As if it were a fossil preserved in amber, the lantern slide is a moment frozen in time, preserved within its protective glass shell. Evolving from a painted image on glass to an image created through the medium of photography, the lantern slide’s origins can be traced to the 1600s with the development of optical viewing devices, which came to be known as Laterna Magica, or magic lanterns, for the images they seemed to magically project. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, traveling lanternists entertained rapt audiences with projected images lit by candlelight, oil lamp and limelight. With the rise of photography, by 1850, a photographic method of producing lantern slides had been introduced. Using this method, one piece of glass is coated with a sensitized gelatin solution, placed in contact with a negative, and exposed to a light source, creating a positive image. Gummed tape is applied to the edges of the slide and a second piece of glass is added on top of the first, thereby protecting the emulsion and sealing the image within. The majority of photographic slides were black and white positives on glass, produced through the dry plate process or, in earlier examples, with albumen or wet-plate collodion—these in particular exhibit an astonishing mirror-like clarity. As lantern slides increased in popularity and became commercially available, slides from the 1930s and later were often created from prints via contact on glass from a second-generation negative, suffering some loss of quality. Although Green-Wood has several slides made as early as the 1860s up to 1953, the bulk of the collection falls between approximately the 1870s through the 1920s. For the most part, the purpose of slides of this period was not necessarily for entertainment, but to instruct or be used for lecture and education; most of Green-Wood’s lantern slides bear labels from the Museum of the City of New York, the New York State Education Department’s Visual Instruction Division, the Museum of Natural History and other educational institutions. Such institutions were in fact able to purchase images in boxed sets directly from specialty manufacturers and studios. By the early 20th century it was also possible to buy sets of colors specifically designed to be used with black and white lantern slides, and a small number of Green-Wood’s are hand colored.
Green-Wood Cemetery is not a typical archival environment, but is a unique setting where material is continuously being unearthed. Because it is evolving and there is so much history and material to uncover, it relies on the assistance of its many dedicated volunteers, whose work is overseen by a head archivist and a historian. The scope of my work was ambitious for one person: to see an unprocessed collection through from an initial conservation stage to eventual digitization. Work like this is often divided among several people and departments—for instance in Two Librarians, an Archivist and 13,000 Images: A Collaborating to Build a Digital Collection, the authors describe the steps taken to digitize a university’s collection of historical images, including glass plates and lantern slides. This particular project was the collaborative effort of a project archivist, a digital projects librarian, and a metadata librarian. At Green-Wood, I would be the one wearing these different hats. It was therefore both a unique opportunity to shape and organize a collection that had not been previously arranged, as well as a hands-on opportunity—and a challenging one—to learn what to do and what not to do, often by trial and error. I would in some ways be using methodology applied by both archivists and librarians. “Archivists arrange and describe at the aggregate level…focusing on provenance and original order…librarians arrange and describe at the item level…focusing on the intellectual content and the description of the resource itself. Archivists rely on the finding aid as the discovery tool. Librarians rely on structured records and bibliographic systems.” (Chaffin Hunter, Legg, & Oehlerts, 2010). In the case of Green-Wood’s collection of approximately 850 slides, there was no particular original order so one would need to be artificially imposed. Green-Wood’s lantern slides were donated in the original vintage slated boxes that commonly held sets of slides when they were sold to educational institutions. These may hold between 50-70 glass slides, mostly 3.25 x 4 inch in size and some slightly smaller at 3x3. Glass supports for photographs are generally considered more stable than paper, however glass plates are fragile and can easily chip, crack or break. And although it is common to find photographs in collections that remain in their original wooden or paper enclosures, wood and paper (unless acid free) are not sound materials from an archival standpoint. For both of these reasons, it was important to re-house the slides. Although most of the slides were in good condition, many exhibited signs of damage to the glass or the tape. Additionally, poor storage can create mold in the form of spotting on the emulsion and inside of the glass. The gelatin emulsion that holds the image can also separate from the base, which fortunately was only the case for two or three of these slides, although many exhibited spotting and other signs of deterioration. Processing would occur in various phases, beginning with conservation measures, including cleaning and re-housing the materials in acid free enclosures and then transferring them to archival boxes. They would be stored vertically with cardboard dividers placed after every group of about 10-15 slides.
Once the cleaning and re-housing had been accomplished, I would need to gain physical and intellectual control of the collection. To assist with this I decided to create a spreadsheet that would capture all of the important descriptive metadata, so that no information would be lost. I used the information I found on the slide labels to designate important categories that should be preserved in a permanent database about the objects. It was my thinking that if something should happen to the originals, we would want to have intellectual information about the items and a record of what they contained. This would also be important to compile prior to the digitization process. Following these steps, establishing intellectual control of the collection would entail organizing it into various categories or series, and sub-series for some larger categories. The More Product Less Process (MPLP) line of thought strongly advocates sorting unorganized collections to this extent only. At the very least, Green and Meissner recommend having collection-level intellectual control before any collection receives folder-level control (or in this case individual images). However, my dilemma was that, unlike manuscripts and other types of paper archival materials, photography collections are often, out of necessity, arranged at the item level. Each item is a distinct entity and must be individually placed within a specific series. Greene and Meissner point out that the argument “from the mid-1960’s dismisses arrangement at the item level as 'having little utility'," advocating for less in terms of preservation, however the authors also acknowledge that preservation should be done at the same level as description. As such, this supported the need to perform at least basic conservation measures at the item level for the lantern slide collection as well. Much of my work would therefore run counter to MPLP recommendations. After the initial cleaning phase came to an end I began to sort images into subject categories and to impose physical order on the slides and boxes. However, as my work progressed and the weeks went by I became more and more concerned with the amount of time it was taking to achieve intellectual and physical control of the collection. Keeping the MPLP approach in mind, and in the interest of practicality and time management, I decided to strike a balance and at least apply a more general approach to the finding aid by describing everything to the series level. The final stage in this process would be to select a core group of representative images that could be digitized.
