Friends Historical Collection Annual Report, 2007-2008
This past year was notable for a growing number of collaborative projects, both with assorted traditional constituent groups as well as reaching new audiences. Routine research requests, additions of new items, and care of historical materials continued, and staff assisted a wide variety of researchers answer questions on a broad range of topics.
Following an application and review process, the United States National Park Service designated the Friends Historical Collection as a research facility “making a significant contribution to the understanding of the Underground Railroad in American history” and as meeting “the requirements for inclusion in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.” It is hoped that this is a first step in a larger process to designate the Guilford College campus as a recognized site. As a part of broader programming on this topic, Gwen Erickson assisted Vice President and Academic Dean Adrienne Israel with coordination of Guilford College’s Underground Railroad speaker series during early April in connection with Greensboro’s bicentennial celebrations.
The Friends Historical Collection partnered with the Guilford County Schools to plan a Teaching American History workshop to assist high school teachers incorporate the use of local primary sources in the classroom. 25 teachers representing 18 different high schools participated in the two-day workshop held in Guilford’s library in November. Gwen Erickson led a historical walking tour of Guilford’s campus, tours of the Friends Historical Collection, and provided a presentation and assignment activity using documents from the collection. A second session is being planned for April 2009.
Friends Historical Collection staff, along with Alumni Relations staff and alumnae, are assisting with planning for a celebration of Mary Hobbs Hall to be held in April 2009. Initial discussions began in 2007. The event will include opportunities to obtain oral histories for the archives, activities relating to the dormitory’s history, and presentations about Mary Mendenhall Hobbs, as a key leader in both women’s education and Quakerism. Friends Historical Collection are volunteers helping out with initial preparations by compiling Hobbs alumnae lists from directories in the college archives and gathering other information about individuals associated with the building.
A full program of activities was developed and implemented to celebrate North Carolina’s Archives Week in October. New exhibits were completed for display in the cases outside the research room. Liz Cook compiled college historical trivia information for a contest presented through the college’s electronic newsletter and wrote an article in North Carolina’s Carolina Comments quarterly to promote the statewide events and Guilford’s activities around it. “Behind the Scenes” tours were given to campus community members and several local Friends. Both the trivia contest and the tours will be offered again in October 2008 as Archives Week is now an annual event for the Friends Historical Collection.
The newest initiative is in process is participation in a collaborative grant with University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) on the “Civil Rights Greensboro” digitization project. Grant application paperwork was completed in February and included preliminary identification of materials and some subject indexing of The Guilfordian to note key items for inclusion. Documents from our collections will be included in an online database of primary sources on Greensboro civil rights and race relations from 1945 to 1980. The grant provides a paid internship for a Guilford student to work in the Friends Historical Collection to prepare materials for scanning in UNCG’s digitization lab. It also provides support to UNCG to enable them to develop and coordinate the overall project and provide the technical skills not available in the Friends Historical Collection.
The four major U.S. Quaker archives (Swarthmore, Haverford, Earlham, and Guilford) began discussions with a consultant to explore potential commercial digitization projects from our collections. All agreed that the primary purpose of this endeavor is to improve access to collections by boosting digitization beyond the level we can accomplish on our own or through collaborative grant projects.
In an effort to create a portal to current information and any future digital resources, the Friends Historical Collection web site was transferred to a new template and restructured to allow for additional future growth. The new front page includes quick links for specific constituents and the template is organized to highlight the various components of the collection.
Our web site increasingly offers basic services to those not able to visit. Inquiries from researchers continue to move from postal mail to e-mail. In addition, an average of 90 outside telephone calls was received each month and the majority of these calls were reference questions. Most of those contacting us are unable to make the trip to Guilford and are assisted through basic reference services and referrals. Over 100 non-Guilford users conducted research with visits to the collection. This number does not include those who only used the open stack areas, used our services remotely, or only did basic work not requiring any assistance from staff.
The Friends Historical Collection enjoyed greatly increased use by Guilford’s students, including several spending significant time using collection resources. A surprisingly large cohort of history majors requiring the junior research seminar resulted in a number of students pursuing topics in the Friends Historical Collection. Topics based in the Friends Historical Collection included a biography of Guilford graduate and North Carolina legislator and educator Grace Taylor Rodenbough, an exploration of North Carolina Quakers in the Civil War, a study of Quaker relief work in post-World War I Europe, an analysis of nineteenth century textbooks, and consideration of the experiences of Japanese American students at Guilford during the Second World War.
