(Recently written for the CCHS Newsletter)
ADVENTURES OF AN ARCHIVIST
Or. . . .Inventory 101
By Valerie Thomas
This all started two years ago when, in a weak moment, I agreed to get a handle on the museum inventory. I had all the old journals, computer generated lists, and half a library card file box of already cross referenced files. How difficult could this be? Let me count the ways.
Every few years during the early days of the museum, the worthy citizens that ran the museum would take an inventory. Well, thought I, this should be a snap. Unfortunately, every time they took the inventory they changed the numbering system. So in one journal the number on a broad axe might be listed as a quilt, and in another a set of dishes, and in yet another, a pair of high top shoes. And brown jugs. Do you have any idea how many brown jugs were donated to the museum? Eleven. And they were all listed as “brown jug” or “brown crock jug.” No size, no identifying marks, and only two of them had a name we could put on the inventory lists. And books. You really don’t want to know what a chore that was. Pictures you ask? Don’t go there. Not only do we have thousands of pictures, many of them are duplicated and some are triplicated. Which one do you mark? Those two items, books and pictures, were the stuff of nightmares.
The one thing I really wanted to find was the Lamborghini. Daphne said it was listed in the inventory. . .and sure enough, there it was, a Lamborghini. Imagine my disappointment when I found that the Lamborghini turned out to be an embroidered lamberquino gracing the big walnut bed in the Pioneer Room. Oh well.
I turned my attention to finding the 18th century andirons. I searched every room and pulled boxes and cumbersome items from the old school house cloak rooms. They were nowhere to be found. Then, this winter, Caroline Hines and I, dressed like Na-Nook of the North, braved the cold in the Tool Room and started in on inventorying the tools. Picture two city bred girls trying to figure out what a pecker neck wrench looked like. Fortunately for me, Wayne and Maude Selby showed up at the museum early in the winter. They were able to pick out the tools (and name them) and blacksmith items that came from her family farm. That was, at least, a start. Without them I would never know what a pig-ringer is. Information that was sorely missing from my education. Getting back to the andirons. . . Carolyn and I had gone as far as we could go in identifying the tools and farm implements, when she decided to look inside one of the big drawers in the tool table. Voila! The andirons and several other items that I had listed but had gone missing. You can just imagine the excitement that generated!
And one day I discovered some patent models lurking on the top shelf of the cabinet outside the office. They had been hidden by cameras and other filming devices. Janet Foley and Vee Rudi helped me put a display together. Apparently, in the 1800’s, a person petitioning for a patent had to make small scale models of their invention. We have two plows with interchangeable plow-shares, a metal model of a wood plane, and a wheel that can have individual spokes replaced by removing a center nut. You can see them in the cabinet on the top shelf. It was a great find and very exciting.
The job is very nearly at an end. There remain only the flags and some other items on the balcony to be marked. By the end of April (or maybe May) all the items in the museum will be in the computer where they can be cross referenced by Name of Donor, Item, Inventory Number, and Location. The file cards will be cross referenced the same way except for Location. Because triplicating the cards is a mind numbing job, they will be done as chance and time allows. Or when I can a snag an unsuspecting volunteer to help. Whichever comes first.