The MPLP approach also addresses the idea of the “value of a collection.” Yet, how does one determine value? Although the collection includes a small miscellaneous series of non-New York City subject matter, the core of this collection is a visual representation of life in New York City during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As such, its great inherent value lies in its potential to open up new areas of research and the possibility to further scholarship on a wealth of topics, from the city's architectural history and businesses, to evolving transportation and changes in urban geography, fashions and everyday life. Hughes writes in Digitizing Collections: Strategic Issues for the Information Manager, "Visual history resources...convey important information about the ordinary lives and activities of people and enrich our understanding of our recent and contemporary history" (2004). The historical photograph offers a particular kind of record or authority, one of irrefutable evidence. Other affordances include memory and continuity, both on an individual level and as a source of memory for organizations and the wider society. A similar project, though on a much larger scale, was undertaken by Philadelphia's City Archives, operated by the Department of Records. As Boyer, Cheetham and Johnson (2011) describe, this archive contains visual documentations of Philadelphia's history dating back to the mid-1800s, much of which was largely inacessible to the public until the project PhillyHistory.org was launched in 2005. Using geographic information systems (GIS) technology, users can search for images by geographic criteria and compare past and present landscapes, noting how the urban geography has changed over time. "The photographs connect viewers with the events and individuals of the past in a way that reading textual documents simply cannot...[They] provide a visual interpretation of the past and an opportunity for viewers to transcend time and place." Digitizing them brings them to a wider audience, and adds value in terms of access and scholarship. The user may also find value in a collection of historical photographs beyond what we may anticipate. For instance, in Modes of Seeing, Conway (2010) describes a study in which several participants with extensive experience using digitized photographic archives discover and value images for very different purposes and reasons, depending on their needs. "Discovery of new evidence to support an emerging story is a classic example of how evidential and informational values in archives converge to reveal a previously hidden truth." He adds, "Experienced users see images for the data they provide, the relevance of which is determined by the user’s particular field of view. The value of an image is also seen to reside in the emotions that the image elicits from the viewer…and as pieces of a story whose ultimate value is in the telling.” Participants may use digital images for personal learning or in the context of something more specific such as a book or research project. As a visual proof of existence, the historical photograph has irreplaceable value and can also serve as an extension of memory; the open archives that Green-Wood conceives of offering in the future can be the kind of place where photography, archives and memory are intricately woven together.
The MPLP approach also addresses the idea of the “value of a collection.” Yet, how does one determine value? Although the collection includes a small miscellaneous series of non-New York City subject matter, the core of this collection is a visual representation of life in New York City during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As such, its great inherent value lies in its potential to open up new areas of research and the possibility to further scholarship on a wealth of topics, from the city's architectural history and businesses, to evolving transportation and changes in urban geography, fashions and everyday life. Hughes writes in Digitizing Collections: Strategic Issues for the Information Manager, "Visual history resources...convey important information about the ordinary lives and activities of people and enrich our understanding of our recent and contemporary history" (2004). The historical photograph offers a particular kind of record or authority, one of irrefutable evidence. Other affordances include memory and continuity, both on an individual level and as a source of memory for organizations and the wider society. A similar project, though on a much larger scale, was undertaken by Philadelphia's City Archives, operated by the Department of Records. As Boyer, Cheetham and Johnson (2011) describe, this archive contains visual documentations of Philadelphia's history dating back to the mid-1800s, much of which was largely inacessible to the public until the project PhillyHistory.org was launched in 2005. Using geographic information systems (GIS) technology, users can search for images by geographic criteria and compare past and present landscapes, noting how the urban geography has changed over time. "The photographs connect viewers with the events and individuals of the past in a way that reading textual documents simply cannot...[They] provide a visual interpretation of the past and an opportunity for viewers to transcend time and place." Digitizing them brings them to a wider audience, and adds value in terms of access and scholarship. The user may also find value in a collection of historical photographs beyond what we may anticipate. For instance, in Modes of Seeing, Conway (2010) describes a study in which several participants with extensive experience using digitized photographic archives discover and value images for very different purposes and reasons, depending on their needs. "Discovery of new evidence to support an emerging story is a classic example of how evidential and informational values in archives converge to reveal a previously hidden truth." He adds, "Experienced users see images for the data they provide, the relevance of which is determined by the user’s particular field of view. The value of an image is also seen to reside in the emotions that the image elicits from the viewer…and as pieces of a story whose ultimate value is in the telling.” Participants may use digital images for personal learning or in the context of something more specific such as a book or research project. As a visual proof of existence, the historical photograph has irreplaceable value and can also serve as an extension of memory; the open archives that Green-Wood conceives of offering in the future can be the kind of place where photography, archives and memory are intricately woven together.