Author: Guest Blogger

The Archivist’s Nook: My Constant Companions – Sisters Justina and Blandina Segale

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My History Icons: Sisters Blandina Segale (standing, left) and Justina Segale at the Silver Jubilee of the Santa Maria Institute in 1922. (Image Courtesy of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati)

Guest author, Mary Beth Fraser Connolly, is a lecturer in History at Purdue University Northwest. She received her doctorate from CUA and is a former student worker in the Archives.

My relationship with Justina and Blandina Segale and the Santa Maria Institute has been going on for two decades. It was twenty-one years ago I began my PhD studies in history at The Catholic University of America and that first semester I came across two articles that referenced the Santa Maria Institute: Ilia Delio’s “The First Catholic Social Gospelers: Women Religious in the Nineteenth Century” and Margaret McGuiness’s “Body and Soul: Catholic Social Settlements and Immigration,” both in the summer 1995 issue of U.S. Catholic Historian. That started it. While these two articles helped me develop a dissertation topic, archival research brought me closer to the sisters themselves. (As I write this, a black-and-white photocopy of the Segales is tacked up above my desk, right next to the August 14, 2016 feature story from the Sunday edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer, which examines Sister Blandina’s “Search for Sainthood.” They are my history icons.) Through colorful letters and a frankly written journal or convent chronicle entries, their personalities leapt from the documents. Sisters Justina and Blandina Segale went from two-dimensional figures of some nearly forgotten past to vital, courageous, at times, stubborn, flawed, and faithful Catholic women who had relevance for my work as a historian and in my classroom.

Thankfully, I have not been alone in my pursuit of the real Justina and Blandina Segale. M. Christine Anderson, associate professor of history at Xavier University, Judith Metz, SC, historian and former archivist of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, and I banded together to develop an exhibit for the American Catholic History Classroom hosted by the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives at Catholic University. We bring to this classroom three perspectives on the work of the sisters and the Santa Maria Institute in Progressive-Era Cincinnati. This exhibit looks at the Sisters of Charity’s spiritual foundation and charism and how that informed the Segales work at the Santa Maria (Metz). It also focuses on how the sisters conducted social work in immigrant neighborhoods among primarily Italians, but they also served Irish, German, and other immigrant populations. They provided education, religious instruction, and material aid to children and adults. Understanding the important role that laywomen could fill in social welfare work, they also encouraged young women to move into this growing profession of social work. (Anderson) The exhibit also considers the actions of the sisters as agents of Americanization at a time when the federal and local governments, along with Protestant religious organizations sought to transform immigrants into good American citizens. For Blandina and Justina, Italian immigrants as well, they saw this desire as an effort to deny Italian immigrants their heritage, language, and, most importantly, their Catholic faith. Blandina and Justina sought to shore up and possible restore Italian immigrants’ Catholicism and in doing so, they articulated a Catholic identity that allowed for assimilation into American life. (Connolly) 

A touch of the Wild West via horseless carriage. Sisters of Charity tour of the order’s missions in the Southwest in 1906 included Mother Mary Blanche Davis and future Mother Superior, Mary Florence Kent, who later directed the sisters not to rise in open cars. Such restrictions were often ignored in practice.

All three of these perspectives make for delightful classroom material. Everything centers on the Santa Maria Journal – the convent chronicle – kept by Sister Justina. Her biological sister, Blandina, may be the more known of the pair, what with her infamous confrontation of the notorious Billy the Kid and her more recent cause for canonization, but Justina’s words provide insight into the day-to-day life of Sisters of Charity steeped in their ministry. They show us their commitment to their faith, vows, and congregation. Those words also provide glimpses into the lives of Italian immigrants, when records are sparse in local Cincinnati archives. I have employed this history in my own classroom by using excerpt from the Santa Maria diary alongside Christine’s excellent 2000 Journal of Women’s History article, “Catholic Nuns and the Invention of Social Work: The Sisters of the Santa Maria Institute of Cincinnati, Ohio, 1897 through the 1920s.” Students, wholly unfamiliar with Catholic history, or what a nun is, have been drawn to the unflappable Sister Blandina and her strong and (somewhat silent) partner, Sister Justina. I have offered these readings with excerpts from Blandina’s At the End of the Santa Fe Trail, recently reissued. What I did not expect, all the while secretly hoped for, was that my students recognized the relevance of the Italian immigrants and these sisters’ experiences to their present lives. (Could it be that history offers something for us to learn today? Shocking, indeed!) Christine, Sister Judith, and I have collaborated to present the work of the Sisters of Charity and the Santa Maria Institute for this American Catholic History Classroom precisely because the exhibit draws together the separate elements of the Santa Maria Institute, the Sisters of Charity, and Blandina and Justina Segale’s work and lives into one place. From this point, a teacher, whether in a Catholic grammar or high school or an instructor in a college or university (both secular and religious) can pull out tools to discuss Catholic women’s spirituality, immigrant history, women’s history, and maybe even a touch of the Wild West. Frankly, I imagine Sister Blandina would love that and Sister Justina would commend our work as righting wrongs done to Italians, the ultimate Americans and Catholics.

