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About > Year in Review > Collections
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The past year has been a notable one for the Collections Division. The Jewish Archives program, first established in 1976 was fully endowed; a new collections policy was completed and approved by the board; major progress was made in areas such as digitization and manuscripts processing; and Paul Heyde joined the staff as Collection Manager for the Library/Archives.
These important events occurred as the staff continued the normal, and important matters of acquiring, and cataloging the collections encompassing dozens of media which stand as the raison d’être of the Society. They undertook tens of thousands of individual actions and tasks – these ranged from sorting and organizing an untold number of letters and documents in the Society’s growing archival collections, to hanging dozens of flags, photographs and drawings in exhibitions. By email, telephone, letter, and in person, they engaged with thousands of donors, researchers and visitors. All these duties served to make the “core” of the Western Reserve Historical Society, its collections, accessible and, most importantly, meaningful to the public which we serve.
Special Initiatives
Adoption of New Collections Policy
While the activities referenced above constitute the usual and customary, the staff also began, continued, or completed a series of important initiatives; ones which will serve to bring control and focus to the institution’s collections and also make them even more accessible to the public.
At the center of these initiatives was the creation of a new collections policy. This process, led by staff and the members of the board’s Collection Committee had been underway for several years. In December 2010, the full board of directors adopted the new policy which superseded one last amended in 2000. The new policy provides more exacting guidelines for the management of (addition and removal of items from) the Society collections. It also more clearly defines those areas of regional history – business and industry, reform, diversity of population (community history and genealogy), place and environment, and culture – in which we wish to build particularly strong holdings in all types of media. Importantly, it also gives an expanded role to the professional staff (constituted as a curatorial council) in determining what new materials will be accepted by the Society
Digitization
One of the main goals of the division is to increase virtual access to its collections while improving the care and custody of the original materials. Several projects in this area continued and expanded during the past year. Excepting special requests, all outside photo reproduction requests are now filled by providing the purchaser with a digital file rather than hard copy. This has improved our process of photographic reproduction and continued to build our archive of digital images. This process, overseen by Hannah Kemp-Severance is complemented by an ongoing program wherein volunteers and interns scan and digitize major components of our iconographic collections. This past year saw the entire James Taylor Civil War Sketchbook digitized to professional standards.
The staff of the Kelvin Smith Library (KSL) of Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) has also, by terms of a memorandum of understanding, been assisting WRHS in digitizing its resources and mounting them on the Digital Case platform. This year the KSL staff completed work on all of our resources, including images, postcards, publications, and objects, relating to the Great Lakes Exposition. The next project, currently underway, will see all of our archival film of the National Air Races, digitized and made accessible via Digital Case and copies for purchase at WRHS. Additionally, the on-line Encyclopedia of Cleveland History which is maintained by CWRU, but is a joint project with WRHS, will now be hosting hundreds of new images from WRHS collections and will, in the future, serve as one of the primary platforms for access to our image and, eventually, sound holdings.
More Product, Less Process
This past year marked a true milestone in the manuscripts section of the collections division – for the first time in recent memory, division staff, led by Margaret Burzynski-Bays, processed more archival material (535 linear feet) than they accessioned (345 linear feet). This is a result of applying new contemporary standards to processing and of adhering to the new, more defined acquisition guidelines of the collections policy. Among the sixty-eight newly processed collections now ready for research are:
• Arthur J. Naperstak Papers
• Seth Taft Papers
• Boddie Recording Company Papers
• Stonewall Cleveland Records
• Northeast Ohio Indian Community Survey Records
• Saxton Funeral Home Records
• Ratner Family Papers
• Associazione Fratellanzana Di Campodipietra Records
• Judy Chicago Dinner Party Site Project Records
Collection Care and Conservation
Conservator Beth Campano prepared condition reports and treatment recommendations for three Wade family portraits on loan to the State Department for the Ambassador’s residence in Slovakia.
