State & Local Records News

Vol. 13, No. 4 Published by the ADAH Government Records Division May 2009

HRAB awards records preservation grantsto 22 localities and repositories

Meeting on March 25, 2009 at theAlabama Department of Archivesand History (ADAH), Alabama’s

Historical Records Advisory Board (HRAB)awarded $49,999.68 in grant funds to 22 localgovernment agencies or historical repositories forrecords preservation projects. Funding for theawards was provided by the National HistoricalPublications and Records Commission (NHPRC)under its State and National Archival Partnership(SNAP) Grant Program.

After the program was announced in mid-November, the HRAB received a total of 30 grantapplications from localities across Alabama. With$50,000 available from the NHPRC and a cap of$3,000 on individual awards, 73% of our grantapplicants received full or partial funding. Hereare the 22 successful applicants, with the amountawarded and a brief description of their projects:

• City of Aliceville. $1,000 to inventory andorganize city records, apply dispositionschedules, and prepare historical city coun-cil minutes for scanning.

• Aliceville Museum. $1,509 to inventory,rehouse, and catalog historical documentsand artifacts pertaining to a World War IIGerman prisoner-of-war camp near Alice-ville.

• Anniston-Calhoun County Public Library.$1,960 to digitize over 1,000 historicalphotographs of Anniston (1946-1950) andmake them viewable and searchable via thelibrary’s online catalog.

• Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. $2,770for supplies and materials to process theW.C. Patton Collection. Patton was a leg-endary figure in the Alabama voting rightsmovement.

• Black Belt African-American Genealogicaland Historical Society. $2,290 to rehouse,catalog, scan, and index a collection of 500historical photographs from Selma, AL.

• Bryant Museum, University of Alabama.$3,000 for a consultant to advise on thecare, management, and preservation of his-torical audiovisual collections documentingthe Crimson Tide football program.

• Collier Library, University of North Ala-bama. $3,000 to assess, organize, and re-house manuscripts, research materials andphotographs of Florence historian WilliamLindsey McDonald.

• Elmore County Historical Society andMuseum. $2,567.03 to inventory, preserve,and display family records, photographs,

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and artifacts documenting the history ofElmore County and Wetumpka.

• Eufaula Heritage Association. $2,000 toinventory, rehouse, and display historicaldocuments and artifacts from Shorter Man-sion. Included are portraits and memora-bilia of six Alabama governors.

• Florence-Lauderdale County Public Lib-rary. $2,750 to record and transcribe oralhistory interviews with elderly citizens inthe Shoals area. The interviews will beposted on the library’s website.

• Guntersville Museum. $3,000 to inventory,rehouse, and shelve collections that includeletters from the Wyeth Family and photo-graphs of the TVA dam on Lake Gunters-ville.

• City of Heflin. $2,000 to inventory and re-house records and prepare historical citycouncil minutes for scanning.

• Town of Killen. $1,156 to purchase archi-val shelving and improve lighting and filearrangement in records storage areas.

• Lee County Historical Society. $3,000 toorganize, clean, and preserve historicalmaps, records, and photographs, based ona consultant’s plan of action.

• City of Leeds. $3,000 to sort, rehouse, andimprove storage for city council minutesand other historical records, 1887-2009.

• Town of Locust Fork. $683.22 to inventory,reorganize, and improve storage conditionsfor historical town records.

• Monroe County Heritage Museum. $3,000to reformat audio cassettes and VHS tapes,which include interviews with Truman

Capote and Harper Lee’s sister, as well asplays and musical performances, to CD orDVD.

• Morgan County Archives. $3,000 to pro-vide shelving, archival containers and adatabase index for historical estate filesdating back to 1825.

• Pond Spring (the Joseph Wheeler Home).$2,000 to inventory, process, and catalogpapers, artifacts, and photographs of thefamily of Confederate General “FightingJoe” Wheeler.

• Shelby County Historical Society. $2,225to digitize and index historical marriagerecords, allowing the original volumes tobe preserved.

