This summer I am working part-time at my favorite local museum archiving photos. The museum regularly receives photographs from donors that span the more than 150 year history of the area. The challenge has always been determining which photos are duplicates (photos already in the collection) and which ones are new to the collection. The new photos need to be given a collection number, documented, and added to the collection. In the last few years the museum has created a searchable computer database to make this task easier. Incidentally I helped with that project as well, including scanning in many of the photos and creating digital copies.
Every day holds something new. Today, while entering the new photos into the database from the paper file created earlier in the week, the photo collection surpassed the 5,900 mark. That’s 5,900 different photographs in the collection! By the end of the summer who knows how many more photographs will be added. On a personal note, one of the more interesting photos from this week included a photo of hired hands, or tagloehners in local parlance, having a picnic. One of my pet projects as been to research the hired hands in the community. By collecting photographs of hired hands I can add a new dimension to my research. Another cool thing about this photo is that it has a companion photo already in the collection. These two photos were taken at the same time, only the people are posed differently. In these photos several of the men are holding bottles of beer, one has a guitar, and one has what looks like a cured ham. Unfortunately none of these men are identified by name. On the back of the newest photo is the date 1915 and the name “Corbett.” On the photo already part of the collection are two other names, “Dubsel” and “William Heinrichs Sr.” Who were these men? Who was the photographer? What was the occasion? and most importantly What’s up with the ham?