A First Year Experience course focusing on influenza used college archival resources to study how the 1918 flu epidemic was handled at Guilford College. A senior level interdisciplinary class visited to learn about archival practices and see some of the manuscript and rare book materials. Gwen created a short-term display of various historic photography formats for Katherine Shields’ Modern Art students. The Friends Historical Collection also served as a field trip for a UNCG graduate course on materials culture.
In addition to specific courses making use of the collection, there were a number of individual Guilford students pursuing research topics supported by Friends Historical Collection resources. Example topics included Quakers in Kenya, abolitionist activities of Friends, African Americans and the colonization movement, Howard Thurman, and the Greensboro Sit-in movement.
As always, a large number of outside visitors conducted genealogical research. A Stanley family reunion held in Greensboro during late June brought a several researchers working on that family and related families. Staff also continued to field basic genealogical inquiries received through telephone calls, e-mails, and, decreasingly, postal mail.
A significant number of other types of researchers came to the collection for information. Many were interested in local history and communities in the region. Research topics included the Mendenhall Store in Jamestown, the Beard Hat Shop, the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, T. Gilbert Pearson, David Caldwell, J. Elwood Cox, the Snow Camp community, the Model Farm and the Baltimore Association’s assistance to North Carolina Friends, the New Garden community during 1780s, African American communities in western Greensboro, and the town of Guilford College. A large group of Girl Scouts visited to work on their local history badge by learning more about Quaker history in Guilford County and also held a story time for the Brownies with a reading of Mabel Leigh Hunt’s Benji’s Hat, a Quaker children’s book set in Jamestown, N.C.
More advanced scholars also sought to learn from collection resources with visits by graduate students from area universities, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke as well as UNCG. Several students enrolled in the School of the Spirit, a Quaker spiritual nurturer program, conducted research – primarily through use of our comprehensive collection of Quaker publications. The Quaker House archives were used by a researcher preparing a history of that organization.
Hope Williams, president of the North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities (NCICU), met with Gwen Erickson to learn more about Guilford’s history and distinctive elements as a Quaker college. This also provided opportunity for discussion about ways NCICU archivists might collaborate, especially in the area of college archives and records management.
Quaker Uniting in Publications (QUIP) held their annual meeting in Greensboro and spent Saturday afternoon with the Friends Historical Collection. Gwen Erickson and Hege Library Director Mary Ellen Chijioke presented a session on Quaker periodicals which highlighted the perspectives of librarians and archivists and included discussion of electronic journals. Gwen also provided tours of the Friends Historical Collection and special hours for those wishing to do research during their free time.
Requests for images continue to be a growing demand. Images were located and provided for a North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM) DVD on Quaker history, an updated reprint of Deep River Meeting’s history, and several other publications. A number of images were also reproduced for a variety of campus publications and several individual researcher requests. The Friends Historical Collection provided a setting for film crews. A local news station filmed images from New Garden Boarding School for their series of “bicentennial moments” commemorating Greensboro’s 200th anniversary and the research room served as a back drop for interviews presented in a college marketing piece.
New materials continue to be added. Notable acquisitions include the William Van Hoy, Jr. Papers which document his experiences as a conscientious objector during the 1940s and his activism in the areas of race relations, peace, and cross-cultural understanding. James Mattocks, a contemporary of Van Hoy, donated the memoirs of his own civilian public service work during World War II which included time at the Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg, Virginia. Charles (Chuck) Fager, Quaker author and current director of Quaker House in Fayetteville, delivered the initial box and designated the Friends Historical Collection as the archives for his personal papers. Quaker House added several boxes of papers to their archives. Additions to the Marvin and Pansy Shore Papers were also received.
Virginia Beach Friends School, which deposited some materials in the past, formalized their relationship with the Friends Historical Collection as a part of the school’s accreditation with the Virginia Association of Independent Schools. The school deposited additional yearbooks and school board minutes to update the materials included in their archives.