View the website: http://cuomeka.wrlc.org/exhibits/show/justina-and-blandina-segale/justina-background

The Archivist’s Nook: A Few of My Favorite Things

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World’s smallest mariachi band, discovered in the museum collection.

Author Katherine Santa Ana served as Graduate Library Pre-Professional (GLP), 2015-2017.

As part of the Graduate Library Preprofessional (GLP) program, for the past two years I worked full time in the Archives here at CUA while pursuing my Masters in Library and Information Science. This has been an amazing opportunity to get real world experience and on the job training. During my time here, I conducted an inventory of the museum objects on campus, learned how to encode EAD finding aids, oversaw several digitization projects, and participated in social media outreach efforts like this blog and the Archives’ Instagram account. The success of my experience here resulted from the freedom to be involved in so many different aspects of archival work and pursue projects that developed my skill set as an information professional.

President William Taft with “Billy Possum.”

Developing professional competencies aside, my favorite part of my job here at the Archives was the joyful glee of discovering interesting and/or bizarre items in the course of my normal workday. There is something priceless about opening an acid free box, finding something that makes you laugh aloud, and calling over a coworker to share the moment with. Like the time I decided to investigate a box labeled “Lizard” in the museum collection. I hypothetically understood this lizard was already cataloged, labeled, and housed long before my time here… but there is nothing quite like opening the box for yourself and finding a foot and a half long desiccated monitor lizard inside.

Testing to see if an old slide projector works using slides of UFOs.

On the other hand, there are the quieter discoveries that make you smile alone in the stacks. Looking for something itty bitty to post on social media for #TinyTuesday, I stumbled across the smallest mariachi band in existence in the James Magner museum collection. As I lined up these miniscule figures for their photo, I fondly remembered the mariachi band that played at my own grandparents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. While on the subject of James Magner, I must also give a shout out to his personal collection of Christmas cards, which are always good for a smile come holiday season.

Bookplate from the Cardinal yearbook of 1932.

Then there are the multipart discoveries that build over weeks or months. A chance encounter here, another there. Such was the case when I came across a seemingly random picture of a possum in our digital collection of labor leader Terence Vincent Powderly’s photographs. This would be odd enough in itself, but weeks later I found the same photo cut out and pasted below an image of President William H. Taft in one of Powderly’s old albums. Apparently, Powderly was making a bit of a joke about “Billy Possum,” Taft supporters’ spinoff of Teddy Roosevelt’s “Teddy Bear.” These are the sorts of things archivists share a laugh over.

My time in the Archives has been filled with more entertaining discoveries than can be listed here. The beautiful typewriter hiding among our audiovisual equipment, the old stamps and seals of CUA’s logo throughout the years, the Physics Department slides of UFOs, and the “Ex Libris” bookplates in the early Cardinal yearbooks all come to mind as a few of my personal favorites. While I loved learning the ropes of working in an archive, I will remember my time here most vividly through the lens of these special encounters and the people I had the privilege to share them with.

The Archivist’s Nook: Sign of the Times – Japanese Anti-Christian Edicts

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Japanese cargo vessel Toyohashi Maru, which would many years later be used to transport prisoners of war during World War II.
(Courtesy of the Australian War Memorial)

Author Katherine Santa Ana served as Graduate Library Pre-Professional (GLP), 2015-2017.

December of 1919, Captain K. Hayashi arrived at the piers of Staten Island aboard his ship, the Tayohashi Maru. A Catholic himself, Captain K. Hayashi brought with him the latest acquisition of The Catholic University of America’s museum collection: an anti-Christian signboard, known as kōsatsu 高札. Found in Kobe, Japan by the missionary Father Perrin, then rector of the University Rev. Thomas J. Shahan purchased the signboard for the museum collection for thirty dollars.

