Letterbooks are filled with a staggering amount of information, indexing all the essential communication a person had during their life. Records of business arrangements, copies of letters, and other important correspondence; the letterbook was an inbox before we had inboxes, a hard drive before hard drives.
The Paper Department at The Conservation Center recently worked on 12 volumes of letterbooks for Hampton University. The letterbooks belonged to General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, an officer of the Union Army who founded Hampton University (originally Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute) established to provide education to formerly enslaved people. They includes Chapman's handwritten and typed correspondence during the establishment of the University. This collection of letterbooks provides insight into the educational experience of African Americans and indigenous peoples of the United States during the time of Reconstruction.
Students learning dressmaking at Hampton University, c. 1900. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Hampton University was awarded a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Servies (IMLS) to conserve and digitize the twelve letterbooks. This grant is part of the "Save America's Treasures Program" that strives to support the preservation of nationally significant historic properties and collections.
Detail of letterbook pages before treatment
Detail of letterbook pages before treatment
Detail of letterbook pages before treatment
Before treatment, the letterbooks were in very poor condition and extremely brittle. Several volumes had damaged bindings, with the original spine and cover missing. Due to the brittleness of the thin paper used, researchers could not safely handle the letters without causing further damage. There were surface soil, mold, and water stains throughout the twelve volumes. The paper was so delicate that handling had caused many losses and missing areas. Areas of the paper within the text block were falling apart with severe creasing and tears. Many of the letters had faded inks, which is inherent to the process of creating these copies.
Binding being mechanically separated
The binding was mechanically separated by removing the text block from the covers and disbinding. Each signature was separated for treatment into individual pages. Typically we do not recommend disbinding and separating textblock signatures into individual pages, but for this project this was what was decided upon with conjuction with the University. The ultimate goal was to make the volumes accessible for researchers and students at Hampton University.
Tear repair using Japanese tissue and methylcellulose
Once the pages were separated, each page was selectively surface cleaned using textile sponge to reduce surface soil and surface mold, and treated using ethanol to remediate mold. The pages were locally humidified to reduce creasing and distortion as best as possible. Some distortion remained due to it being inherent to the original process. The tears were selectively repaired using Japanese tissue and methylcellulose, and each page was de-acidified.
Detail of digitization process with BookEye Scanner
Detail of digitization process with BookEye Scanner
Next, all twelve volumes were digitized using a BookEye scanner. The front and back of each page, the index of each volume, the original covers (if present) and any additional inserts within the text block were scanned so that the information can be accessed digitally by researchers.
Page being housed in mylar L-sleeve
Each page was housed into a 3-mil mylar L-sleeve. The original covers, if present, were housed in custom four flap or folder enclosures of 10 point folder stock. Once everything was housed in sleeves or folders, a custom clamshell was created. Due to the amount of pages in each volume, each volume had two clamshells to reduce the size and weight from the housing materials.
Each clamshell was custom built.
After the clamshells were completed, a custom paper label was attached to the outer spine for each volume.
Custom clamshell box label
After treatment, the pages are now placed in their mylar sleeves and housed in the clamshell boxes.
Watch the entire process here:
