Extended answers from Genevieve Weber (GW), panelist from “Relationships, Reciprocity, and Responsibilities: Indigenous Studies in Archives and Beyond,” panel 2: Outreach and Relationship-Building through Indigenous Archival Materials (Click here to watch)

Question: With regards to repatriation, the term (repatriation) is challenging for archivists to accept, as the definition is rather specific to the 4 categories currently defined by NAGPRA. Rather than referring to it as 'repatriation,' archivists can choose to 'deaccession' materials they identify as needing to be returned to other repositories, including those where concepts of repatriation/deaccessioning can be argued to justify this transfer. (Jonathan Pringle)
GW: This is a very good point. However, in the Canadian context, we do not have legislation equivalent to NAGPRA, and many archives are embracing repatriation as a way to honour Indigenous people's intellectual sovereignty over archival materials created by or about them. A Reconciliation Framework for Canadian Archives (currently under public review, this document is similar to the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials and can be accessed here includes the statement: “Archives that hold materials created by or about Indigenous People(s) shall actively seek ongoing consultation and collaboration with the documented Indigenous communities to identify and address issues in acquisition and creation, repatriation and retention of reproductions, rights in possession and disposition, and custodial approaches to collections management. They shall work together to develop new, or build on existing, community-specific protocols and guidelines that ensure Indigenous rights over the ownership, control and possession of their documented heritage.” The BC Archives (where I work) is part of the Royal BC Museum. The Museum published a Repatriation Handbook in 2019, which includes information about archives. 

Question: What are some differences between "consultation" with Indigenous communities and "engagement" with Indigenous communities in managing archives? (Cesar Castillo)
GW: I often use the terms "consultation" and "engagement" interchangeably, but for me it really depends on who I am talking to. In Canada, there is a particular meaning connected to "consultation" in the context of treaty negotiations. Many Nations are in negotiation with the federal and provincial government, and as my co-presenter Margaret mentioned, using the word consultation regarding archives can be very confusing and misinterpreted. In such cases I will use engagement. I tend to think of consultation as the act of seeking direction from the community - e.g. I am consulting with a group because I want to know what the community protocols are regarding information, or what they want in terms of repatriation, access, etc. Engagement can mean so many things - it can mean consultation as described above, or it can mean activities such as community-led descriptive work, workshops, or presentations, or it can be awareness and access events, etc. Ultimately I use the term preferred and defined by the community with which I am working. 

Question: Can you talk more about the workflow when the items are identified via consultation? For example, is the session recorded? Do they have their “cataloging sheet” that they fill out? Once you are given the new identifications—how is this new documentation kept and entered in the record, files, etc? (Liza Posas)
GW: Each time I have done this kind of work, it has been different!  So much depends on the people I am working with and their comfort level. I have not recorded sessions, but I had a colleague that did so with a previous project. My main concern with recording is that we are often encountering restricted and potential sacred, secret, or harmful information that we wouldn't want captured in that way. In a few examples, we produced a kind of cataloguing sheet for the community members to use to make notes. Other times, particularly when I have been working with Elders, I have been the note-taker. It can be hard to keep up as people get excited to go through photographs, for example, but then I share the document after the fact and give the consultants a chance to make corrections. (This works best in cases where the records are digitized and can be referred back to later). In terms of documenting it, I do a few things. I keep a consultation file with all my notes, the notes of those I have worked with, and any other related information. In that file I also keep a chronological running document where I mark down every interaction, from phone calls to in person meetings. This consultation file is a sub-folder of my Finding Aid development file. These are meant to be fully retained, but to be certain, I also write quarterly consultation reports (high level summaries) that I put in the accession file. (In my institution, the accession file was often the only record kept of work done on collections in the past, so is always the initial place staff will look for information). In our database, I will be including notes in appropriate fields (e.g. arrangement and description note, or terms governing use note) indicating when decisions were made based on consultation. I try to be as specific as possible in these notes - if not naming individuals, at least naming the department or agency with which the consultants were connected. 

Question: Have any of the panelists experimented with conducting virtual consultations? How did that go? (Tessa Shultz)
GW: I have done some virtual consultations. Initially I did these at my desk with my laptop camera, angling it to show physical records. The results were mixed - although it was exciting for people to see the records, there were technical glitches on both ends, and the camera angle wasn't ideal. However, the Learning Team in the museum has started doing digital fieldtrips and has invested in a document camera and other cameras that are much better. I have done a couple sessions in their space with their equipment, and it was really positive. Overall, the consensus has been that virtual consultation is a great part of the process, but most communities still want at least some in person activity. 

Question: Could the presenters talk to the effects of COVID on NAGPRA and archival consultation initiatives, in terms of funding, personnel, methods… Do you foresee long-lasting effects on your projects? (Anonymous)
GW: I had to work from home for 6 months due to COVID, which meant that I wasn't able to be with the records. Although I have been in contact with people that I had been working with before the pandemic, and reaching out to make new connections, it has been hard. Without access to the records, there isn't much we can do, in a practical sense. And although I have had some success making new connections, many Indigenous communities in BC were (understandably) focused on keeping their members safe and healthy, and simply didn't have the time and resources to engage with us. The one positive part to it is that as an institution we have become much more comfortable with virtual communication and programming. I think this will help us going forward, as I suspect that travel restrictions in BC will continue for some time. 