• Tuscaloosa Genealogical Society. $1,590for archival supplies, shelving, and a com-puter to clean, rehouse, index, and catalog19 -century circuit court records.th

• University of South Alabama Archives.$2,500 for processing 60,000 negatives ofphotographer Wilson C. Burton, whichdocument 20 -century Mobile.th

Most projects are already under way andare scheduled to finish by September 30. For moreinformation on the HRAB grant program, contactTracey Berezansky or Tom Turley at the ADAHGovernment Records Division, (334)242-4452 orrecords@archives.alabama.gov.

State Records Commissionapproves new, revised RDAs

At its meeting on April 29, the StateRecords Commission approved anew RDA for the Mobile County

Health Department, as well as new disposition for

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personnel files from the Governor’s Office. Thecommission also approved a major RDA revisionfor the Alabama State Board of Social WorkExaminers and minor revisions for the AlabamaBoard of Chiropractic Examiners, the AlabamaBoard of Heating and Air Conditioning Contrac-tors, the Alabama State Board of Registration forForesters, the Examiners of Public Accounts, andthe Public University System. Finally, the com-mission reviewed annual RDA implementationreports from 38 state agencies.

The Local Government Records Commis-sion did not meet on April 29. As noted in our lastissue, the commission staff is working with theSecretary of State’s Office on a complete revisionof the RDA for county boards of registrars. It isexpected to be ready for the July meeting.

The commissions will meet again onWednesday, July 22, 2009, in the Region’s BoardRoom at ADAH. The State Records Commissionmeeting will begin at 10:00 a.m., and the LocalGovernment Records Commission will convene at1:30 p.m.

Records commissions presentfirst annual awards in recordsmanagement and preservation

As reported in our March issue, theState and Local Government Rec-ords Commissions selected three

agencies to receive the commissions’ first annualawards in records management and preservation.They are the State Department of Transportation,the Marshall County Preservation Society, and theMobile County Probate Court.

The three awards were presented at theState Records Commission meeting on April 29.Accepting the Department of Transportation’saward (for implementing an agency-wide recordsmanagement program, creating an archives, anddigitizing agency records) were ALDOT directorJoe McInnes; deputy bureau chief Terry Robinson;

and archivist Chris Davidson, formerly an archivistin the ADAH Government Records Division.

l-r: Mr. Robinson, Mr. Davidson, and Mr. McInnes

receive the ALDOT award from Dr. Ed Bridges

Besides conducting a successful looserecords microfilming project, the Marshall CountyPreservation Society helped to preserve old countynewspapers. Three of its members (Betty Taylor,Margene Black, and Rosemary Darnell) serve asvolunteer staff for the newly created MarshallCounty Archives. Marshall County Probate JudgeTim Mitchell accepted the award on their behalf.

Judge Mitchell accepts the Marshall County

Preservation Society’s award

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l-r: Mr. McEarchern, Dr. Bridges, Judge Davis, Ms. King,

Judge Noonan, and Mr. Johnson admire the

Mobile County Probate Court’s award.

The Mobile County Probate Court has hada records microfilming program since the 1950sand a county archives since 1989. Archivist Col-l’ette King has overseen the indexing and mic-rofilming of hundreds of rolls of probate records,including the translation of French and Spanishcolonial documents dating back to the founding ofMobile. Attending the award presentation wereMs. King, current and former probate judges DonDavis and “Red” Noonan, chief probate clerk JoeMcEarchern, and assistant chief clerk RichardJohnson.

If your college, university, or state or localgovernment agency would like to be recognized foran exemplary records management and preserva-tion program, nominations for this year’s State orLocal Government Records Commission awardsare due on December 1, 2009. Guidelines for the2009 awards may be found on the ADAH website:http://www.archives.alabama.gov/officials/guidelines-nominationform.pdf.

Staff and volunteers workingto preserve George and LurleenWallace Collection

The George C. and Lurleen B. Wallacecollection was donated to ADAHthrough a deed of gift by the Wal-

lace Foundation in 2006. It consists of approxi-mately 1,100 cubic feet of records and a widevariety of artifacts. This collection will comple-ment official gubernatorial and private records ofthe Wallaces already housed at the state archives.

While records donated by the foundationcontain a large number of official gubernatorialpapers, there are also many private records,photographs, and audiovisual materials. Of parti-cular interest are the photographs, which containearly images of George Wallace, as well as LurleenWallace and her campaign, that have not been seenby the public before.

