23 October 2024

BDC Map #276 : Rough Map of Eustis Plantation on Ladies Island, S.C., 1879, 1908

Given that it's Archives Month, I thought that some of you might like to know a little more about the preservation issues inherent in taking care of BDC Map #276. The BDC does not have a lot of laminated materials left in the vertical files as we have been making photocopies during the integration project whenever possible and discarding the laminated items. I'm pretty sure that Map #276 is the only laminated map still remaining in our holdings. Unfortunately, its dimensions are too large for our workroom scanner to duplicate. We keep it in an oversized acid-free folder now to minimize the off-gassing exposure to other maps in the cabinet drawer. 

The BDC Research Room is the only place within the SCLENDS consortium that you can find this Rough Map of Eustis Plantation on Ladies Island SC originally drawn by George Gage in 1876 and filed at the Beaufort County register of deeds in 1879 but copied here by F.H. Swain on 22 January [19]08. It certainly looks like the reason for the map was to separate the plantation into lots for sale at what would be considered below bargain basement prices today.

Like many maps, there are layers of information. Arrows point to the Beaufort Ferry and to the St. Helena Island Bridge. Among the people, plantations, and other features shown are: Andrew Robinson, Bob Jenkins, Laurel Hill, Buzzard Island, Red Bluff, Fernanda Fields - which could be a person's name or an agricultural product, Punkin Hill, the "Hill", two gardens, cotton gin, pasture, woodlands, several dams, some structures, and a graveyard at the waters edge along the [C[h]owan] Creek.

You can see the acid migration in the center of the map. It looks like it was once in two pieces that were joined perhaps before or at the time of the lamination process. It's hard to tell.

Libraries, museums and archives had a vested interest in preserving and strengthening fragile paper documents, particularly those produced using wood-pulp fibers. An American engineer, William Barrow (1904-1967) invented the first lamination machine in 1936. He was an avid promoter of his lamination process, sometimes referred to as the Barrow Process, which was later found to be highly suspect as a way to extend the life of paper-based library and archival materials. According to Wikipedia, "Barrow's greatest significance is perhaps as an aggressive promoter of paper preservation, as in retrospect his scientific discoveries have not been entirely sound."

This map was laminated before I arrived on the job in 1999. My hunch is that it probably happened in the 1960s when lamination became widespread and cheap. I can remember seeing a laminating machine for Social Security cards in the Rose's Dime Store in Georgetown when I was a child. At that point in time, lamination became something of a standard practice. Archivists, librarians and curators were well intentioned but as the Wikipedia article noted, the science did not hold up to scrutiny. Once thought to help preserve and protect important documents, lamination as a preservation practice fell into disrepute in the mid-1970s when scientific tests proved how destructive the fusing of plastics into historic documents was. The saddest fact is that lamination, like light damage, cannot be undone. (If you'd like to geek out: here's a good summary of the difference between encapsulation - which the BDC does now -- and lamination.)

Though the service is still available through many vendors for personal use, archivists definitely do not apply the process to any materials within our safekeeping and do not recommend that anyone else with important documents to preserve does so either. Use in schoolrooms is still okay since those items tend not to be of an enduring historic value.

Local residents may recognize that Eustis plantation was on the Township One South and One West of St. Helena Meridian, S.C. map, more or less in the general area between the Walmart on Lady's Island and the Cowan Creek bridge today.

We encourage appointments to view the materials in our care: bdc@bcgov.net; 843-255-6468 because we'd hate for you to go to the trouble of driving downtown, finding a parking spot, paying the meter, entering the building and find that we were not here or had an appointment already and could not accept a walk-in customer. 

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