Question: How much are music archives taken into account, say at Indiana, etc.? (Kathleen Shea)
GW: Music archives are very important and have in the past been the focus of our Indigenous engagement and repatriation work. We have been working with descendants of the singers captured in this collection. We have been working with this collection for many years and are still in the early stages of determining rights and ownership over the songs. You can read more about it here. Some of these recordings are reproduced and sold by Folkways Recordings, managed by the Smithsonian. We have been working with the Smithsonian and the families of the singers to determine what should be done about the recordings. With the (relatively new) Smithsonian Shared Stewardship Policy, that institution has been completely open to acting on whatever the families decide, a very positive reaction. We are hoping that the work we are doing with these records will pave the way for similar projects going forward. As you mention Indiana, we have copies of recordings from other institutions such as Indiana and we hope to work on these in the future. 

Question: If records regarding an Indigenous community are already available online but have been deemed sensitive by the community, what options are there to give control to communities over these records? (Gordon Lyall)
GW: Our first response would be to remove them from our online database and include a note to explain why they have been taken down. Of course, there may still be instances of the record online or in hard copy, but we must do what we can to mitigate damage done by them being online in the first place. In terms of ownership and control, at the Royal BC Museum/BC Archives the practice has been to enter into Memoranda of Understanding with the community to determine rights holders, and to create procedures unique to that community. Some communities want to hold and control records, others want all requests for access to go through the rights holder but for the institution to manage the copying and sharing of the records. Each MOU is different, and if a community prefers a different kind of document, we would be open to exploring other methods of agreement. It is important to consider the future rights holders as well and build that into the agreement. 

Question: If a digitization project is not of interest to an Indigenous community due to other priorities, but records concerning them are part of a larger collection, and of great value to other groups, what are the ethics of making those records available? (Gordon Lyall)
GW: It is important to engage the community to whatever degree they are able at the time. It is also important to note that there is a difference between digitizing records and sharing them with interested parties, and digitizing records and putting them online. We try to be as transparent as possible - if we are going to share records that we know relate to an Indigenous community, it is important to let them know, even if they have indicated that they are not able to consult on them at this time. I would recommend keeping records offline until explicit permission to share them publicly is received. 

Question: I was wondering if those of you in institutions or belonging to indigenous communities have engaged in metadata changes. I am primarily curious if there have been changes based on an indigenous community perspective on institutional metadata. Is this something that you have engaged with? (Ian McAlpin)
GW: Although we haven't made changes to back-end metadata, a colleague worked with Kwak̓wala Speakers to provide better descriptive data for songs in the Ida Halpern collection. This includes correct spellings of names and places, translations taken from the sound recordings (rather than the ethnomusicologist's notes) and the inclusion of diacritics in the text. You can see an example here but there are many others in the collection if you are interested in browsing.
 

Extended answers from Claire Bowern (CB), panelist from “Relationships, Reciprocity, and Responsibilities: Indigenous Studies in Archives and Beyond,” panel 6: Engaging Digital Archives to Meet Indigenous Communities Priorities (Click here to watch)

Question: Do you think version control of data and metadata would be a useful software feature in Mukurtu and archive websites? (Kavon Hooshiar)     
CB: I think that would be very useful in theory, though there's always the question of how much more additionally complex it might make the software (which is already quite complex).

Question: Do the panelists see consent as an event or an ongoing process? (Anonymous)    
CB: It's definitely an ongoing process for the work we do, as the nature of the work changes and we all learn more, it's reasonable that opinions may change. This work is a partnership, not one person deciding what gets to happen with initial input.

Question: How do you define the communities you work with? The communities themselves are not homogenous, so how do you identify the people you work with and call "the community"? (Taylor Hummel)
CB: In the grammar bootcamp cases, we work with representatives who are recognised as authorities on language. Regional language centres typically have local boards, who represent their language groups, and language centres typically consult widely (and are much more able to do so appropriately). The bootcamp projects use and acknowledge their views. 

Question: As part of your projects, are you digitizing or working with material that are only for the community that will not be of open access. And if so, how are you planning on doing this? (Luz Maria Mejia Ramos)
CB: Some of the bootcamp grammars are "public" in the sense that they will be published as open access grammars, while others are only for the communities and we expect that the language centre and language representatives will distribute them locally. 
 

This piece was written by Michael Madeja with the assistance of Angela Vassallo. Consider this a starting point on your journey to finding a career and a launching point for doing extra research into GLAM careers.

The Gallery, Library, Archive, and Museum (GLAM) careers discussed in the Career Chats series all have their pros and cons. Just like any career you might be considering, it helps to know a bit more about what work-life balance might look like in that field. The videos help to a certain degree, but we wanted to provide insight into some other aspects of these careers in this piece. The essential point is that, before choosing any career, do your research. Make sure you know how much money you’ll make, what education you’ll need (what money you’ll spend), what work-life balance is like, and what diversity, equity, access, and inclusion look like in that field. 

