Good morning.
I think we will get started.
My name is Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler—I am Chief of the Conservation Lab here at the National
Archives and welcome to the National Archives building on this beautiful spring day for
a fabulous talk by one of our esteemed conservators.
This presentation this morning is co-sponsored by the Conservation Lab, by the National Archives
Assembly, which focuses on educational activities for NARA (National Archives and Records Administration)
Staff, and also by the American Academy in Rome Society of Fellows.
So thanks to all for your support.
So on to Jana [Dambrogio].
Jana works as a Senior Conservator here at the National Archives.
She joined the Archives in 2004.
She grew up in Youngstown, Ohio and we're happy to say that both her mother and her
aunt are here in the audience today so that's a special treat.
[Applause].
She became interested in conservation while earning her undergraduate degree from the
University of Pittsburgh, PA.
Jana earned a Master of Arts and Certificate of Advanced Study in Art Conservation from
the State University of New York, Buffalo State College, and she also earned a degree
in Fine Hand Bookbinding from the Canadian Bookbinders Book Artists Guild in Toronto,
both in 2000.
A 2008 Booth Family Rome Prize allowed Jana to take advantage of research on early archival
records that she conserved at the Vatican Secret Archives Conservation Laboratory in
2000-2001.
And a little known fact about Jana if I can share this; I believe that she was the first
female conservator permitted to work in that esteemed institution.
Today, Jana will present some recent discoveries that she made by looking at the physical details
found in NARA's well-preserved early bound [Continental Congress] journals.
In particular, the binder of the Continental Congress Journals that were written by Charles
Thomson on the day the Declaration of Independence was signed.
So Jana.
[Applause]
Thank you Mary Lynn.
And thank you everyone for coming here today to spend this time with us and learn about
our wonderful bindings here.
The National Archives is the Nation's record-keeper and within the nine billion pages of records
we have a lot of really cool books.
It's a great place to work for a rare books and manuscripts conservator because many of
our records, our bindings—our bound records are preserved as artifacts and in their original
condition.
So today, I'll show you some of the tiny details in and on the bindings that can tell us about
these early binders and the people who bound them at that particular time in history.
Ok so here are some of the—we're just going to jump right in—here are some of the early
American journals and ledgers that are in our legislative records; so a lot of the archivists
out here may have seen these formats, and the one on the left is called a leather binding—some
refer to it as a reverse calf; the one in the center has parchment and paper and the
one on the right is a paper binding.
We're going to just talk about the one the left and the one in the center today.
This first example—all of those bindings [in the previous slide]—would have been
purchased in a Stationer's store in the 1700s, which would have been sort of like a CVS;
so, you'd walk in and you'd buy your notebook, but your notebook at that time would be handmade
and bound either to the way you wanted it bound or you could buy a pre-made one.
So, we are looking at empty books today not printed books; and specifically, this journal
that you are looking at here right now, is the one that the founding fathers write in
during their Continental Congress sessions.
This is before we become our own country.
And this binding is on display at the Ben Franklin Exhibit [at NARA] that we'll go see
after the talk if you have time; and it came into the lab so that it could be preserved
for this exhibit.
And the founding fathers write in this journal the day that we decide that we are going to
be our own country.
This journal is also significant because on the inside it once had the copy of—the very
first copy of [John] Dunlap's broadside attached into it in real time.
So the founding fathers were writing, writing, writing, then they attach it with [starch]
wafers; they look like wax—they're red; they are the little dots you see at the top,
and then it was folded up, and then they continue writing.
And so what you just saw—the little movie—is a little working conservation [replica] binding,
so this [book] structure looked pretty simple to make and [at first glance] I couldn't tell
if it was a rebind or repaired so I thought, "Well, I'll try and make it and it'll help
me understand how the [book] structure functions so that I can figure out how it broke and
how to fix it.
Book conservators are one of the rare conservation specialties where you have to be a bookbinder
to be a book conservator; and so I made the model and one of the cool things about the
model is that it allows you to see how that Dunlap broadside once functioned.
So it was really fun to see archivist Jane Fitzgerald's face when I showed her the model
and I said 'this is how the Dunlap broadside used to function'—because now it [the
original] is flat, and it's stored separately from the book.