Dating from 1682, this signboard details the laws against Christianity in Japan, rewards for turning in a Christian to the authorities, as well as punishment for the offenders. While the first Christian missionary came to the island around 1549, Catholicism was subsequently banned in 1587 by the “Bateren-tsuiho-rei” (the Purge Directive Order to the Jesuits) issued by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Imperial Regent of Japan. Christianity and powerful missionaries were viewed as a threat to the recently unified country. With the Catholic clergy expelled from Japan completely in the mid-17th century, many Japanese Catholics practiced their faith in secret as government officials publicly posted boards like these around Japan.

Japanese anti-Christian signboard from 1682, a time when Christianity was illegal in Japan.

Along with the signboard, Father Perrin provided the following translation:

“The Christian religion has already been prohibited for many years. Everyone who gives ground for suspicion must be denounced, the following rewards are hereby promised.

To the informer against a Priest, 500 pieces of silver.

To the informer against a Brother, 300 pieces of silver.

To the informer against a Relapse, 300 pieces of silver.

To the informer against a Guest or an ordinary Christian, 100 pieces of silver.

If the informer is himself a guest or a co-religionist (Christian) he will receive 500 pieces of silver. The chief of the section and the group of the five families of the district concerned will be punished jointly with the concealer, if the whereabouts of the culprits are discovered otherwise than through them.

Second year of Tenwa, fifth moon, 1682 June. The Governor. Let all the inhabitants of this Province obey this order. Koide Mondo.”

Letter from Rev. Thomas J. Shahan to Captain K. Hayashi thanking him for transporting the signboard, January 12, 1920.

At roughly 40 inches long and 16 inches wide, the signboard has a shallow peaked “roof” to protect the calligraphy from the rain.  In the translation, “Relapse” refers to a former Catholic who has resumed practicing Christianity, while “Guest” refers to anyone staying with a Christian. The last phrase on the signboard, “Koide Mondo,” is the name of the governor of the region.

The Japanese Christians who continued to practice in secret during the time of persecution were known as Kakure Kirishitan 隠れキリシタン , literally “hidden Christians.” Christianity remained illegal until the mid-19th century, when imperial rule returned to Japan during the Meiji Restoration. While many of these secret Christians emerged and began practicing publicly, a few decided to continue to practice in secret, even to today.

Signboards similar to this one can be found in the collections of the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in New York and Sophia University in Tokyo and represent one piece of the fascinating history of Christianity in Japan. The signboard at The Catholic University of America is currently on display in the office of the University Archivist.

The Archivist’s Nook: Farewell and Thanks for All the Files!

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“To Build a Stronger Union of Oil Workers”, from the CIO collection, 1950

This week’s post is guest authored by Marielle Gage, a recent CUA graduate in Library Science.

Two years ago, I walked into the American Catholic Research Center and University Archives as a student worker. I thought I would like the job — I knew one of my new coworkers from class, and had approved of John Shepherd’s fine collection of New England Patriots’ memorabilia — but I was surprised by how much. At the time, I was finishing my Master’s in History, and was assuming I would continue on to the PhD. But unexpected circumstances, and my new job, made me reconsider, and this last year has seen me finish a second Master’s, this one in Library and Information Science, and searching for a position in the field of archives rather than academia.

More than once, I’ve been asked, “What is it you do at an archives, anyway?” Normally, I explain what an archive is, and that answers their curiosity, but sometimes I get a follow-up: “Okay, so that’s the use of an archive, but why do you do all day? Just wait for researchers?” That question is actually harder to answer than you might expect, not because there isn’t anything to respond with, but because there’s just so much, it’s hard to describe a “typical” day. There isn’t one, really.

Take just this last month, as I finish my time at ACUA. I’ve processed a collection, including moving files into acid-free boxes and folders and giving everything labels, as well as fully organizing it, coded the Electronic Archival Description for it (using html), created a preliminary listing for another collection, scanned images for independent researchers and CUA staff, updated records, introduced researchers to our archives and rules, pulled boxes, created PDFs of hundreds of pages of original documents, taken phone calls, compiled a list of previous commencement speakers by reviewing old commencement handouts, moved artwork from our stacks to the vault, and more. Sometimes I arrive at the archives not sure what I’m going to work on that day; and even if I think I do, that could change with a phone call from the Registrar or some other university office, or with the arrival of an unexpected researcher. In my two years here, I have very few memories of being idle or without anything to do, even for twenty minutes.