Generally speaking, you don’t end up working in a gallery, library, archive, or museum without having great passion for what you do and what audiences you serve. The content, tangible objects, and communities surrounding these careers are what non-profit professionals live for. There are so many pros to working in these fields: knowing you’ve made someone’s day, educating others about the past, conserving the objects that tell historical stories, providing access to information, and a sense of community and meaning. However, like many fields that have a deep history in privilege and colonialism, there are problems. These problems only get solved by talking about them openly and by encouraging the next generation to get involved. That’s part of the reason we want to keep providing Career Chats: to increase awareness of these careers and the reality of working in these fields so that future professionals have a greater understanding of these pathways. 

GLAM careers typically require Masters Degrees or even PhDs. As these fields now begin to realize that obtaining these degrees present barriers, this is beginning to change. For now though, these still seem to be requirements -- even for entry level positions. If an applicant doesn’t meet the degree requirement, it's expected that they have the experience to compensate for that. That level of experience typically comes from poorly paid front-facing jobs or unpaid internships. Again, at the time this was written, these barriers to entry are changing. However, they still exist and carry the need for financial privilege and create and maintain certain levels of inequity. 

The GLAM sector is becoming a pink collar field. This means that more women than men are becoming professionals or are professionals in these fields. Though not an inherently negative thing, this means that salaries may become suppressed and these careers may be looked upon as less significant than they really are. The economic and social implications of both sexism and sexual harassment need to be addressed to reconcile this issue. Lesser salaries and lack of respect are compounded based on intersections of identity, too. For example, there are pay differences between women who identify as Latinx, Black, or white. 

Historically, non-profit jobs, like those in the GLAM sectors, have not been among the highest paying. With the education requirements, which are usually a sign of economic privilege, and reliance on philanthropy or donations, these careers have typically paid poorly. As more folks became interested in and met the existing thresholds, this pay issue has come into broader light. Still, despite the recently increased awareness of this issue, it has yet to be solved. The issue has implications for not only these fields as entire entities but also within the sub-fields. For example, education-focused jobs tend to pay less than finance-oriented ones. Be aware of both large and small trends when job hunting and in career planning.  

Due to most of the points above, GLAM careers haven’t been particularly welcoming to BIPOC workers and workers with disabilities. The general barriers that society, academia, and these fields have created are only amplified when you come from a societal group that already faces increased discrimination. And, again, intersectionality needs to be acknowledged here. Pay rates and workforce and leadership representation shift based on overlaps of gender identity and expression, race, and ability. 

As non-profits, GLAMs are generally held to greater accountability to the public. This means that you’ll likely have access to more information more easily than with some for-profit careers. For instance, you can check tax documents like 990’s (which list salaries of some of the highest paid employees). Along with these types of tax documents and some of the resources below, check websites and the professional side of social media. Social media skimming can help you see what conversations real professionals and organizations are having! 

As you consider a career or applying to a job, ask yourself some of these questions:

Does an organization’s website mention internal and external values?

While checking a document like the 990, do those values match budgetary information? 

Does the organization clearly list staff? Do you see yourself represented in their staff? 

Does that organization provide salary information when posting a job? Do they offer paid internships?  

Some resources to get your GLAM career research started:

2019 Salary Survey, Association of Art Museum Directors

• https://aamd.org/sites/default/files/document/AAMD_Salary%20Survey%202019_Final.pdf

Arts Administrators of Color Network

• https://aacnetwork.org/ 

Arts-based BIPOC Resources 

• https://artdosemagazine.com/bipoc-resources/ 

Emerging Professionals Networks

• American Institute for Conservation’s Emerging Conservation Professionals Network
  • https://www.culturalheritage.org/membership/groups-and-networks/emerging-conservation-professionals-network 
• National Emerging Museum Professional Network
  • https://nationalempnetwork.org/ 

Inclusion in museums: a matter of social justice, Rose Paquet Kinsley (2016)  

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MW8xXpoOFmDME3BaMiORpyoCWCerGM4t/view

Leadership Matters (general leadership, women in leadership, and women in the GLAM sector)

• https://leadershipmatters1213.wordpress.com/women-museums/ 

LGBTQIA+ Welcoming Guide (American Alliance of Museums, 2016)

• https://www.aam-us.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/lgbtq_welcome_guide.pdf

Living Wage Calculator (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

• https://livingwage.mit.edu/

Mentoring Programs

• RBMS
  • http://rbms.info/committees/membership_and_professional/mentoring_program/
• Museum Education Mentoring Program
  • https://www.aam-us.org/professional-networks/education-committee/initiatives/ 

Museum Salary Spreadsheet 

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14_cn3afoas7NhKvHWaFKqQGkaZS5rvL6DFxzGqXQa6o/edit#gid=0  

Nonprofit AF - blog covering contemporary topics in non-profits

• https://nonprofitaf.com/

Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of Association of College and Research Libraries -- Careers FAQ Page

• http://rbms.info/careers-faq/

Below are the questions asked during Career Chats interviews. 