And so it [the model of the original binding] is a wonderful tool to record notes in, and
understand the structure, and share with others who I can learn from about the bindings.
So here are some of the physical details.
So if you bare with me, volume 3 is the volume I'll refer to during the first half of the
talk.
And that is the one that the Dunlap broadside was [once] folded up into.
And we think these bindings are—a lot of the Continental Congress paper bindings, the
"rough journals," the rough notes and then there's more formal notes, so all of these
little notebooks—we believe a lot of them are made by William Trickett in our sort of
preliminary studies of the physical details.
So, one of the clues is called a sewing tail; and if you want to see what that is I can
show it to you in more detail—I'm not going to explain it too much—but trust me it is
circled in red; it's this pointy tail, and it's in a pointy shape, and that is a signature
shape of William Trickett's binding style and that's who we think bound these books.
Because these journals are in their original bindings, we can then look to other ones next
to it.
So, Volume 2 actually has a William Trickett trade ticket which is sort of his trade card,
and they are quite rare to find; and within the Continental Congress journals we have
this one.
So these are two clues that are physical that then tell us who is binding these books.
Another really interesting artifact is if you look in the top left corner you will see
"7/6" and that means "seven shillings/six pence" [Kitty Nicholson says from the crowd,
shillings] Thank you, Kitty.
Ken Harris [retired NARA archivist] said it would not be seven pounds so, [giggle] that's
good to know.
And then Jane Fitzgerald and I'll talk a little bit about [early American bookbinding historian
the late] Wilman Spawn—that he said, "That is absolutely Charles Tomson's handwriting,"
who was the secretary of the Continental Congress.
So as a conservator, if you see that sort of dark brown—that's the leather that
the acid is transferring, and it is causing the paper to turn a darker brown and becoming
more brittle.
So as a conservator, knowing that fact, I'll want to keep that information [making sure
the brittle paper with the 7/6 notation doesn't break away as the paper fibers weaken] because
that's important to archivists and binding historians to know how much one of these little
notebooks might have cost.
So, that's interesting for us to conserve.
So, one of the other really cool things that happened was that Jane Fitzgerald taught me
how to use [on online resource] what is called "Fold 3," and it's the digitization of the
microfilm of the papers of the Continental Congress because I was looking to see if there
was any record of this William Trickett in our NARA records to find out if we have archival
clues to back up that he bound the books.
And wouldn't you know that I'm flipping through these pages on the internet, flipping, flipping,
flipping through, and then I turn to my colleague Gail Harriman and I say, "you know this book
that says that William Trickett is, you know, paid for stationery is this one [volume 3]
in the lab that we're treating for the exhibit?"
And, sure enough, on the 11th of July, we pay, Congress pays William Trickett for stationery
which is pretty interesting for book historians to understand because I was looking for the
word bindings.
So, binders' tickets are rare, and the reason why they are important to us is because if
they're attached within their original binding, then it's a really good clue to know who bound
the book; and, from what we are learning from Wilman Spawn—who I'll talk about in a little
bit—William Trickett was a one-man operation.
So, it's really cool that we can really try and focus on our records and really identify
him because people out in the field who have these books [Trickett's bound books] without
these tickets can maybe turn to us to see known Tricketts [bindings] to identify their
unknown [bindings].
So, within our Continental Congress papers, we have eight Trickett tickets.
Just to give you some comparison when the American Philosophical Society [in Philadelphia]
looked at their bindings, out of 180,000 imprints, they only found 10 tickets before 1860.
So, the tickets are rare, and they're really interesting because often times—they're
business cards—and they have the address of the [book] binder, and they tell you also
what else they sell; and they update their tickets.
So, this bottom one [ticket] that you see is really cool because—we have to thank
Holly McIntyre Dewitt who is an archivist here at NARA but before then she worked with
us in conservation, and she noticed it [on a binding collection not part of the Continental
Congress papers] and she said, "you know, this looks kind of interesting" to us,
And we were just learning about our bindings, and we were like, "I wonder who this Trickett
guy is?," you know.
When we showed it [the ticket] to Wilman Spawn he said, "Oh, I've never seen this ticket,
and I've been studying early American binders for 26 years in my retired time,"
But he really has been studying early bindings for 50 years.
So, it was really interesting to see all the—he [Trickett] lets people know that he becomes
a Freemason, and he's putting these symbols on his ticket.
