1890 census and the creation of the National Archives

[Steve]

Today I came across this interesting video on the 1890 census and the fire that led to the creation of the U.S. National Archives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwFLuIYgEIk

[Rob Wick]

Interesting, Steve.

It was from the 1890 census that Frederick Jackson Turner was inspired to proffer his "Frontier Thesis," which held sway with American historians for decades.

That we have lost countless documents throughout the years is well documented (how's that for irony?). In 1973 the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis was heavily damaged by a fire that lasted nearly an entire day before being controlled. The amount of historical material lost forever is unfathomable. Add to that poor microfilming The military record of Everton Conger's brother Seymour are nearly illegible given that the file was microfilmed out of focus.

An author, Nicholson Baker, wrote a book called Double Fold, which talks about how libraries throughout the country, including the Library of Congress, have microfilmed numerous runs of newspapers and in the process ruined their original state, replacing them with sometimes hard to read copies that remain the only record available.

I can only imagine what will happen with records that are digitized when those files become corrupted. While I wholeheartedly support digitization efforts (such as Ida Tarbell's papers), I'm afraid we'll become too complacent and eventually have problems we can't even begin to imagine.

Best
Rob

[AussieMick]

(01-28-2019 10:00 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  Interesting, Steve.

It was from the 1890 census that Frederick Jackson Turner was inspired to proffer his "Frontier Thesis," which held sway with American historians for decades.

That we have lost countless documents throughout the years is well documented (how's that for irony?). In 1973 the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis was heavily damaged by a fire that lasted nearly an entire day before being controlled. The amount of historical material lost forever is unfathomable. Add to that poor microfilming The military record of Everton Conger's brother Seymour are nearly illegible given that the file was microfilmed out of focus.

An author, Nicholson Baker, wrote a book called Double Fold, which talks about how libraries throughout the country, including the Library of Congress, have microfilmed numerous runs of newspapers and in the process ruined their original state, replacing them with sometimes hard to read copies that remain the only record available.

I can only imagine what will happen with records that are digitized when those files become corrupted. While I wholeheartedly support digitization efforts (such as Ida Tarbell's papers), I'm afraid we'll become too complacent and eventually have problems we can't even begin to imagine.

Best
Rob

In the Information Technology industry there were (maybe still are) organisations which boasted to auditors that 'Yes, of course we have backups of those important files' .... and they used that as justification for disposing of all those clutterey old documents which took up so much space. Unfortunately after 10 years or so they realised that the machines used to produce the backups had been made obsolete and replaced ... and there were no suitable machines capable of reading the important archived files.

[Steve]

Digitization will never replace real records but they will (unless something horrible happens like a massive nuclear war) always provide necessary duplication of original records which will not last forever. Look at all of the lost books of antiquity that have been lost because they were composed before the creation of the printing press. As the printing press and literacy became more widespread the sheer volume of books and pamphlets printed helped insure that at least a few of them survived long enough for them to be reprinted or digitized in the modern age.

With the rise of digital photography and making few physical copies of photos makes me wonder, though, in the 23rd century will they have a greater quantity of surviving photographs from the 20th century or the 21st? I'm sure they'll have plenty of photos of important people and events, but what of everyday people and slices of everyday life?

[L Verge]

I have varying and conflicting thoughts on the modernization of historical research. One thing that my colleagues and I have discussed (and maybe mentioned here) is how the generations who are not learning cursive will be able to translate newly discovered documents that have not been scanned, translated into computerese, etc.

[Rob Wick]

Quote:In the Information Technology industry there were (maybe still are) organisations which boasted to auditors that 'Yes, of course we have backups of those important files' .... and they used that as justification for disposing of all those clutterey old documents which took up so much space. Unfortunately after 10 years or so they realised that the machines used to produce the backups had been made obsolete and replaced ... and there were no suitable machines capable of reading the important archived files.

I have to believe that even with digitization there will still be certain documents that are kept. Archivists of the future surely will realize there has to be a difference between losing an entire run of the Philadelphia Inquirer to microfilm or digitization and the letters of Theodore Roosevelt. I know there are some archives that require the use of microfilm because the original documents are too fragile. I can foresee digitization serving the same function. When I was working in the papers of Carl Sandburg for an article I wrote I came across some items that seemed as if they would crumble in my hands. Those records should be digitized and only handled if absolutely necessary.

Quote:With the rise of digital photography and making few physical copies of photos makes me wonder, though, in the 23rd century will they have a greater quantity of surviving photographs from the 20th century or the 21st? I'm sure they'll have plenty of photos of important people and events, but what of everyday people and slices of everyday life?

When my mother died, my oldest sister went through all the photos that Mom had collected or taken over the years and separated them into piles that would have been of interest to each of us. We then took our pile with the idea that we could keep or destroy whatever we wanted in that pile. When my time comes, there will be no "pictures" to go through, unless one chooses to do so on the computer. While I love going through the various photo albums I own, I just never had the desire to print out the photos I've taken and put them in albums. In a way, I feel like I'm missing something, but space in my home is limited, and I would rather use it to store books than photo albums that I might look at once every two or three years. I do think those who don't have physical copies of photos are missing something, but I look at digital photos in a sense the same as slides. One of my fondest memories growing up was when my uncle would bring out the slide projector and show various pictures of our family. We didn't have the physical photos, but we enjoyed them none the less. Of course, biographers looking to illustrate their books might have an issue unless a subject has deposited flash drives along with their digitized letters.

My hope with digitization is that it expands our knowledge of various individuals. Not everyone can travel to Hyde Park to look at the papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Anyone can access what the library there has digitized.

Best
Rob

[AussieMick]

Yes, Rob, I agree that digitization has been a boon to society. And as much as I dislike Facebook I can see that future generations will make use of the massive amount of memories stored in the ether (or whatever we should call it ... "cloud" doesnt seem quite right). Which of course makes it so important as to what we store there.

[GustD45]

IT has been instrumental in helping with backups, but as I tell my own clients the machine is only as good as the person using it or supporting it.