Finding aids

Virginia Tech

“CASON, JOHN R. (ca. 1843-1909). PAPERS, 1864-1865. 0.1 cu. ft. Third Lieutenant in the 17th Mississippi Infantry, captured during the Battle of Gettysburg and one of the “Immortal 600″ used as human shields during the assault on Charleston. Ledger book containing lists of prisoners he met during his imprisonment, including a list of the Immortal 600, and letters fellow prisoners wrote to him. Finding aid available on the Virginia Heritage database. Ms2008-026″ — Virginia Tech Special Collections Manuscript Guide

There were two major challenges I encountered in preparing this finding aid. The first challenge was simply determining which of several different versions of Cason’s life story were correct, a question which I was unable to fully resolve. The second challenge was deciding how to describe the letters his fellow officers had written him. As the natural order of the letters provides minimal value to researchers looking at the finding aid, I chose to prepare an alphabetical index to the letter writers, thus enabling researchers who are interested in the other officers to find relevant materials easily.

“HAWKINS, JAMES P. PAPERS, 1864-1865. 0.1 cu. ft. Messenger for the Southern Express Company in Virginia during the Civil War. Transcript of a portion of his Civil War diaries and related ephemera. Finding aid available on the Virginia Heritage database. Ms2008-025.” — Virginia Tech Special Collections Manuscript Guide

This finding aid was mostly straightforward to prepare, although — as the diary was originally presumed to have been in Hawkins’ hand — the realization that the notebook postdated its contents by several decades precipitated additional research into Hawkins, leading to the discovery of several non-overlapping diaries (and a letter in Hawkins’ own hand which is very similar to the one transcribed in the volume held by Virginia Tech!) in the Pearce Civil War Collection.

“PARKER, GEORGE M. JR. (1921-1999). WORLD WAR II PAPERS, 1941-1945. 1.7 cu. ft. Mechanic in the Army Air Force during World War II from Water View, Virginia. World War II letters, his mother’s wartime diary, and related ephemera and correspondence. Finding aid available on the Virginia Heritage database. Ms2008-022.” — Virginia Tech Special Collections Manuscript Guide

For the George M. Parker papers, the challenge lay in sorting and arranging the collection, which arrived without any order. I decided to divide the collection into series according to both conceptual and practical considerations, and put the material in chronological order within the series as much as possible while keeping logical units together.

 

Bodleian Library, Oxford University

All finding aids in the Western Manuscript Section’s Single Items Catalogue.

Commonplace book of Thomas Hughes, ca.1680 (under “Albums, Commonplace books, Notebooks and Scrapbooks”)
Thomas Hughes (1650?-1693?) was a graduate of Trinity College, Oxford. His commonplace book includes a variety of materials, many of which were seemingly copied out of printed works. MS. Eng. d. 3165

The greatest challenge in preparing this finding aid was in identifying the sources of the various items copied into the volume. In most cases, Hughes provided sufficient clues to his sources for me to locate the works in the ESTC, and in many cases textual comparison of the various editions on EEBO enabled me to identify the exact edition.

Secret service papers of Sir Evan Nepean, 1787-1803, 1819 (under “Historical papers”)
Sir Evan Nepean (1752–1822) was responsible for foreign services, first at the Home Office and later at the Admiralty, during the Napoleonic War and the period leading up to it. The papers include a variety of correspondence and receipts relating to foreign secret services. MS. Eng. c. 7384

This collection was fairly straightforward to catalogue, although several of the names were difficult to establish, requiring reference to a nineteenth century edition of Burke’s Peerage, or, in some cases, ultimately frustrating my attempts to establish the name.

Letters of Samuel Palmer to the Redgrave family, 1857-1880 (under “Correspondence”)
Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) was a painter and etcher, best known for his association with William Blake and his pastoral landscapes. The letters in this collection were written to the Redgrave family, a family of artists (the best known of whom, Robert Redgrave, was a well-known etcher) on a variety of subjects, from the death of Palmer’s eldest son in 1861 to the selection of paper for etchings. Of the 132 letters in this collection, only 10 have ever been published even in part.

Besides the challenge of reading Palmer’s handwriting, which left something to be desired in terms of legibility, the difficulty with this finding aid was deciding what level of detail was appropriate for this finding aid. Since I wanted to preserve the chronological ordering (within each series), and a full item-level description would have missed the forest for the trees, I ultimately decided to provide item-level descriptions only for those items of particular significance: those letters mentioning William Blake, and those letters for which a published edition was available.