So, I called the Freemasons in Philly [Philadelphia], and I spoke to their Librarian Glenys Waldman,
and she said well he [Trickett] can't put those symbols on his ticket if he is not a
Freemason, so he's definitely a Freemason—Why don't I see if he's [listed] in the minute
books.
So, she looked in the minute books, and he [Trickett] is there.
He becomes a [Freemason] brother on the 27th of July, 1779, so I went to visit her [Glenys
at the Freemason Temple in Philadelphia], and we spent an afternoon with Carol Spawn—the
late Wilman Spawn's wife—and we looked at all the old books.
It was really fun to see all the old writing, and we also saw that [John] Dunlap belongs
to this lodge—and then lodge number two—but he never attends, so he has to pay a debt.
And Trickett bounces—he visits lodges number two and four.
That was really interesting to see.
So, the question is—here are some Freemasons—and besides Clark Gable and Mozart—did these
men attend the meetings with brother Trickett?
You know, it's quite possible.
I think that the Freemason community could tell us more about that.
So, the really cool thing about the address [on Trickett's ticket]—and looking at the
Philly street grid now—it's the same street grid now as it was in the 1770s.
So, we can plot Trickett's address and see how close he is to Dunlap's shop and [Ben]
Franklin, and Independence Hall, which was then called the State House and see their
relation—so they really could run down the street, buy a book, and come back, or he could
deliver it.
Within that same book [volume 3]—my supervisors were really wonderful and they encouraged
me to go and look and spend some time with Jane Fitzgerald to see the other Rough Journals
and to see what I was dealing with before the treatment [of volume 3].
And what I noticed was that there were quite a few dog-eared corners or page folds—and
that's what the movie is showing you.
Some were made by the binder to handle that book a lot easier when he is sewing it, but
a lot of the other ones are random page folds.
So, what the model also allows me to do to fold up these pages [in the model].
Otherwise, if I folded up the pages in the original they would crack off and then I'd
be in big trouble and, you know, I would never want to harm a book anyway.
I can take that model and I did, and I showed it to Ken Harris who was custodian of the
[Continental Congress Papers]—he's here today with us—and Jane Fitzgerald, and I
said, "Did you fold the corners?" and he said, "No, I didn't fold the corners."
And [the now custodian] Jane said, "I didn't fold the corners."
And, you know, so we ask, "did they fold the corners?"
[Image of four founding fathers Charles Tomson, Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas
Jefferson].
You know?
As conservators, we then would think about this when we're giving our—figuring out
our conservation treatments.
If some of the pages would ever need more attention, we would be paying attention to
preserving those folds so that archivists or book historians would be able to look and
see if there is some connection [between form and content].
There's also this writing sand at this time.
The ink—when people are writing they throw sand on the paper to dry the ink really fast,
and sometimes we find that [sand] in the gutter.
Or, these books [Continental Congress] —I think during the war of 1812—they were carted
off to a farm and hidden—I don't know if it's [the sand] from that or the handwriting;
but whatever that is, that sand, I push it to the side, I perform a repair, and then
I push it back.
The same with this quill nib [shaving].
I don't know who's it is.
Is it Tomson's?
Is it someone's after that?
It's there; and in the model I write the page number, [and the location of where I
found the evidence] so that I don't have to constantly flip back to the original binding
if I want to know where it is, and if I don't want to read my report, you know.
So, all of you conspiracy theorists out there—if you're wondering if there's any secret
writing on the Fourth of July [1776] pages in this volume [3]—we had a wonderful intern
named Sarah Raithel who came, and she knew how to use this UV [ultraviolet] IR [infrared]
digital camera that our colleague Sarah Shpargel had purchased for us to use as a tool.
So, Sarah Raithel spent an afternoon with me showed me how to use the camera, and we
were able to use ultraviolet—look at it [the Fourth of July pages] under the influence
of ultraviolet radiation and infrared which are along this electromagnetic spectrum where
visible light is in the middle, and they're on either side, I think—I might get that
wrong.
But, as you can see there's no special [invisible] writing.So, now we're going to jump and
look at what the physical evidence on the leather bindings can tell us.
So, the leather binding is bigger, often, and leather's more expensive than the [paper
and parchment] scraps that were made for that parchment/paper binding that you saw [in the
previous slide].
But they're both pretty sturdy—and, in fact, we'll talk about that in a little bit—but,
this leather binding has this beautiful tooling on it, and my colleague [the now late as of
2015] Kathy Ludwig gives such wonderful talks, and when I was explaining this [the tooling]
to her she said, "it's like a pizza cutter, this tool, and I said, "you're exactly right."
It's this—so, imagine you have a pizza cutter, and you can have any design engraved
in it; so, in the 1770s you'd go to your engraver—if you weren't one yourself—and you would say,
"I have this pizza cutter—you wouldn't say I have this pizza cutter—[giggle] you would
say, "I have this design, and—I have this design, and I want this design on my tool,"
so that engraver would make this [uniquely made] hand design, so you could have two binders
with the same design; but that engraver may run out of, you know, run out of space and
may have to elongate or make shorter a mark on the tool, and so [once the binder begins
to use the tool] that brass tool is heated and impressed into the leather, and that creates
the design [on the book cover].
So, whatever nicks or imperfections are in the [metal] tool are then impressed into the
leather; so, Wilman Spawn and another woman named Hannah French [book historian from Wellesley
college] studied these tool marks because as it rolls it'll then repeat again; and
then you can start to study—you know, even if it's the same oval [for example], one
may be longer or shorter than the other [in a repeating pattern on the roll].
So, it's a unique mark on a binding [cover], so it can be studied.
It's sort of also like tool marks that are found in Renaissance panel paintings; it's
a very similar study—looking at size and shape.
So, if you remember that [Trickett ticketed] book that Holly found, this [book] is in our
non-vault records, and that's significant.
So, when Wilman Spawn came to visit us in '09 to look at our bindings, I knew they
looked—I was new to this field of Early American Bindings, and I wasn't sure if they
[the bindings we pulled for him to view] were rebinds or what we were looking at, but they
looked handmade and he [Wilman] said, "nope—they're all original, and I think you have bindings
[based on their tool marks] by Frederick Mayo, who was Thomas Jefferson's binder, or that
design looks like Robert Aitken, who was also the printer of the first English Bible [printed]
in the US, but he was also a fine binder.
And when I showed him [Wilman] this [Trickett] binding, I said, "Well, this is in our non-vault
collection, but why is it significant?"
And he [Spawn] said, "Well, you have this Trickett ticket I've never seen in my fifty
years of looking at old books."
And I think he [Spawn] had been to fifty archives, and he had taken impressions of 20,000 covers.
And he said, "Your binding [pictured in the slide]—this one—has the longest span
of these "signature" tools that Trickett uses."
And so, this binding is really important to binding historians who are trying to identify
unknown [unattributed] Trickett tool marks, and it's here at NARA.
So, if you have a known Trickett with a ticket in it, you can then start to identify unknowns
[unattributed ones]; and it's really fun because I have been working with this wonderful
staff in the digital [preservation] lab, and they'll call me up or the archival staff
will call and say, "I think we have a Trickett," you know.
[giggle]
And there's no ticket, and we're all excited and think, "oh, my goodness, that's wonderful."
This is [a picture of] Wilman Spawn and this is a binding—on the right—where he thought,
"that's an Aitken binding."
He [Spawn] has done the most extensive research on this bookbinder and printer; and this is
Aitken's "signature" tool.
And Aitken—we don't have any of his tickets [identified] yet, so all you archivists out
there, if you happen to see one, I'm sure I would love to take you for coffee if you
bring it to my attention.
Aitken and Trickett are right—we're next door neighbors, and they were in one of the
hot spots of town near the London Coffee House where up 'til about 1770 you could by a slave,
so it was kind of like a Starbucks with this other sad thing happening next to it—very
weird.
So, [I'm] wondering if Trickett and Aitken know each other.
So, Vicki Lee who's in the audience today—she is also a book binder—and we took this road
trip up to Philly recently to go to the Philadelphia Company because Wilman always said, "go
and see Aitken's "waste book," which is like his pay accounts ledger.
He [Robert Aitken] and his daughter kept track of all of their accounts, and this was Wilman
Spawn's major tool to use to identify known bindings [on imprints] because he [Spawn]
could look—when he worked at the American Philosophical Society—think something [a
binding] was an Aitken, and then go to this [waste] book, and see, yeah, Aitken paid for
this [book] or that [one].
So, we see that Trickett buys wrapping paper from him [Aitken].
There's a lot more accounts [mentioned] in this book, and Vicki and I and our other
colleague looked like groupies at, like a Beatles concert.
They let us handle the book; we were taking pictures with it, [laughter] and you know,
"Oh my gosh, there's Benjamin Rush's name, and oh my gosh there's Thomas Jefferson's
name, Ben Franklin, and you know; so they all knew each other, and this book really
shows you—I mean, there's probably loads more famous people that I don't know yet.
I'm sure that staff is used to it [type of reaction to a binding], because we're a
rare breed, us book conservators and book historians.
It was really fun.
As you can see here—this is Aitken's "signature tools" and [compared to] Trickett's "signature
tools," so you wouldn't—I think they're decorating these cheaper bindings; these [blank
books] are not fine bindings [often found on imprints].
You would find—a fine binding would have, would be on really smooth leather that's
glossy or very decorated with gold; so these aren't as fancy but they're sturdy, and
they have to be because they're ledger books.
Maybe they're designing them because they're keeping up their skill.
I think it's also a cheap advertisement; and also it says, "this is me, and that is
you [other binder]."
You know, you wouldn't confuse a Gucci [logo] with a Prada [one], right?
You wouldn't confuse the [Washington] Capitols [logo] with the [Kansas City] Royals [logo].
I mean, they look—[have] very distinct styles.
I think that we find some of these Aitken bindings within [the Papers of] the Continental
Congress rough journals.
I'm wondering if maybe—but we don't see a reference to paying Aitken yet.
Maybe I need to keep looking.
Maybe Trickett needed a few more bindings to fill his order and he just said to Aitken,
"Can you just give me a few?" and he doesn't mind because his tool marks are on the [blank]
book, and people will know he made it; so, that's my best guess there.
Then, I also just wanted to point out that these binders give their tools away—they
can give their tools away—or if they die then someone else takes the tools; so, in
the future—in the past in the future—Trickett dies [in 1780], a then man named [William]
Woodhouse buys his tools, so then he starts using his [Trickett's] tools; so you really
have to put the tools in context.
So, that's why we can really say that our bindings are by William Trickett, but it's
a lot trickier—all these words, ticket, Trickett, tricky—[laughter] it's a lot trickier
outside of the fantasyland of the [National] Archives where our bindings are in their original
condition, and we have all of these wonderful supporting [primary source] archival records
to say the same.
So, once we start to understand what we have, and we look at a timeline and sort of figure
out everybody's age, [Aitken's daughter,] Jane is a young woman in the 1770s, 1776;
she is probably already working in her dad's bindery; so, by 1789 she's a young woman.
Is she doing these bindings or is he?
Once we can prove they're Aitken's then we can start to say which one [Aitken]?
And Wilman Spawn did a lot of research on the Aitken's, so we'll be able to turn to
his records at Bryn Mawr College and see if we can take it [his research] a step further.
So, how do we—when Wilman Spawn came to the Archives and he saw bindings that he really
wanted to study he asked for rubbings.
What is a rubbing?
Well, a rubbing is laying a piece of bible paper over the original cover and taking your
specially shaped pencil and rubbing it along the surface without moving the bible paper.
Like I said, Wilman and this woman, Hannah French, made 20,000 [rubbings] that are in
the archives at Bryn Mawr.
They're really valuable to us because they are a 1:1 ratio of covers that may no longer
exist or have been rebound or, you know, they're just all in one place from all of these archives.
As you can see they [the rubbings] are time consuming [to make].
Wilman said, "my skills as a rubber were—of bindings—to be desired; you know, it's
a skill to get the right pressure.
We thought, let's work with the digital [preservation] staff, and see if there's
some way we could take a digital capture, and use digital capturing to—instead of
the rubbing technique from the past.
So, we were printing onto transparency overlays and sending those to Wilman; but the printouts
were kind of tricky because we couldn't get a perfect 1:1.
Sheri Hill and I, in the meantime, we stumbled upon this free training by this institute
called the Cultural Heritage Imaging [CHI], and they were offering it over at the Smithsonian,
so we signed up, and we thought, well, it's this imaging that really shows you surface
detail unlike any [other technique] before.
And we're not quite sure if it's [the technique] good for bookbindings, but we'll
go and we'll see.
Sure enough, the first five minutes of class they show this binding, [and I thought,] "I
know this binding"—this is my mentor Betsy Eldridge's binding, when she was [an adjunct
professor] at Buffalo [State College, Art Conservation Department], so CHI went to all—they
won a grant; awarded a grant to go to all the teachers—all the Conservation schools,
and they taught the teachers how to use this amazing technology that can be used for bindings,
photographs, paper.
And what it does is it takes a series of 48 images using different light sources at different
angles, so it's like having this raking light source—48 different raking light sources
[creating a composite of all the images into one].
And their open source technology that they [CHI] wrote, or borrowed from, or built-upon—it
takes all those pictures and it smashes them into one image, and then, it's sort of like—you
put it into a program kind of like [Adobe] Photoshop but you have this little green ball
that shows directional lighting, and it allows you to virtually change the angles of the
way the lights hit; and as you can see this face that we can't see in the cover at the
top becomes a lot clearer, and you can actually read the words on the book that the man is
holding.
So, this is a—Sheri and I were so grateful—it [this technology] has a lot of potential,
it seems.
It's time consuming but once the learning curve is reached, it could have a—it could
really help us identify our bindings because some of them, [the covers] because of the
inherent condition of the leather is deteriorating, so this would be a very challenging binding
for us because this leather kind of powders and suedes off; it's like touching [deteriorating]
suede.
As it deteriorates, we can lose that surface detail [of the tool marks] so it's real
important we capture it, [the tool marks] so that we can capture the information that
it can tell us.
So, with treatment, we here at National Archives are very lucky that we have a [material] research
and testing lab.
So, if I use this little tiny sponge that's made of rubber that was—I think it was originally
developed and used by fireman or after a fire to remove soot from wallpaper.
And it just really pulls away surface accretion gently without smudging it [loose dirt] around
on the surface.
And I wanted to make sure it [the rubber eraser] wasn't leaving anything behind, so Dr. Jenn
Herrmann was able to run some tests and I'm not going to explain what that test is, but
if you'd like to know about it afterwards I could let you know, but trust me, or we
trust Jenn, because she says it's ok to use.
And we want to stress also that our bindings are not in original [by that I meant, pristine]
condition.
You know, I look at them probably the way a mother looks at, you know a child sometimes.
You know, like, "oh, that's so beautiful" and it's falling apart.
People are looking at me like, "you're crazy."
They're not in pristine condition but they remain untouched from restoration and that's
how we can learn all of these little details.
You know, I'll look at the corner of a sewing and I'll be like, "oh my gosh," and I'll
turn to my colleague and they'll say, "yes" and you know, you're thinking, "what are they
looking at?"
But, you know it's these little tiny [details].
So, this book functions, and what we can do is put a coat around it—or we call it a
jacket.
And this binding—you know, to the public we are about [providing] access, so there
are surrogates for this record.
People are interested in information, and so we can provide that to the public.
When people want to study the binding, or they need to consult the original, or if it
needs to go on exhibit then we will address the physical issues [if needed].
But if—right now, this book still functions and a jacket around that cover is going to
offer it support until that spine [cover] does fall off if it does.
So, when it [the spine cover] does fall off, like this book, the binding still functions
so we can just store that rigid spine with the box—with the binding but in a box, together
with it.
This is one of our Senate records.
Also, this is a headband.
And the headband just decorates the head and tail of the binding.
In the past [before 1770s], this would have more of a structural job, but here it's purely
decorative.
And it's also a sign of economy because it's an extra step—it costs a little bit
extra money to take silk and fashion it in two colors on the spine of a book.
And, so that's telling us about the cost.
I just simply sewed it with no adhesive to just tack it into place.
Because these are our rare materials, and maybe they are only really handled for exhibits,
we can do these delicate repairs.
But we do realize that this [type of treatment] is something that can't happen always maybe
in other collections.
Often people ask me, you know "how do you fix an old volume?"
And every volume is different.
It's kind of like people.
It's kind of like my grandma Stella.
Now this is my mom, in case you haven't seen her yet.
Here she is so you can come and say 'hi' after the talk.
