkins maps. Fortunately, a 1934 map of this exact area can be found in volume 9, plate 11: