A History Student Gets Schooled at the Archive, or, What I Learned in My Internship by Laura Moore

Our guest post was written by Laura Moore who finished her internship with us last week. BTW: She was a great pleasure to teach and mentor. - gmc

This spring, I experienced a history nerd’s dream- getting to work in an archive dedicated to my all-time favorite historical subject - Beaufort, South Carolina. The Beaufort District Collection, located upstairs in the Library building at 311 Scott Street, posted a job listing open to college history students for an internship in archival preservation. It sounded like an amazing opportunity, and since I was nearing the completion of a master’s degree in history from The Citadel and looking for a part-time job, I applied, interviewed, and was accepted.

The first few weeks of the internship were a crash course in archival principles and preservation practices. I read manuals, watched webinars, and took copious notes. The learning curve was steep but the prize at the end of the study was tantalizing – a real-life collection that I would be able to preserve and archive, and for which I would produce a finding aid. This collection was donated by lifelong Beaufortonian Beekman Webb, and includes, among other things, photographs, maps, and vintage postcards. His affection for his hometown shines through the group of items dedicated to the natural beauty, history, and unique people of the Lowcountry.

When I finally got to survey the collection, armed with my notebook full of archival process notes and an initial inventory from my supervisor, the extremely knowledgeable (and patient!) library specialist Cassie Knoppel, my first task was simply to observe it all, in its context. I slowly went through each item, flipping over antique documents dating to colonial times, hundred-year-old postcards that testified to both the change and the continuity of Beaufort’s scenes, and photographs that evoked as many questions as connotations. And then, I went through it again. I sat with it. I thought about it - looking for patterns, trying to understand the collector’s arrangement instead of assuming my own. I had learned that a tenet of archival ethics is to try to maintain, as much as possible, the original organization of a records collection. The historian in me greatly appreciated this as an invaluable aid to understanding the context and import of each item.

An archive is a collection of collections, and each individual collection is its own little universe. The order of that universe reflects its creator, and in this case, I was looking for the order that Mr. Webb had used, not trying to impress an artificial one of my own. Part of Mr. Webb’s collection is a series of several hundred vintage postcards. As I flipped through them, I quieted the inner urge to organize them by subject (“houses, boats, etc.”) or the urge to try and find dates for them and then arrange chronologically. Slowly it dawned on me that Mr. Webb indeed had an order – he envisioned the streets of Beaufort when he organized this part of the collection. The first postcards were of historical structures on the west end of Bay Street and then progressed eastward, past where the beautiful old Sea Island Hotel stood. Then, he enters the downtown commercial area and we see Luther’s Pharmacy. He turns left on Carteret Street, and we get images of the old post office, the Methodist Church, and the historical buildings of what is now USCB. Eventually we move to the barrier islands and outlying attractions. The order is not perfect or complete – but it is there, and it tells us something about the mind of the collector.

Sometimes, a researcher can find searching a collection cumbersome : Why can’t all the records just be alphabetized and digitized for quick and easy reference? One reason records should not be arranged this way is because historical veracity demands context, and the original collector’s arrangement can reveal clues to that historical context (and clues about the collectors themselves), that would be lost permanently if it were simply dissected to fit into a retrieval system. Our Beaufort District Collection archivists, led for many years by Grace Cordial (whose brain is itself a South Carolina state treasure) do their part to help historians and researchers understand the history of our area in many ways - through physical preservation by way of archival housing in a controlled environment, as well as through providing the access point between the researcher and the records. They seek to maintain, as far as it is possible, the original collector’s order as part of their mandate to accurately preserve and provide access to researchers.

My time at the Beaufort District Collection has instilled in me a great respect for the serious thought and professionalism that goes into archival work. I now encourage all my fellow history students and local history buffs (many of whom, in our day, have grown overly dependent on the internet alone) to take a trip to an archive. Many archives have their “finding aids” listed online. These are like restaurant menus for each collection and allow the researcher to know ahead of time what they would like to “order up” when they come in person. At our Beaufort District Collection, the friendly and knowledgeable Sidney Whiteside will most likely be the one helping you with your selection in the research room.

The archive is a quiet place in our community, but it is one that should be deeply valued and honored for providing vitality and integrity to the cultural legacy of the Lowcountry. If you love the Lowcountry, you should revere this repository of its infinitely intriguing story.