Now she does have on heels in this picture, but imagine she and my grandmother used to
be the same height.
So, my grandma still walks.
She's 97.
She needs a walker because her spine is bent.
But she still gets around, and she can still function.
But if we wanted her to stand up straight, because human beings stand up straight, and
she should stand up straight [the way she used to], and we put braces on her instead
of just giving her a walker then other parts of her are going to break.
So, I think the same about a book.
You know, its spine [in this instance] is two or three hundred years old, it's aging,
and maybe it can't open as flat as it used to, but it can still open.
And different parts of it are falling apart at different rates, so maybe, you know—it
all depends on the materials it's made with.
It will age—or where it's stored, that [will affect how it] will age, and so these
are of the sorts of things I keep into consideration when I'm repairing a book.
I just think, well, maybe this part's breaking or that part's not.
And that helps me.
So, I hope this helps you, kind of understand how I look at books [that need repairs].
Sometimes you can give a book a rest and use a [book] cradle.
And this is the best way to give—to support a book even if it doesn't seem like it's
in bad condition yet.
It just helps save the life of that spine, and it's wonderful to use.
I use them in the lab even for consult.
We definitely use them for exhibits, but every chance is really great.
It's a wonderful tool to use and it's very simple.
Here is a repair [on Volume 3], and each repair is different because this book has aged, but
it's sewing—that keeps the textblock attached to the cover—and the sewing tails [supports]
are [relatively] strong, so if the paper broke I can repair the paper because the sewing
tails [supports] are intact.
If all [three] of them would have broken, I would have to use a different strategy to
repair this book.
This is the volume 3 that we looked at earlier.
In the rare cases, we make a model.
And, in this particular case, looking at all of the rough journals we decided that we would—we
would offer a model for our, for Jane to use when she's giving tours so that way she
can—she can make a model—she can use the model to show function.
And maybe she can show the Dunlap broadside during the tour, but maybe then she can show
the covers of the original books, but she can show how they function with a model.
So, she'll be able to open this—you can look at this binding afterwards, and she can
use it in tours.
It's very rare that we'll make a surrogate, but in this case, it will help preserve and
save that time that we need to use those bindings for other purposes.
In conclusion, we have thousands of bindings and they all have their original covers.
And, who bound them?
The information is there.
It's just waiting for us to discover here at the Archives.
In summary, how were we able to, sort of find out all of this information?
And it's because our bindings are well-preserved.
We were able to call an expert to come and tell us about what we had so that we had this
jump start.
And our records were untouched for the most part by restoration.
We have these large holdings, with similar binding formats.
We have a really knowledgeable and wonderful archival staff and supporting staff.
So how do we continue to preserve our physical evidence?
We are practicing minimal intervention when we can and we are using cradles when we can.
We are hoping to capture the tool cover designs and build up a reference collection.
And we are on the lookout for software technology—this is a dream list, some of it—but, you know,
capturing software technology that can perform the pattern matching.
So when we went for the training at CHI, I just said, "you know, on TV when they have
those finger—when the FBI runs those fingerprint matches?"
They said, "no, that's television."
[Laughter] I said, "well, if that ever happens, I want to know about it."
We would love to build a database for—a picture database that shows the binder and
the bindings because we do get calls.
People wanting to know who's made—if we know who's made our bindings.
Thank you.
[Applause]
Are there any questions?
[audience member] So, when it comes to Asian book preservation,
what is the difference in the role of NARA versus Library of Congress or the Smithsonian,
in terms of capturing [?] collection of Asian books.
Well I think—I haven't seen any Asian bindings in our collections, but that doesn't mean
that they don't exist; they just haven't had to come to conservation.
But the Asian binding traditions are different than the Western, and so we would just understand
how those bindings were made so that we could repair them in the same way that they are
made.
Does that answer your question?
No?
[audience member] I guess I'm saying historical, old—historical
books—100 years old their preservation.
The collection of NARA—how is it different from [the Library of] Congress?
I think the Library of Congress—and I may need some help from the Archival staff—The
National Archives is the Nation's record-keeper, so [our government] agencies send their—our
records here, so if a—and I think at the Library of Congress, in addition to their
special collections, they are supposed to receive every printed book, printed in the
USA; that is a part of their records.
So, they have a much—more of a range of records.