The Severance Family funded the conservation of their gift of fourteen early cased images of family portraits, including members of the Severance, Walworth and Long families.
New Collections
Division staff, including Curator of Manuscripts, Margaret Burzynski-Bays, Chief Curator Dean Zimmerman, Associate Curator for Italian-American History Pamela Dorazio Dean, and Associate Curator for Jewish History, Dr. Sean Martin, worked together to acquire a number of new collections valuable to supporting research on our region’s history and representing the lived experiences of the diversity of people who have made Northeast Ohio their home.
The total acquisitions over the past year consisted of:
• Museum: 26 objects from 14 donors
• Library/Archives: 124 manuscript collections totaling 345 linear feet/ 635 new books
Highlights among the new collections include:
• Uniforms and accessories worn by David Berger to the 1969 VIII Maccabiah Games in Israel and the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Berger, a native Clevelander, was among the Israeli athletes kidnapped and murdered at the Munich Olympiad.
• 1852 coin silver goblet made by Cleveland jeweler Cowles and Albertson. The cup was awarded as a premium at the Ohio State Fair in 1852, the year the fair was held in Cleveland. Gift of the American Furniture Collectors.
• A child’s table and two chairs in the art modern style made at the Twin Coach factory in Kent, Ohio.
• John A. Peca Sr. Screen Print
• Troy Lee James Papers
• Industrial Workers of the World (Cleveland) Records
• John Farina Papers
• Clay design model of a late 1950s Cleveland-designed (but not produced) sports car, named the “Argonaut.”
• Hand-written copy edited draft of John Hay’s article “Life in the Whitehouse” written for the Century Magazine
• Joseph Kocab Czech Collection (manuscripts)
• Severance Family Photographs
Research and Outreach
The work of the Collections division does not end with the processing and cataloging of objects, books, and manuscripts, but extends into services that make them available to a wide and diverse public. These include on-site research in our reading room, the creation of exhibits, loans, publications, programs and public appearances by staff, and increasing, virtual interaction with researchers via email and the website.
On-Site Research
During the past year the reading room of the Library/Archives hosted an average of 23 people per day. There were 3,554 total visits including 969 members and 2,585 non-members. Reference Supervisor Ann Sindelar, her staff, and volunteers worked with 22 large groups from area universities (including classes from the first-year SAGES program at neighboring Case Western Reserve University) and local genealogical societies.
This interaction involved the retrieval of 5,375 collections from the closed stacks including 1,794 manuscript collections, 1,085 photographic collections, and 412 items from the automotive marque files (this represented a 100% increase in use of this collection over the previous year).
In addition to overseeing on-site work, the library reference staff and volunteers (who contributed over 4,000 hours of time) responded to 2,103 email requests, 515 telephone queries, and 280 letters.
This interaction, both virtual and on-site, helps build a broader network of friends and advocates for the Society and also contributes to the bottom line. Fees for services (photographic copies and permissions, research contracts, and photocopies) totaled $27,165.45.
Exhibits
Exhibits continue as the primary means by which our collections come before the public. During the past year division staff was involved in the mounting of eight new exhibits. Chief Curator Dean Zimmerman, with the assistance of CWRU summer intern Emily Sparks, installed “Cleveland Perspectives: Watercolor Paintings Made for the Western Reserve Historical Society under the Auspices of the National Youth Administration” in the Norton Galley. He also oversaw the installation of a one-day exhibit of First Ladies’ objects in that gallery, and later in the year a display of doll houses from the Society’s collections. At the end of the year the Chief Curator was working closely with Janice Ziegler, Vice President for Education and Public Programs in readying the Hay House for its reopening to the public.
 The Society’s major exhibit for the past year, Rally Round: Civil War Flags and Banners, opened at the end of April. It was a team effort, led by Dean Zimmerman, involving staff from throughout the Collections Division along with staff from Institutional Advancement who created the graphics and labels that accompanies the compelling selection of objects that form the exhibit.