Section 1 

In the first section, we ask the staff members about their career -- what is it, what do they do, and how. 

• What do you do? How do/have you explained it to your parents or friends and does your work tend to be solo or as a team?  
• How long have you been with the APS?
• What did you do before working at the APS?
• How did you learn about or first hear about this field of work?
• What are the education and experience expectations for your job?
• What are the pros and cons of this job? 
• How do you see your field changing in the next 10 years? 

Section 2 

In section 2, we ask the staff members to explain their own background a little more. 

• What were you like in high school?
• Is this what you thought you’d be doing when you were in high school?
• What were you like in undergrad? What was your major?
• Is this what you thought you’d be doing when you were in undergrad?
• What was your “a-ha” moment with this career trajectory?
• If I were a student doing an informational interview with you, what question do you love being asked about your job? Any questions that I should avoid? Any email pet-peeves?

Section 3 

Section 3 is used to talk about object connections and as time to answer any questions that might have been submitted by viewers. 

• What’s one APS object that really demonstrates your work? 

With an eye towards the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding in 2026, the American Philosophical Society (APS), in partnership with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP), and the Library Company of Philadelphia (LCP), will lay the groundwork for the development of an innovative digital portal that will uncover hidden stories from Philadelphia’s revolutionary past.

Thanks to a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), these three Philadelphia institutions will create a shared online portal of digitized archival material related to the American Revolution. This portal will break down the institutional barriers between these archives, allowing users to discover stories that had previously been obscured by the physical separation of collections. Both the APS and LCP, founded by Benjamin Franklin, and the HSP, founded to celebrate the memory of the Revolution, hold large and invaluable collections related to the American Revolution and the early national period. But whereas the stories of founders like Franklin and Jefferson are well known, the scattered nature of the records of lesser-known actors has made those lives less accessible to wide audiences. Revolutionary City seeks to remedy that by highlighting the lives of a more diverse Philadelphia.

Some examples of stories waiting to be told, according to HSP Interim President and CEO Charles Cullen are, “Sarah Wister’s journal and Elizabeth Drinker’s diaries, manuscripts containing estimates of damage done by the British occupation, foot-soldier Aaron Norcross, and rich collections of papers of Revolutionary women.”

The project has the backing of America250, the federal commission overseeing the 250th anniversary of 1776.

“America 250’s goal is to educate, engage, and unite all Americans in a commemoration that is of, by, and for the people. The American Philosophical Society’s receipt of the IMLS National Leadership Grant to pursue this innovative and engaging initiative is an important step forward,” said Frank Giordano, Executive Director of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission (America 250). “I am confident that the commitment made by these three institutions to bring together the diverse perspectives of educators, public historians, and digital humanists will shed light on untold American stories, promote greater historical education, and encourage broader conversations about the meaning and promise of the United States not only among Philadelphians, but across the country.”

Michael Barsanti, Director of the Library Company, agreed.

“Most histories of Philadelphia in the revolution focus on the work of the founders and the drafting of Declaration of Independence,” says Barsanti, “This project will allow people to see how it was experienced by ordinary Philadelphians, and will reflect the extraordinary diversity that characterized us even then. It is also a remarkable opportunity for three of Philadelphia’s great historical organizations to work together on a project that brings their collections to the world.”

Aside from its compelling content, the project promises to yield important technological innovations for libraries and archives and become a model for institutional collaboration.

“Our goal is to create a unified digital repository shared between three institutions,” Patrick Spero, Librarian of the American Philosophical Society noted, “To do that, we need to create ways for our separate systems to talk to one another. If we’re successful, we hope to expand the scale of this project to include other partners from around the region and perhaps country to create as complete a record of the American Revolution in Philadelphia as possible.”

This one-year pilot grant will fund the planning phase of Revolutionary City and support the APS, HSP, and LCP as they focus on material related to Philadelphia, establishing the foundation for a portal that has the potential to expand to include sources on the Revolution from archives from around the country. Together, the APS, HSP, and LCP see the long-term vision of the portal as a one-stop-shop for students, teachers, scholars, and other lovers of history seeking to access materials related to the Revolutionary War and founding of the United States.

September 21-25, 2020

Papers for "Relationships, Reciprocity, and Responsibilities: Indigenous Studies in Archives and Beyond" can be found below.  You will be required to enter a password provided by conference organizers to access them. Please contact Adrianna Link at [email protected] if you are attending the conference but have not yet received the password.