An initial survey of the Wallace Collectionby Government Records staff began in January2008. It focused on parts of the collection that hadpreviously sat in a warehouse in Atlanta for severalyears, due to the potential importance of this groupof records to researchers. With the completion ofthe initial survey, 100 cubic feet of WallaceAdministrative Files from 1971 to 1979 have beenarranged, described, and opened for research. Pre-paration work on another 250 cubic feet of records,encompassing George and Lurleen Wallace’sgubernatorial terms from 1963 to 1968, will soonbe completed, allowing them to be opened to thepublic sometime within the next few months.

Further time and effort, much of it providedby volunteers, is going towards arranging, identi-fying, and preserving various materials within thecollection. Specifically, volunteers have been ex-tremely helpful in further processing the guberna-torial records processed initially by GovernmentRecords staff. This work includes placing docu-ments in acid-free folders to increase their lifespan, removing large pieces of metal from the

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materials to prevent damage from rust, and noti-fying Government Records staff of materials thatneed to be photocopied and removed, due to theirhistorical significance or for security reasons.

Furthermore, volunteers are helping topreserve audiovisual materials from the WallaceCollection by working on a new project: theWallace Audio Visual Database. Due to the unde-termined condition and usability of the collection’s149 cubic feet of audiovisual materials, coupledwith the large variety of formats they encompass(including almost every audiovisual technologyemployed from the 1960s through the early 1990s),it would be extremely difficult and time-con-suming for Government Records staff to arrange,preserve, and provide access to the materials as awhole. Instead, the Audio Visual Database allowsADAH volunteers to enter descriptive informationabout each cassette, reel-to-reel tape, beta tape, orother format into a computer database, thus cre-ating a list of all identified audiovisual materials.Using this list, Government Records staff will beable to determine which materials merit conserva-tion work, based on their historical significance.

Finally, a volunteer project is under way topreserve the Wallace’s Collection’s photographsand to identify people, places, and events theydepict. This preservation and identification is pos-sible due to the efforts of two volunteers, both ofwhom worked for and personally knew George andLurleen Wallace in the 1960s. They are Ed Ewingand Paul Robertson.

Mr. Ewing served as director of the Bureauof Publicity and Information during GovernorGeorge Wallace’s 1963-1967 term, as Press Secre-tary for Governor Lurleen Wallace during her termin office, and as national campaign coordinator forGeorge Wallace’s 1968 presidential campaign.Due to Mr. Ewing’s deep involvement with theWallace administrations and campaign, he is ableto recall the names of a wide spectrum of peopledepicted in the photographs, including state law-makers, United States congressmen, local cele-brities, and many others who would be impossibleto identify for anyone not present at the time.

Mr. Robertson worked as the official pho-tographer for George Wallace’s 1958 and 1962gubernatorial campaigns. He also took severalprivate portraits and event photographs for theWallace family. While Mr. Robertson, like Mr.Ewing, has the ability to identify people and eventsfrom that era, his true value comes from his careeras a photographer. As a seasoned professional, hehas experience with the various types of film andphoto paper used at the time and knows the bestways to care for them. Furthermore, Mr. Robert-son personally took many of the photographs thathe is now identifying, and he has been able to usefirst-hand experience in determining where andwhen the photographs were taken.

The work provided by Ed Ewing and PaulRobertson has proved invaluable. Their assistanceis inspired by their belief that this informationneeds to be preserved for future generations ofAlabamians. The Archives has been extremelylucky to have their help in this endeavor, and theircommitment to the project has been and will con-tinue to be extremely productive.

As work proceeds on the Wallace Col-lection, we will continue to open previously closedrecords to researchers, to identify and care for pho-tographs, and to select audiovisual materials thatmerit further care and conservation work. It is theDepartment’s hope that this new material willincite further questions about and research intoGeorge and Lurleen Wallace’s governing style,political ambitions, and personalities. —Drew Davis

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McDowell Lee, Secretary of the Alabama Senate (center),

examines photographs from the Wallace Collection with

volunteer Ed Ewing (left) and Dr. Bridges