Three of the year’s new exhibits focused on Italian American History. Pamela Dorazio Dean, Associate Curator for Italian American History, worked with the Italian Consulate in Detroit to bring “Americhe: Stories of Friulian Emigrants in the USA” and “Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Thousand” to the Society. She also coordinated the installation of an exhibit of materials loaned by the North Italian Club of Cleveland.
The Chief Curator directed the reinstallation of furnishings and decorative arts in the Goldsmith house at Hale Farm in preparation for the Furniture Club meeting on September 12, 2010.
Loans
Loans provide important exposure for our collections in a variety of venues. This year (our) thirty loans had an enormous geographic reach – all the way from the west side of Cleveland to Bratislava, Slovakia. Museum and library staff worked together to oversee a loan of materials relating to noted local architectural historian, I. T. Frary to the Cleveland Artists Foundation. Three Wade Family portraits now hang, on loan, in the U.S. Ambassador’s residence in Bratislava where Theodore Sedgwick, a Wade Family descendant serves as ambassador. Twelve objects from the decorative arts collection appeared in an important exhibition at the Ohio Decorative Arts Center in Lancaster, Ohio, and fourteen garments, jewelry and other accoutrements were provided to the Kent State University Museum for the exhibit On the Homefront: Civil War Fashions and Domestic Life.
Programs & Public Engagement
The expertise and knowledge of the division’s staff formed a critical component of WRHS programming during the past year. The most important venues were the White Glove events, one of which featured a general sampling from the collection and two, Touching Jewish History and
Campanilismo on the Cuyahoga focused respectively, on the holdings of the Jewish and Italian collections. The curatorial staff not only selected the items for the White Glove programs, but served as personal and expert interpreters for those items.
In addition to their work on the Jewish and Italian White Glove programs, curators Dr. Sean Martin and Pamela Dorazio Dean presented a number of off-site lectures on history and genealogy relevant to their respective topics. Dr. Martin also worked with the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland in creating and leading workshops for Jewish Educators which focused on primary resources from the WRHS collections.
Ann Sindelar’s expertise in genealogy made her a frequent speaker at venues as diverse as the InTown Club and the Order of Founders and Patriots, while Chief Curator Dean Zimmerman engaged audiences at the Gates Mills and Chagrin Falls Library and also served as a panelist at the Midwest Antiques Forum.
Vice President for Collections, Dr. John Grabowski, spoke at a number of local leadership programs and presented a paper at a conference on Slovenian Emigration held in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Publications
The Western Reserve Historical Society began its publication program in 1870. Last year it continued that important tradition in impressive fashion. On September 10th we hosted a signing party and lecture to celebrate the publication of The Severances: An American Odyssey, from Puritan Massachusetts to Ohio's Western Reserve, and Beyond, written by Diana Tittle. The Society served as the central research locus and publisher of this chronicle of one of the region’s most noted families. Approximately one year later, the first copies of Feel the Bonds That Draw: Images of the Civil War at the Western Reserve Historical Society, was published by Kent State University Press in cooperation with WRHS arrived at the Society. Written by Christine Dee of Fitchburg State University (Massachusetts), the volume features over 100 images, many not seen before in publication, from the Society’s extensive Civil War collections, which Civil War historian William C. Davis describes as “One of the finest collections of wartime images in existence.” This is the first volume in a series that will feature other notable photographic collections from the Society.
Two other important publication projects moved nearer to completion during the year. Through the Lens of Allen E. Cole: A History of African Americans in Cleveland Ohio, by Samuel Black and Regennia Williams moved into the design phase and is slated for release in early 2012. Also, Dr. Susan Murnane completed her manuscript for a history of the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio, an important project for which the Society serves as fiscal agent. The book will be published in 2012.
John G. Grabowski, Ph.D.
Krieger-Mueller Historian
Vice President for Collections
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