Papers are not to be cited or circulated without the written permission of the author

All events will be held via Zoom (times listed in EDT)

Monday, September 21

1:00 p.m.: Opening Plenary and Keynote 

"Strengthening Indigenous Scholarship, Archives, and Education” a discussion with Lisa Brooks, Amos Key, Jr., and Jennifer O'Neal, moderated by Brian Carpenter

Tuesday, September 22

1:00 p.m.: Panel 1: Reciprocity and Responsibilities Surrounding Indigenous Archival Materials

"All Stories Have More Than One Voice: Telling Native History Today in the 21st Century
Eric Hemenway (Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians)

"Building a Discourse of Reciprocity in Archival Science: Making a Case from Research on Ethnographic Archives" 
Diana E. Marsh (University of Maryland)
Ricardo Punzalan (University of Michigan)

"Revisiting the 'Returning Forgotten Voices' Project, Oaxaca, Mexico"
Danny Zborover (Mexico-Pacific Rim Project)
Aaron Huey Sonnenschein (California State University, Los Angeles)
Salvador Galindo Llaguno (CEDELIO, Oaxaca)

3:00 p.m.: Panel 2: Outreach and Relationship-Building through Indigenous Materials

"Consult, Collaborate, and Listen: Decolonizing Archival Research"
Kelsey Grimm (Indiana University)
Krystiana Krupa (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

"Putting Indigenous priorities first: consultation and Residential School records at the BC Archives" 
Genevieve Weber (Royal BC Museum and Archives)
Margaret Teneese (Ktunaxa Nation)

"REACHing for Community-Based Scholarship & Partnerships in the Humanities"
Jamie Mize (University of North Carolina, Pembroke)

Wednesday, September 23

1:00 p.m.: Panel 3: Indigenous Researchers in Non-Native Archives

"Being in the Archive: Indigenous Research Methodologies and the Allure of Archives"
Johannah Bird (McMaster University)

"Stories, Language, and the Archives: Haudenosaunee Community Work" 
Kevin White (University of Toronto)

"Knowledge in Poems, Knowledge in Archives: The Historical (Re)shaping Possibilities of Native Women's Poetry"
Liandra Skenandore (Independent Scholar)

3:00 p.m.: Panel 4: Community-Based Language Revitalization

"Rowinatahina Kashi, Teti Nisa: Original Notebooks, New Path - Mary R. Haas notebooks and Tunica Language Revitalization" 
Patricia Anderson (Tunica Language Project)
Elisabeth Pierite-Mora (Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana Language and Culture Revitalization Program)

"Tuscarora language revitalization"
Montgomery Hill (McMaster University)

"Utilizing Online Technology to Improve Access to Indigenous Language and Use" 
X̱'unei Lance Twitchell (University of Alaska Southeast)

Thursday, September 24

1:00 p.m.: Panel 5: Community-Based Archival Initiatives 

"Telling Our Stories Together: Historical Literacy, Choctaw Archives and Community Research"
Megan Baker (University of California, Los Angeles)

"How Tribal Archives Foster Reciprocal Relationships and Activism" 
Rose Miron (Newberry Library)
Heather Bruegl (Stockbridge-Munsee Community)

"Preserving the Aaniiih-Gros Ventre Narrative Tradition: The Collected Writings of Fred P. Gone ('Many Plumes')"
Joseph P. Gone (Harvard University)

3:00 p.m.: Panel 6: Engaging Digital Archives to Meet Indigenous Communities Priorities

"Revitalization at a distance: Engaging digital archives for language reclamation"
Claire Bowern (Yale University)
George Hayden (Noongar Boodjar Language Cultural Aboriginal Corporation)
Denise Smith-Ali (Noongar Boodjar Language Cultural Aboriginal Corporation)
Sue Hanson (Goldfields Aboriginal Language Centre Aboriginal Corporation (GALCAC))

"Maya Testimonies in the Visual History Archive: Violence, Linguistics, and Self-Determination" 
Brigittine French (Grinnell College)
Lolmay Pedro Oscar García Matzar (Independent Scholar)

"Rowasu'u: A Xavante Community Archive"
Lori Jahnke (Emory University)
Rosanna Dent (New Jersey Institute of Technology)
James Welch (Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (FIOCRUZ))

Friday, September 25

1:00 p.m.: Panel 7: NASI Alumni Roundtable 

3:00 p.m.: Wrap-up Session

Extended answers from Angela G. Ray (AGR), panelist from “Evidence: The Use and Misuse of Data”, panel 1: Evidential Standards (Click here to watch)

Question: Do you connect the debating societies of young African American men to the same societies of young women (studied by Mary Kelley, among others)? Do you attribute to them significance beyond the education/experience of the participants? (anonymous)

AGR: Yes, indeed. Important scholarship like Elizabeth McHenry’s Forgotten Readers (2002), Mary Kelley’s Learning to Stand and Speak (2006), and Carly Woods’s Debating Women (2018) informs my own work and encourages an emphasis on the intersectional dynamics of race and gender.

The question of how to attribute significance to educational activity, like a debating society, is an important one. For this project I have amassed persuasive evidence of the benefits to several individuals, and I believe that broader social and cultural benefits can be plausibly demonstrated as well—especially via the members’ later contributions to racial uplift in education, religion, and government. Of course, I am also interested in what participating in a debating society meant for individuals who lacked opportunities later on, or whose lives were cut short; asking those questions gets me thinking about the importance of sociability and camaraderie, about making a supportive enclave within highly oppressive conditions.