Others donated books, photographs, and artifacts in the past year, including some with interesting background stories. Stephen Anshutz donated a tea set originally belonging to Joseph Moore, influential Quaker scientist, minister, and former president of Earlham College. The tea set was presented to Moore in 1868 in appreciation for his work as superintendent of Friends Schools in North Carolina. Jane Norwood researched a 1938 Guilford College High School quilt owned and donated by Jean Starr. The quilt was created as a fundraiser by Zelma Farlow’s class and features stitched names of class members and supporters from the town of Guilford College. In addition to material donations, appreciation is also expressed to financial donors whose contributions provide much needed funding to help us care and provide access to these and other unique resources.
Gwen Erickson worked with Hege Library’s Technical Services Librarian, Liz Wade, to acquire new Quaker publications and add them to the library’s catalog. 222 items were added to the online catalog, including 56 rare books and 37 periodicals which we already held but had not been added to the catalog earlier. With the departure of longtime Hege Library serials associate Kate Hood earlier in the year, Gwen took on more responsibilities in managing the Quaker periodicals subscription lists. Technical Services staff continues to support the Friends Historical Collection with basic periodicals check-in, book order placements, publication cataloging, and basic physical processing of books.
Minutes were received from a number of monthly and quarterly meetings. This included 22 meetings affiliated with North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM), 2 affiliated with North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative), and several other meetings including both independent meetings and those affiliated with Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association. A new FHC display was exhibited at the NCYM (FUM) annual sessions to promote awareness of the archives and the value of archiving historical records. As always, meetings are reminded to deposit minutes and other permanent records in the Friends Historical Collection.
Area meetings contacted the collection seeking photographs of earlier meetinghouses and pastors. Members of several meetings spent time in the collection researching their histories in preparation for anniversary events. Major processing projects relating to the North Carolina Yearly Meeting Archives included continuing microfilming of core minutes in the North Carolina Yearly Meeting archives and scanning correspondence from North Carolina Yearly Meeting’s Meeting for Suffering, a rich resource which documents official Quaker anti-slavery work and connections to the wider world of Friends in the first third of the nineteenth century.
Researchers used the Guilford College Archives for genealogy, sports history, and a variety of local history and college course topics. In support of an assignment given to academic department chairs, Liz Cook created a comprehensive spreadsheet noting the founding dates and historical evolution of all current Guilford academic departments. Inquiries were regularly received from outside researchers, students, and a variety of campus departments, including regular use by several offices within Guilford’s Institutional Advancement area.
Liz Cook crafted a draft confidentiality policy to balance increasing requests for access to college historical records and legal and ethical commitments to protect the privacy of student and personnel records. The draft currently serves as a guide for the Friends Historical Collection and there will be further review and refinement of this in the coming year to formalize it as a college policy.
New materials continue to be received for the College Archives. Approximately 8 linear feet of records from college offices were accessioned. Staff made significant progress in the organization and shifting of existing materials to create space for the growing collections. Microfilming of The Guilfordian, the campus student paper from 1914 to present, was completed and preparations began for microfilming the college’s Board of Trustee minutes. Liz Cook completed an outline for a new archives classification scheme to provide an improved framework for arranging and describing college materials.
Liz Cook also continued her work with developing schedules to facilitate appropriate preservation and disposal of various college records. In consultation with college deans and the faculty clerk, she completed retention schedules for faculty files. She also completed schedules for Sports Information, Institutional Research, and Human Resources.
All of the activities described thus far could not have been accomplished without the support of the Friends Historical Collection staff and volunteers. Three students assisted during the academic year. Abigail Rogers worked on various special projects and also had primary responsibility for exhibits, creating displays on the 40th anniversary of the 1967 World Gathering of Friends, Greensboro’s Bicentennial and the Town of Guilford College, and Francis T. King. Sharice Chandler provided student assistance for college archives tasks and first year Jordan Lehnert handled shelving, filing, data entry, and inventory assignments. Chris Pugliese served as summer student staff in 2007 and, in summer 2008, Krystal Carpenter continued his very detailed inventory of the Quaker circulating collection. Krystal, a student worker with Hege Library’s periodicals collection during the regular school year, also expertly handled summer binding and a comprehensive survey of Quaker periodicals.
The docent program continues to supply a helpful group of volunteer staff in the Friends Historical Collection Research Room and provide additional support for various departmental tasks. Health challenges caused some leaves of absence and reminded all of the continued need to cultivate new volunteers to provide this valuable service. The group enjoyed gathering for their annual luncheon in May to hear researcher Kay Coltrane provide a preview of her forthcoming book, The Meeting on the Hill: A History of Centre Friends Meeting. The collection’s newest staff member, Ian Michie, drew on his prior culinary career to cater the event.
Ian Michie, a December 2007 Guilford graduate, was hired to fill the North Carolina Yearly Meeting Archives Assistant position in August 2007, replacing J. Timothy Cole who left in May 2007. Ian worked in the Information/Reference Services area of Hege Library as a Guilford student and is continuing his education with graduate work in history at UNCG.
Archives Associate Liz Cook received further training through her acceptance as a participant in the Oral History Institute held at Kenyon College in early June. The institute met the Friends Historical Collection’s goal of acquiring knowledge and current information about best practices for planning and conducting oral history projects. Liz used the skills gained at the institute to produce guidelines and tips for use both in the Friends Historical Collection as well as for future Guilford institutional endeavors, such as the Hobbs Hall reunion programming and student projects.
Liz contributed as a library staff member on two search committees and as a member and the recording clerk of the Academic/Administrative Support Staff Association. She also served the college as a representative on the Bias Incident Committee. Liz shared her knowledge and promoted the Friends Historical Collection beyond the library with a piece on Archives Week in Carolina Comments, a publication by the State of North Carolina, and an article on the history of baseball at New Garden Boarding School and Guilford College in the March 2008 issue of the North Carolina Friends Historical Society Newsletter. Liz Cook continued her active service on the Society of North Carolina Archivist’s Archives Week Committee.
Liz Cook and Gwen Erickson both attended the Society’s Spring Meeting at North Carolina State University. At that meeting, Gwen ended her tenure on the Society of North Carolina Archivist’s Executive Board with completion of a term as Nominations Chair.
Earlier in the school year, Gwen attended the organization’s fall meeting in Elizabeth City and served as a presenter in a session on archives and controversy. She shared her reflections as Guilford’s archivist when the college attracted international attention in January 2007 and how a negative incident brought opportunities to increase knowledge of the college’s history and resources available in the college’s archives. The trip to Elizabeth City conveniently provided an opportunity to safely deliver some Quaker bonnets from the Friends Historical Collection to the Museum of the Albemarle where they are currently on loan for exhibit.
Gwen Erickson also made presentations to the Guilford County Genealogical Society on Quakers and Anti-Slavery, to the Chapel Hill chapter of the Colonial Dames on Quaker genealogical research, and to New Garden Friends Meeting on Guilford College’s history and Friends education in North Carolina. Closer to home, she served as the luncheon speaker for the November meeting of Guilford College’s Academic/Administrative Support Staff Association and spoke on Guilford’s Quaker heritage and the founding of New Garden Boarding School.
In addition to routine newsletter articles and reports, Gwen drafted the historical section for Guilford’s Diversity Plan and published book reviews in North Carolina Historical Review, North Carolina Libraries, and Friends Journal. Her chapter on "Guilford College" was included in Founded by Friends: The Quaker Heritage of 15 American Colleges and Universities (Scarecrow Press, 2007) and also distributed as a reprint to the Guilford College Board of Trustees.
Gwen continued her involvement in community service with a third year on Guilford’s Budget Committee and had several opportunities for additional work with students. She supervised Abigail Rogers’ independent study on “Textiles as Artifact” in the fall. The course included a final project creating exhibits for the Mendenhall Plantation Historic Site on textiles connected to the Mendenhall family. During the spring, she served as the guest lecturer on Quaker history for a religious studies course. She also selected students and led orientation for the college’s Fall 2008 study abroad semester in London. In May, she participated in a two-day campus Anti-Racism training.