Marvel’s “Mother Teresa of Calcutta”, from the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa collection, 1984

Even more than keeping me busy and out of the proverbial pool halls, my work at ACUA has been incredibly rewarding. Contrary to any stereotypes of librarian-type students, I am very much a people person, and take great satisfaction in helping people along their way: especially if they are seeking information and knowledge. I wish sometimes I had the ability to read the final version of every researcher’s book or article assigned by their investigations here, and it makes my day when we are able to provide something above and beyond the expectations of our visitors. That’s not really to our credit, necessarily: our records really are amazing. Not just highly informative — such as our various labor collections or the USCCB files — by sometimes really fun; we have, for example, a copy of a comic book Marvel produced about Mother Teresa. Even if it is simply her biography (and not, as I was hoping, a team-up with The Incredible Hulk to defeat Professor Poverty) it’s still a delightful record of the cultural impact she had even during her lifetime. There’s dozens of more items and collections I could talk about, but that’s not the point here.

Really, the point is to thank Dr. Meagher, Dr. Mazzenga, Mr. Shepherd, Shane MacDonald, and everyone else at the Archives for such a wonderful opportunity. They took a chance on a bookish girl, knee-high to a grasshopper even in her twenties, and trusted that she would be an asset to their community. I hope I have paid back that trust at least partially, but truly I owe all of them a debt I may never be able to repay. I very much doubt I ever would have sought that second Master’s, or sought a career in this field, if I hadn’t worked here. Now, as I move on to (hopefully), bigger and better things, I’d like to take this final chance to wish them all the very best. So here’s to you, ACUA: may your donors be plentiful and your HVACs never leak.

The Archivist’s Nook: Catholic Textbooks Beyond the Classroom

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Madonna Speller, Grade 7, 1960. Commission on American Citizenship Records, American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives.

This week’s post is guest-authored by Austin Arminio, a graduate student in the field of Library and Information Science.

For the past three months, I worked on a project to digitize publications of the Commission on American Citizenship of The Catholic University of America. During the 1938 Golden Jubilee of The Catholic University of America (CUA), Pope Pius XI sent a letter of congratulations to the American hierarchy. In this letter, he also gave the church leaders an assignment to create a curriculum for Catholic school students giving special attention to civics, sociology, and economics. The Bishops heeded the call, prompting CUA to create the Commission on American Citizenship. The Commission’s goal was to develop a school curriculum that educated elementary students on how to be both good American citizens and moral Catholics.

This is Our Parish, New Edition, 1952. Commission on American Citizenship Records, American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives.

The Commission, founded by CUA faculty members Fr. Joseph M. Corrigan, Msgr. Francis J. Haas, and Msgr. George Johnson, went about creating textbooks to educate children on American history, literature, mathematics, citizenship, and Christian morals. Some of these works, such as the Madonna Speller series, would not be out of place in a public school, teaching writing, grammar, and spelling; while others like Faith and Our Freedom: This is Our Parish, dealt exclusively with Catholic religious teachings and how they apply to everyday life. Some books contained messages that were considered astonishing for their time. Faith and Freedom: These are Our People has the story of Eddie Patterson inviting his Chinese-American and African-American friends to his birthday party. While some of the language would be considered stereotypical today, CUA archivist Dr. Maria Mazzenga notes that at the time of the books publishing, Jim Crow and the Chinese Exclusion Act were still enforced.

During my time on this project, I was glad for the opportunity to create metadata and use a digital document repository such as Islandora, the software used by the Washington Research Libraries Consortium (WRLC). I had previously only worked with the scanning of documents, leaving the later steps to others, so it was interesting to deal with this part of the archival process. While it was time-consuming and required attention to detail using coding systems such as HTML and XML, the overall process was fairly simple. I believe that alone is an important and vital part of digital archiving. If these systems are to be adopted by libraries and archives, it is vital they be easy to use by both those who create them and those who use them for research.

A heartwarming scene, Faith and Freedom: This is Our Home, 1942, p. 26-27. American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives.

