Archival and Preservation Tips

Why Digitize Your Collection

One of the things I’ve written about in previous posts is the importance of digitizing your collection. Whether it’s a photograph collection, or document collection, it’s impo…

CDV Photograph of Frank, Frederick, and Alice, “The Children of the Battlefield” Carte-de-visite (CDV) photograph of Frank, Frederick, and Alice, the children of Amos Humiston of the 154th New York Infantry. Humiston was killed at the Battle of Gettysburg, but his identity was at first unknown. An original ambrotype of his three children – eventually copied to produce this CDV - was found clutched in his hand. The ambrotype came into the possession of Dr. J. Francis Bournes of Philadelphia, who traveled to Gettysburg to help tend to the wounded after the battle. Bournes vowed to identify the soldier and return his image to the family. Newspapers soon printed a description of the subjects in the hopes of someone could connect them to the fallen soldier. It worked. Bourne would later work with local photographers in Philadelphia to produce copies of the Humiston ambrotype for the benefit of a home for orphaned children of the battlefield in Gettysburg.

The Humanity of the Battle of Gettysburg in Primary Sources

The Humanity of the Battle of Gettysburg in Primary Sources As a professional or amateur researcher, the best information you can find about a historical topic will come from…

A "Wunderkammer" or Cabinet of Curiosities was the first form of a museum that became popular in 16th Century Europe. They were characterized by room crammed full of cool stuff. This is not a good model for exhibiting your collections.

3 Simple Tips for Displaying Your Collection

3 Simple Tips for Displaying Your Collection One of the highlights of owning a nice collection (or even a beginner-level collection) of Civil War memorabilia is displaying…

Here's an example of a sticky note stuck to an original page of a ledger making note of a deserter. Something that it literally says in red ink just a few inches away from the sticky note. This note is not providing any additional information from what is already plainly visible on the page, and it is actively causing damage to the original pages because it is non-archival.

Angry Archivist: Stop Writing on and Putting Sticky Notes on Historical Documents

Angry Archivist: Stop Writing on and Putting Sticky Notes Historical Documents You may remember that I wrote (ranted) about people marking up original historical documents…

I took this photo as I was working on separating the art from the backing. Notice the glue streaks, the faded black posterboard and the remnants of papyrus material stuck to the posterboard, and pieces of posterboard stuck to the papyrus.

Angry Archivist: Can I Just Glue It?

Angry Archivist: Can I Just Glue It? For this post blog post, I’m deviating a bit from the Civil War and shifting gears into archival madness that I sometimes run across on a …

Conserve O Grams offer easy to use step-by-step information to care for your collections.

Archive Tips: NPS Conserve O Grams Are a Fantastic Free Resource

Archive Tips: NPS Conserve O Grams are a Fantastic Free Resource Caring for a private collection of historical material can be overwhelming, especially if you have not…

Here is the second yellow "price tag" type sticker on the copper frame and ambrotype itself.

Angry Archivist: Is Sandpaper Archival?

The Angry Archivist: Is Sandpaper Archival? The Angry Archivist returns with a question that I’m sure many collectors of Civil War memorabilia have been itching to know the a…

Here you can see a glass negative sitting on the right kind of lightbox. This one courtesy of the now extinct photo lab I used to work for...

2 Methods for Digitizing Glass Negatives

Two Methods for Digitizing Glass Negatives Digitizing glass negatives is a fairly simple process, and I will offer two methods you may find useful in this post. Last week, I…

How to Handle and Store Glass Plate Negatives

In this blog and the next entry, I’ll be going over how to handle, clean, store and digitize your glass plate negatives. Properly caring for these negatives is important to e…

"Action shot" of slowly peeling the packing tape from the back of the photograph. This is not something you want to end up having to do!

Angry Archivist: Taping a Tintype

In my last “Angry Archivist” post I complained about someone who traced over an original Civil War letter with ballpoint pen and taped it, and today I’m extending that compl…

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