The year concluded with Gwen’s attending the Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham, England. Guilford’s Initiative on Faith and Practice granted funding for the international trip. Gwen enjoyed the warm hospitality of her British hosts and, in her role as conference steering committee chair and session moderator, appreciated the smooth international coordination and efforts of all involved. The conference provided rich opportunities to meet with scholars from around the world and talk shop with staff from the other Quaker libraries and archives.
The 2007-2008 year ended with a plethora of upcoming tasks with ongoing commitments holding steady and new initiatives solidifying. The Friends Historical Collection staff foresees an exciting year ahead with further growth in campus use and improving opportunities to reach new researchers as our continued efforts to share our rich collections with the world bear fruit.
Friends Historical Collection Volunteers
Emily Bagley Elizabeth Lasley
Gay Bowles Janet and Harry Nagel
J. Wilbert Edgerton Theodore Perkins
Jewell Farlow Carole Treadway
Judith Harvey Marietta Wright
Ruth Anne Hood (docent coordinator)
North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Friends United Meeting) Deposits,
July 1, 2007 – June 30, 2008
| Meeting Name |
Deposit |
|---|---|
Asheboro |
Ministry and Counsel Minutes, January 2005 – December 2006. |
Cane Creek |
Membership Records Book, circa 1927 – 1989. |
Charlotte |
Membership Records (24). |
Edward Hill |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, January 2005 – December 2006, January – December 2007; Ministry and Counsel Minutes, August 2006 – December 2007; and Membership Appendix, 2003 – 2007. |
Forbush |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, July 2006 – June 2007. |
Goldsboro |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, January 2006 – December 2007; Membership Records (133). |
Hood Swamp |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, January 2006 – November 2006. |
Marlboro |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, November 1995 – February 1999, December 2003 – December 2005 (photocopies); Ministry and Counsel Minutes, July 1995 – August 2000 (some missing, photocopies), 2006; Memorials (10) (photocopies). |
Mount Airy |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, 2007; Ministry and Counsel Minutes, 2/2007 – 4/2007, 6/2007 – 8/2007, 10/2007 – 12/2007. |
Mountain View |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, January 1992 – February 2008. |
New Garden |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, 5/2006 – 9/2007; Memorials |
New Hope (CQ) |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, 2007. |
Pine Hill |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, 2006. |
Poplar Ridge |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, 2007. |
Science Hill |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, July 2005 – May 2006; Ministry and Counsel Minutes, June 2006 – May 2007; Quaker Ladies Minutes, April 2007 – November 2007. |
Thomasville |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, February 2004 – November 2006 (some missing); 2007. |
Union Cross |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, 2007. |
Winthrop |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, 2007; Ministry and Counsel Minutes, 2005 – 2007; Treasurer Reports, 2007. |
Deep River |
Quarterly Meeting Minutes, 2007. |
New Garden |
Quarterly Meeting Minutes, April 1996 – October 2003. |
Northwest |
Quarterly Meeting Minutes and Treasurer’s Reports, February 2000 – January 2002. |
Surry |
Quarterly Meeting Minutes and Memorials, 2007. |
NCYM (FUM) Meeting Newsletters received in 2007 – 2008:
Charlotte Greensboro Up River
Deep Creek New Garden Winston-Salem
North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative) Deposits,
July 1, 2007 – June 30, 2008
| Meeting Name |
Deposit |
|---|---|
Friendship |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, 8/2005 – 8/2007, 12/2007. |
Rich Square |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, 8/2005 – 6/2007. |
NCYM (C) Meeting Newsletters received in 2007 – 2008: Friendship and Virginia Beach
Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association (SAYMA) Deposits
| Meeting Name |
Deposit |
|---|---|
Foxfire |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, 4/2004 – 5/2006. |
Memphis |
Monthly Meeting Minutes and Newsletters, 2007. |
SAYMA Meeting Newsletters received in 2007 – 2008: Charleston (WV) and Columbia
Other Record Groups
| Organization Name |
Deposit |
|---|---|
Chapel Hill Monthly Meeting |
Monthly Meeting Minutes, 1/2003 – 12/2004 and 1/2005 – 12/2006. |
Quaker House of Fayetteville |
Papers, including items from Bill Carothuers (1969-1972) and financial records (7 boxes). |
Virginia Beach Friends School |
Additions to historical files and school board minutes (2 boxes). |