Question: Dr. Ray, I am fascinated by the rich repository of records you explored in your transcription and analysis of the Clionian Society of antebellum Charleston. How did you learn about the existence of these proceedings? (Kerry Bryan)

AGR: I had prior experience in studying antebellum debating societies that were run primarily by young white men in the Northeast and Midwest. Once while I was reading about societies in the South, I noted two sentences in the first volume of Michael O’Brien’s Conjectures of Order (2004) that describe the Clionian Debating Society and identify the participants as free Black men. This was an intriguing reference, and when I was later at Duke University, I examined the minute book that is held in the library there. Then my search of the WorldCat database turned up the existence of the earlier minute book, held at the Charleston Library Society and reproduced on microfiche in 1981. I was hooked!

Question: How does digitization, and presenting digital facsimile, affect historians' conception of evidence? (Dominique Daniel)

AGR: I can offer some observations from my own experience: Most of the sources I used for my doctoral dissertation were available either in their original form in archives or on microfilm. As my career has developed, I am increasingly using digitized facsimiles as sources, primarily of print materials but increasingly of handwritten documents as well. I appreciate the increased access and speed that digitization, especially digital facsimile, has brought; I remember cranking microfilm copies of nineteenth-century census records, for example, and I welcome the ability to use searchable databases from my own computer. I also appreciate the possibility of checking other scholars’ transcriptions of primary sources by examining a digital facsimile.

At the same time, I have witnessed a slow evolution in the quality of optical character recognition, and I keep in mind that electronic searches, like physical searches, are imperfect. Also, especially where handwritten documents are concerned, I want to see the original if that is at all possible, especially if the source in question is important to a given research project. Being able to detect the weight of ink—reproducing the gesture of writing—is sometimes the only method for making a handwritten document legible. I’ve sometimes been surprised by the size or color of a piece of letter paper that I had viewed on microfilm, or by the bulk of a book I had seen in digital facsimile. Substantive knowledge can be gained by examining original materials, especially when our research questions involve form in addition to propositional content.

I have responded to this question by focusing on textual sources, although I would make an analogous case for visual images: digitization offers important access, and different kinds of evidence become available when encountering originals.

Question: Can you all discuss the way memory fits into the idea of evidential standards? Does memory as evidence complicate the way we standardize it? Do you think there are areas of growth needed in the field regarding using memories as evidence? (Molly Nebiolo)

AGR: We discussed this question a bit at the conference, and I mentioned Nell Irvin Painter’s Sojourner Truth (1996), an especially important example of historical study of an individual’s life and the ways that her public image was shaped by herself and others during her lifetime and afterward. Merrill Peterson’s Lincoln in American Memory (1994) is another important study that offers a deft presentation of memory practices as historical phenomena. From my own field of rhetoric and communication, Jenell Johnson’s American Lobotomy (2014) studies the ways that stories about lobotomy have influenced perceptions of biomedicine and mental health across time; she draws on sources from medical treatises to horror films.

Rhetorical studies, influenced by Pierre Nora and others, have long claimed a sharp dichotomy between memory and history, but that is changing. Comparable to the perspective that Andrew Schocket mentioned at the conference, my understanding of historical investigation is that it is a form of memory production, albeit a form that has communal expectations for methods, evidence, claims, and arguments. My disciplinary colleague Kirt Wilson has expressed a distinction helpful to rhetoricians: he refers to history as forensic and commemoration as epideictic, arguing that memory encompasses both. That is, history operates within technical arenas of peer-reviewed publications and museum curation, has its own specialized language and accepted methods, and seeks to make factual claims about the past; commemoration has broader participation and fewer methodological constraints, focuses less on accuracy and more on emotional resonance, and emphasizes claims of values and identity more than claims of fact. In the journal Rhetoric & Public Affairs in 2010, Wilson wrote, “Memory is not comprised simply of facts about the past, nor is it solely myth. It is, instead, a rhetorically negotiated commingling of history and commemoration, each form dictating slightly different exigencies.”

Question: Has the physical separation of the two volumes of the Clionian Society's Minutes -- divided between repositories in Charleston and Duke University -- contributed to some of the obscurity or silencing of the society's members? Can digitization or transcription bring these archival sources together -- seems like both Angela and Daniel work towards the ends of  collocation? But what are the bounds of a source, archival or otherwise? What to include in the "works" of the Clionian Society or the "works" of Andrew Jackson is still an issue? (anonymous)

AGR: Yes, I think that the physical separation of the two volumes of debating society minutes has definitely contributed to the organization’s obscurity, but another contributing factor is the comparatively small number of scholars who have examined nineteenth-century debating as a significant cultural phenomenon. And yes, through transcribing the two volumes and studying them together, I am enacting a commitment to the notion that the two are most meaningful as a single unit; while that is an arguable proposition, it is productive for the research questions I have. At the same time, I also understand the “works” of the society as including materials no longer extant. Additional documents (e.g., correspondence, lists of officers) are mentioned in the minutes but have not survived, at least in public archives. The group also collected books, some of which are sufficiently well described in the minutes that I can make a confident judgment about their authors and titles. (These include Benjamin Franklin’s Life.) Although the copies that were in the society’s library are no longer together (at least as far as I can determine), I am reading other copies held in libraries elsewhere or in digital facsimile, and I am, in general, considering these texts as part of the group’s holdings. Drawing on the scholarship of colleagues in theater and performance studies, I can also understand the “works” of the society as including its ephemeral, long-ago activities, which must be studied via surrogates like the minutes themselves.