At the same time, this project made me painfully aware of the limitations of digital technology. This project, which only involved scanning 19 works, the longest of which was around 250 pages, took me almost three months to complete. In contrast, the actual creation of metadata and uploading the files to Islandora only took around two days. While obviously larger digitization projects would involve more than just one person working on scanning, it is clear to me time and resources are the main obstacles for digital archiving. To remedy this, institutions might instead benefit by only focusing on certain collections for online digitization. Those items that are most visually interesting, such as the brightly colored and illustrated CAC texts, are some of the best candidates for digitization, as they are likely to draw attention and interest to the larger collection.

The Archivist’s Nook: College Theology Society Offers a New Voice for Teaching Theology

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Certificate of the Title Change of the College Theology Society, 1968

This week’s post is by Elizabeth Siniscalchi.

Theology had a marginal status as an academic discipline for undergraduates until the mid-twentieth century.  Most colleges and universities offered undergraduate courses that taught religion rather than theology, which incited clerics and members of religious orders to create a national organization, the College Theology Society in 1954.  CTS began as the Society of Catholic College Teachers of Sacred Doctrine until 1968 when they decided to become ecumenical and change their name.

They continue to grow today by building a community of theologians through regional and national meetings, annual conventions, and publications.  As a society, CTS exchanges ideas on the variety of ways that scholars can approach theology and religious studies as academic disciplines.  The CTS Records in the Archives at the Catholic University of America show the dynamics of CTS as they have sought to guide the direction in the interpretation of theology and religious studies for undergraduate students, as it aligns with Catholic values in colleges and universities.

Officers of the Society of Catholic College Teachers of Sacred Doctrine. Brother Luke, treasurer; Brother Alban of Mary, president; Most Reverend John M. Fearns, Auxiliary Bishop of New York; Reverend Thomas Donlan, former president; and Sister Rose Eileen, secretary, ca. 1955 (front left to right).

Directing such a path, however, has not been easy.  CTS tackled controversial issues such as autonomy and academic freedom, particularly in 1986 when tension arose with the doctrinal interpretations of Father Charles Curran at CUA.  CTS has initiated a dialogue with other theological societies such as the Council for the Society of Religion, the Joint Committee of Catholic Learned Societies and Scholars, and the International Federation of Catholic Universities in order to define the role of theology as a field that evolves.  Some of the CTS presidential letters in the CUA Archives show that CTS also contacted hierarchs, including Cardinal William W. Baum and Timothy Cardinal Manning as a way to bridge a few of the differences in opinions and perspectives among scholars and bishops.

Within the Society, the variety of perspectives is enriched as well by the extent of CTS members who consist of theology and religious studies professors and students from over 60 colleges and universities in America, Canada, and Europe.  CTS members met throughout the year in nearly every region of America to discuss theological issues that seem to affect the course curriculum from each member’s academic institution.

Fr. Freeman, Fr. Tkacik, Fr. Finn, Fr. Schwegel, Miss Bown, and Sr. Leontine (from left to right) at the second day of sessions of the Organizing Committee for the Missouri-Kansas Region, 1954

In the Washington, DC-Maryland region, for example, CTS members gather from Dumbarton College of Holy Cross, the Dominican House of Study, Immaculata College, Georgetown University, Mount St. Mary’s University, Catholic University, and Trinity College.  Additionally, CTS held a number of their national events in Washington, DC as early as their first national meeting in 1955 at Trinity College.  The national meetings, however, have not been limited to one city by any means, whether they took place in Chicago or Philadelphia, and the national meetings soon turned into Annual Conventions as of 1961.  The Annual Conventions have included noteworthy speakers such as David Tracy and Raimon Panikkar.

As a result of the Annual Conventions, CTS publishes an Annual Volume.  The Annual Volume is a collection of academic papers on the theme from an annual convention, but it considers papers that were not delivered as part of the proceedings as well.  The academic paper, Teologia De La Liberacion Y Marxismo by Enrique Dussel is just one of the typescript drafts that is in the CTS Records.  CTS also publishes an award-winning peer-reviewed journal, Horizons that includes articles, roundtables, and book reviews on a wide range of religious studies and theological topics and their intersection with other fields such as anthropology or ecology.

Delegates to the Second National Meeting at Notre Dame University, 1956

This year, CTS will host its sixty-third Annual Convention on June 4, 2017 at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island where they will discuss American Catholicism in the 21st Century: Crossroads, Crisis, or Renewal?

Elizabeth Siniscalchi processed the CTS Records at the CUA Archives as a graduate student in Library and Information Science at the University of South Florida.  She works with texts and manuscripts in theology and religious studies.