And then there are a lot of other Federal agencies that have book collections.
But ours are a lot of manuscripts.
Here we have your tax records, treaties, public laws.
I hope I answered your question.
That's how they're different.
Yes.
[audience member] Can you elaborate a little bit more on how
you made your model and why?
Well the—the little working model was actually something that I built upon while I was at
the [American] Academy [in Rome].
And the beauty of the Academy is that you have these other fellows in all of these different
areas, and they come and hang out in your—you talk at dinner or they hang out in your space
and you have to give a shop talk, so I was preparing for my shop talk.
And the thing that I learned about working with archival materials is that you can't
just make a binding, study the binding, and make an empty inside.
You have to almost always pay attention to what is happening on the inside.
Especially in the Vatican [Secret Archive] records.
Because there's a lot of page folding back then as there is now.
And so, we're sitting there, and they're like "well, it's not a facsimile, and
it's not a model; it's sort of like a simulacra."
So, it's sort of a—it's a little bit more than a model but not a full-scale facsimile
because those are expensive and not really necessary to make.
So, the model helps me see things that I might skip over [details specific to the original].
And it really is—it's a working tool [specific to a particular binding], and then I'll even
document where my repairs are so I can go back and check them.
So, it's a tool.
[audience member] Do you try and assimilate the same techniques
that would have been done by Trickett?
Right, I do the same technique, and it's really neat.
I can show you on the binding because this binding that we'll see in the exhibit, it's—he's
using—it looks like he's [Trickett's] just made a case [cover], like he's made
this separate and the textblock separately, but he hasn't.
He's taken—he sews his textblock to like, these little spine liners.
And then, he laces part of that through the—he cuts those in half to make that pointy tail,
and he laces that pointy tail through the cover.
And I made it yesterday, and I forgot because I made the smaller one months ago.
It [this action] really locks that binding; it really pulls that textblock right up to
the spine of the cover—of the binding cover.
So, he's really paying—it helps me understand, you know that this is a cheaper binding [to
make] but it's strong and it [making it] helps me understand how—whether the binder
is making something strong.
Now, whether it's part of an English bookbinding tradition—I'd have to talk to my English
bookbinding historians, and they might say, "Jana, everybody uses that binding structure
in England," or you, know, they could say, "we've never seen that."
But, at least I can show it to them because it's hard to see on a slide, so when you
have a model you can take it with you and say, "have you seen this?"
And then that's really helpful.
Any other questions?
Heather.
[audience member] I just see 'attribution in progress' in
a number of these slides.
What does it take to go from 'attribution in progress' to 'attribution'?
Time.
[audience member] Just more examples?
Well, yeah, right.
Or, I think we can just maybe leave it at that and maybe in the future there'll be
the time to prove it, you know.
We have, like circumstantial evidence, but we can't say—unless it has a ticket—it
is a Trickett.
Yes.
[audience member] Can you tell us more about the binding in
the slide before?
Oh, sure.
This is a binding—it's really cool—it's on a British—Jane—when the British came
during the Revolutionary War—
[audience member] The capture of Revolutionary War records.
The capture of the Revolutionary War records.
When Wilman Spawn came here we went to him, and we said, or I went to Jane, and I said
"where are your oldest books?
We want to look at your oldest binding covers."
She brought us—she brought me up and we grabbed this one; it had a really cool woven
protective wrapper [jacket] on the outside [of the binding cover].
And so, we brought it down, and it was when the Brits came and took over Philly, they
stayed there and then we took their documents when they left.
Right?
Anyways, so this binding, when we showed it to Wilman—he was also a scholar and an expert
on Stephen Potts' bindings, who was a friend and Junto club member and lived with Ben Franklin.
And he [Wilman] looked at it and he said this is a Potts binding, but it was really bizarre
because it was—it could have been from Philadelphia, and Potts died in 1757, and before the Brits
started writing in it there were two series of arithmetic, I think, that were torn out,
so you can see some of the numbers in the gutter.
So, they could—so this book could have been made in Philly, and they [the British] could
have torn out the pages and then written in it, but there's no ticket on it.
But if it is—if we can prove it's a Potts binding, it would be our oldest intact fine
binding here at the National Archives made in the USA by an American—by a binder working
in the United States.
That's why it's in progress.
Thank you.
[applause]
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