Select answers from Gaye S. Wilson, author of Jefferson on Display: Attire, Etiquette, and the Art of Presentation

Question: Where do you see the balance between Jefferson and “republican simplicity” and his expensive tastes. . . . I’m wondering about the balance he struck between his taste, the images he wanted to project, and his spending and financial situations? (John Rudder)

GW:  This is a very significant but complex ‘Jefferson’ question. No quick answer but here are a few thoughts.   As president, Jefferson deliberately dressed down and casually received callers at the President’s House, yet he was known for his small, but elegant dinner parties with European wines and food prepared by his French chef and presided over by his French butler. A frequent dinner guest, Margaret Bayard Smith, approved the skills brought by his European staff and wrote that at Jefferson’s table “republican simplicity was united to Epicurean delicacy.” The form of government must remain republican, but Jefferson seemed intent at the same time on elevating the taste of his countrymen by introducing them to Old World refinements that included art, architecture, and cuisine. Just as he cared about his own image, he was sensitive to how the American republic was perceived by the western world. And yes, it did cost him. Many of his expenses while president, such as staff, food and wine, came from his own pocket. As he prepared for retirement in March 1809, he estimated debts contracted while in office at about ten thousand dollars. As always, he was optimistic in covering them with proceeds from his farms. And life would be simpler when he was a “private citizen” and could reduce his style of living to that of a “private family.” But even as private citizen, he never turned away the many guests that called upon the Sage at Monticello, and he continued the image of the elegant host. I discuss in my book, Jefferson on Display, that as he launched his last major project, the founding of the University of Virginia, he knew that it was necessary he maintain the image of gentleman and leading citizen in order to secure the needed support from the Virginia General Assembly. This was while, with the national economic collapse of 1819, his debts mounted to more than he could cover.  

Questions:  Any idea of the document at the bottom of the portrait? (David Maxey);
                    Is there a document on the table or is it fabric? (Anonymous Attendee)

GW:  Good observations and sorry I had to pass over this during the webinar. Yes, you are seeing a document on the desk under Jefferson’s hand in the Mather Brown portrait. Quick brush strokes indicate writing, but the only thing legible is, “M. Brown  p. 1786.” Documents were included frequently in portraits of statesmen. The Gilbert Stuart portraits of Washington and the 1805 of Jefferson, included in the online discussion, both have documents on the desks along with books. In the final portrait, artist Thomas Sully has the figure of Jefferson holding a single rolled document, and again there is an indication of writing that remains illegible. These documents serve as visual reminders as to why these figures were important and their portraits being taken.

Questions: Did Jefferson ever write about the experience of sitting for Houdon? (Jon Friedman)  
                    Did Houdon do a mask to do the bust like George Washington? (Kathy Heath)

GW:  Unfortunately Jefferson did not fully comment on his experience in Houdon’s studio, though he did make a reference to a life mask being made. Late in his retirement he recounted to a visitor at Monticello that Mdm. Houdon had anointed his face and shoulders with almond oil while Houdon stood to one side stirring the plaster He made it sound as though the experience was not altogether unpleasant. Certainly he was pleased with the resulting bust portrait. 

Question: Can you say more about how different audiences responded to portraits of Jefferson? For example did Federalists and Republicans respond to any of portraits differently? Is there evidence that certain portraits actively shaped his public image or were more widely circulated/popular than others? (Janine Boldt)

GW:  During the contentious presidential election of 1800 and on into Jefferson’s first term as president, the portrait most often copied was one by Rembrandt Peale, painted in Philadelphia during the early months of 1800. The validity of the likeness can be judged from the number of prints that were quickly made and circulated. Rembrandt (as he billed himself) has Jefferson gazing very steadily at the viewer in his fashionable black coat and waistcoat with hair dressed and powdered. There is a steadiness in the demeanor that contradicted the Federalists’ accusations in the press casting him as a weak, whimsical intellectual, not fit for the role as chief executive of the nation. Yet this was the image that Federalists copied when they needed to vilify Jefferson in political caricatures, such as “A Philosophic Cock” discussed in the webinar. Though distorted, the face is recognizable as based upon Rembrandt’s portrait. The popularity of this portrait was challenged by the Gilbert Stuart of 1805 commissioned by James Bowdoin for his diplomatic assignment to Madrid and discussed during the webinar. Stuart’s reputation as the leading American portrait artist could have bolstered interest, but certainly he produced a handsome portrait that portrays President Jefferson in a pose and setting worthy of an official state portrait. A very fine engraving of the Stuart portrait, made in 1807 by Robert Field, allowed Jefferson’s presidential image to circulate broadly.

