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Stumpage Reports
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Friday, March 21, 2003 :::
On the Rampage at the State Archives
As I've said here before, my Preservation class is turning out to be one of the more fun and interesting classes I've taken this semester. Last night we went down to the conservation lab at the State Archives to get some hands-on conservation experience. The lady in charge brought out a bunch of sheriff's warrants or something like that from the 1830's. They were worthless and they planned to get rid of them. The lady said "You're gonna learn how to clean these things, so get 'em dirty." We threw them on the floor and stomped them and scrubbed dirt into them. Could Be A Punk Rock Girl works at a living history farm and she still had her work boots on and they were pretty useful. The conservation lady said most classes were hesistant about mauling these old documents, but we dove in with sadistic glee. After a year and a half of treating stuff like this like gold, it felt good to destroy.
After we scrubbed them with archival eraser bits, we washed them in water and dried them on blotter paper. Then it was time to learn to repair tears, so we ripped them in half and ironed them back together with this special tape stuff. After we got the poor things fixed up we got to encapsulate them in mylar with an ultrasonic welder. History nerds run amok, it was all great fun.
Related News...
Everybody at the State Archives, and a lot of my fellow students, are agog over the return of North Carolina's copy of the Bill of Rights. This is one of only fourteen copies made when the bill was adopted. One for each state and one for the feds. A damn yankee stole it back in 1865 and several times since then folks have tried to sell it back to North Carolina. There's been a display in the archives on the missing Bill of Rights for years, and our archives teacher has been kvetching about it since we've known him. The good news is they busted someone trying to sell it a couple days ago in Pennsylvania and it is on its way home. One account I read estimated the value at $40 million. But its really priceless. Not sure how long the link is good, but you can read a good story on it from the Philadelphia paper here.
Of course lots of jokes like: "Damn, that explains a lot about North Carolina. They didn't know what was in the Bill of Rights. Maybe some things will change around here now."
Quote of the Day:
Nobody but the dead know whether all these things people talk about are worth dying for or not. And the dead can't talk. So the words about noble deaths and sacred blood and honor and such are all put into dead lips by grave robbers and fakes who have no right to speak for the dead. If a man says death before dishonor he is either a fool or a liar because he doesn't know what death is.
--- Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun, 1939.
::: posted by tom at 3:59 PM
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