Letters home: 1910-1919

I am working on a bundle of letters from the 1910s. The majority of the letters so far are from William Walter Negley (usually referred to as Walter) to his mother, Susan M. Jones Negley. They are mostly from his time at Exeter and Yale, but there are also letters sent during his time in the army.

In one letter, dated May 11, 1916, Walter makes this statement on international affairs, "Mexican affairs are still interesting, aren't they? I do wish we would intervene and take the pesky little country."

Another item of interest is a letter from Walter explaining to his mother his reason for joining the army as an officer to avoid being drafted later on as a private.

There are other letters in the bundle: some addressed to Susan Negley, from friends and from her other son, Richard Van Wyck Negley (usually referred to as 'Dick'); from Dick to Walter and vice versa; from these brothers to their sister, Rose Gertrude Negley (usually referred to as 'Gertrude'); and to their father, William Negley.

Most of the letters are in good shape, and a little dirty. Brushed of the dirt, took the letters out of and clipped them to their envelopes. One of the letters is bent and curled pretty badly and will need to be humidified before flattening. One of the letters to Susan is still sealed with the instructions 'please hold' written on the front.

-MCM

October 17, 2006
Humidification is coming along slowly. We set up a small chamber a week ago, but it took almost 24 hours for the rolled documents to begin to relax, and the small chamber wouldn't hold too many documents. We've set up a larger chamber, and hopefully the work will go faster.

Of the documents we set out more than a week ago I sorted some today. The days flat on the table, covered by folders, have allowed some things to relax a bit, and I bought paint brushes to brush away the century of dirt that had accumulated on some documents. I found a cache of items from Susan Negley that indicate she was a member of the Colonial Dames of the State of New York, and then involved in the Colonial Dames of Texas after she married William Negley in 1885 and moved here to San Antonio. I also sorted through a number of school assignments from Gertude Negley from the spring of 1916.

Rolled Documents: Part 4

Inside the rolled newspapers are the letters, and we are excited to find that many of them are in very good condition despite their storage conditions. We have about 10 or so groups of rolled materials, and hope that the remainder of them are as clean and neat as this one.

Rolled Documents: Part 3

The identification reads "Dick's letters from Yale - Junior Year." "Dick" is Richard Van Wyck Negley, Sr., son of Susan M. Jones and William Negley. He would later become the husband of Laura Burleson. The UTSA Archives houses the Laura Burleson Negley Family Papers, and the collection that we are currently working with came from members of her extended family, so there will be a bit of overlap with the correspondants in the two collections.

Rolled Documents: Part 2

We carefully removed the first layer of newspaper after cutting the twine. We then noticed, on the inner layer of newspaper, that the enclosed letters were identified with writing along the edge of the inner layer of newspaper.

Rolled Documents: Part 1

This is an example of the rolled documents found in the collection. Small stacks of letters have been rolled in newspaper and tied with twine. From the outside, we see that the acidic newspaper has turned dark brown. It is likely that the acid has also migrated into the enclosed letters, making areas of that paper brown as well. Because these letters have been rolled for so long, it will probably be difficult, or will take a long time, to flatten them.

Phase One: Cleaning and Identification

The collection that we have chosen for this project, as I've said, is a collection of family papers, consisting largely of letters and photographs, but also financial records, ephemera, awards and certificates, and a few artifacts (18 cubic feet total). Many of the materials were housed in a trunk, perhaps in an attic, are dirty, and have come in contact with what I am sure are a variety of rodents and vermin. We are starting the project by cleaning the documents and performing any preservation work that might be needed. We are also looking at the names of family members and other correspondants, trying to get a family tree in place. There will also be some preliminary sorting of materials. All of this before we decide on a processing plan.

One we have the processing plan in place , we will most likely also share the work of processing, or arranging, the materials. For now, we are cleaning the documents (with soft brushes) and developing strategies for flattening materials that have been rolled for over 60 years (we'll probably create a humidification chamberfor this...and don't worry, we'll tell you all about it).

We have already discovered fun and interesting things in the collection, as evidenced in the previous posts by Mat and Eva. I, personally, am a fan of the letterhead that we're finding (that's me up top, explaining my dream of an online exhbit consisting totally of letterhead from the late 19th and early to mid-20th centuries). And we're finding gross and messy things, too, like desiccated bugs in the rolled documents. Such are the occupational hazards of being an archivist.

Traci