Question: Is he making a specific statement about American simplicity with the old-fashioned coat? He also chose to wear laces and not buckles, which is another deliberate fashion choice. (Janine Boldt) 

GW:  The cut of the coat and waistcoat rendered by Thomas Sully for the West Point commission follows the style fashionable early in Jefferson’s presidency The center front of the coat slopes in a long line from the upper chest toward the side seams and the waistcoat rests slightly below waist and opens in a deep ‘V’. In contrast, the fashionable man’s coat in 1821 was moving toward an almost horizontal cut, arching slightly above the natural waist. This cut was the forerunner of today’s tail coat. I suggest in my book that the suit we see in Sully’s portrait, with knee breeches rather than pantaloons, was chosen not so much as a statement of simplicity but rather for its link to 1802 when Jefferson signed the congressional bill establishing the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. 
I am very glad you point out the shoes---or bootees as Jefferson called them---as I was not able to go into these during the webinar, and they definitely had a political significance. This style in footwear became popular during the French Revolution (but not unique to France) and made its political and egalitarian statement by replacing the elegant buckles with plebeian laces. During the election of 1800, the pro-Republican press touted Jefferson’s preference for American made clothing, including the “Jefferson shoe.” This likely alluded to the lace-up bootee, as it began to appear in political caricatures aimed at Jefferson [see “Providential Detection,” c. 1799] and this theme was taken up by the Federalists press early in Jefferson’s presidency. One Federalist commented that “our philosophic president. . .prefers shoestrings, when other folks wear buckles,” and another claimed that Jefferson was making the statement that buckles were “superfluous and anti-republican especially when he has strings.”

Question:  Did Sully paint any portraits of Jefferson’s family or the women in his life? (Karen A. Chase)

GW: Sully painted Jefferson’s daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph in May 1836 when she was age sixty-three. Family accounts say that she asked Sully to be kind and the portrait is definitely soft in the rendering of her features. She was accompanied to Sully’s studio by her daughter Virginia Randolph Trist, who credited the artist with “powers of entertainment” that caused Martha to become more animated and her eyes to sparkle. Virginia’s husband, Nicholas Trist was in hopes that Sully could be convinced to take her portrait as soon as he completed Martha’s, however it was not possible due to Sully’s extremely full schedule. Thus, the only Sully portraits of the family were those of father and daughter, Thomas Jefferson and his eldest daughter Martha. Monticello currently holds the portrait of Martha and a later Sully copy of the Jefferson bust portrait. 

Question:  Did Jefferson ever express an opinion about the Sully portrait? Also, was Jefferson ever painted together with John Adams or Franklin or Madison…any of his contemporaries? (Kevin Stirling) 

GW:  Jefferson did not comment on the portrait, but his granddaughter, Ellen did. She felt Sully had “succeeded admirably.” She found the upper portion of the face near perfect in likeness and felt that Sully had captured Jefferson’s dignity and expression of benevolence. Her only dissatisfaction was with the area around the mouth and chin, but she felt Sully would be able to correct that in the full-length. She was not explicit as to what troubled her, and I have studied both these portraits carefully trying to determine the change she felt was needed. It does appear that a crease from the corner of Jefferson’s mouth that was pronounced in the original bust portrait is not quite so defined in the final West Point full-length. I have wondered if that slight modification would have please Ellen. 
    The only painting in which Jefferson, Adams and Franklin appear on the same canvas is John Trumbull’s, The Declaration of Independence, July 4th 1776. As I believe I mentioned, when Jefferson commissioned the portrait of himself from Mather Brown, he commissioned one of John Adams as well. When James Bowdoin requested portraits by Gilbert Stuart for his diplomatic duty in Spain, he commissioned one of President Jefferson and one of Secretary of State Madison. In both instances, these portraits were of the same sizes and companion portraits but not on the same canvas.

Questions: Did Jefferson choose to be shown with a column from the H or R? He didn’t visit, but did he know of the column’s design? (Anonymous Attendee)
                   Were all these details carefully thought out by Jefferson OR is it only now that we are interpreting the meaning? (Anonymous Attendee)

GW:  It is impossible to say how much Jefferson may have known of the design for the rebuilding of the House of Representatives. Certainly he discussed architecture with Thomas Sully during his visit to Monticello, as Jefferson requested that Sully visit the construction site for the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where examples of his own architectural designs were going up. He wanted Sully to be prepared to report on his observations. And it is possible that Sully had visited the new House of Representatives, perhaps on his way to Monticello, and could have reported on that to Jefferson as well. But who suggested that the new House chamber serve as the backdrop for Jefferson’s portrait? Ultimately, the decision had to rest with Sully, as the final study and the full-length portrait were not completed until he returned to his studio in Philadelphia. Yet conversations with Jefferson could have influenced his decision. Jefferson always felt strongly that the House of Representatives served as the clearest voice of the people, and even though he did not serve there, a visual association could have been a welcome addition to his legacy. Whether the setting was a direct suggestion from Jefferson or an idea formulated by Sully on his own, visually it gives strength to the composition and adds another level of association for the viewer.