The Archivist’s Nook: World War I on Display

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Two soldiers crossing a pontoon bridge. Robert Lincoln O’Connell Papers.

Author Katherine Santa Ana served as Graduate Library Pre-Professional (GLP), 2015-2017.

This year marks the centenary of the United States entering the “war to end all wars.” Here at the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, our collections preserve the World War I stories of many men and women through the papers, photographs, and objects they left behind. To mark this major event in American history, we assembled a small exhibit in our reading room highlighting the personal postcard collections of two soldiers and photographs from a scrapbook of a field mass, which took place at Camp Gordon, Georgia March 24, 1918.

Postcards of Robert Lincoln O’Connell

Robert Lincoln O’Connell (1888-1972), a soldier who served for two and half years in the American Expeditionary Force (A.E.F.) of World War I, collected these postcards. As a Machinist in Company C, 1st Battalion of the 1st Engineers, O’Connell survived a German U-Boat attack on the way to France in 1917. He served near Toul, France from January 15, 1918 to April 3, 1918, where the 1st Engineers constructed dugouts, command posts, and wire entanglements as well as quarried rock and repaired roads, often while being shelled and gassed. The First Division then shifted to the Aisne-Marne sector, with the 1st Engineers deployed to the Compiegne forest area. Robert was wounded on July 18, 1918 during the first day of the Allied counterattack at Soissons. After recovering, he returned to service in the Meuse-Argonne and served there until the war ended on November 11, 1918.

Postcard of wartime destruction in Baccarat, France. Bruce M. Mohler Papers.

Postcards of Bruce M. Mohler

These images of wartime destruction belonged to Bruce M. Mohler (1881-1967), best known as the director of the National Catholic Welfare Conference’s Department of Immigration from 1920 to 1967. Bruce witnessed the destruction of Europe first hand after joining the American Expeditionary Forces in 1918. A Major on the staff of the Chief Engineer Officer, his responsibilities included overseeing the purifying of drinking water for troops stationed close to the battlefront. After the armistice, he served in the Bordeaux region of France before becoming the U.S. Army’s representative to the American Red Cross relief effort in Poland. When a joint Ukrainian and Polish army liberated Kiev from the Bolsheviks in May of 1920, he took a relief unit, clothing, and food, to the refugees of the war torn city. He stayed there providing relief, until Commander Semyon Mikhailovich Budenny and his troops eventually drove them out. Read more about Bruce Mohler and his wife Dorothy in our previous blog post, “Putting Their Money Where Their Hearts Were.”

Field Mass at Camp Gordon, March 24, 1918. Records of the National Catholic War Council.

Field Mass at Camp Gordon, March 24, 1918

Established in 1917, Camp Gordon served as one of sixteen National Army Training Camps prepared for the entry of the United States into World War I. Located north of Atlanta in DeKalb County, Georgia, it functioned as the training camp for the 82nd U.S. Infantry Division. These photographs depict the Field Mass held on the Camp Gordon parade ground Palm Sunday, 1918. Rt. Rev. Benjamin J. Keiley, Bishop of Savannah, officiated and over 10,000 soldiers attended. These images are part of a scrapbook sent to the Historical Records Committee of the National Catholic War Council by a Camp Gordon chaplain. This special committee was created to maintain a national Catholic archives for the preservation and use of materials dealing with Catholic war activities.

Anyone interested in viewing the display in person are welcome to visit the Archives in Aquinas Hall, Room 101. We are open Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm. For additional information regarding our recent projects to mark the centenary, please see the “Chronicling the U.S. Catholic Experience in the First World War” page on our website and our previous blog post, “For God and Country – American Catholics in the World War.”

The Archivist’s Nook: Visualizing the Archives

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Pie chart of manuscript collections by size.
Click here to interact with the full chart.

Author Katherine Santa Ana served as Graduate Library Pre-Professional (GLP), 2015-2017.

Sometimes, archives get a bad rap. Even more so than libraries, archives are often perceived as closed off and inaccessible. Closed stacks lack the “browsability” of a public library, where patrons can wander among the rows and go where their perusing takes them. In an archive, researchers must navigate a paper or digital finding aid –a detailed inventory of a collection of records—and narrow down their search to particular boxes. Then, they must request a staff member to pull the boxes on their behalf. If browsing a library is like a buffet, researching in an archive is like fishing. You never quite know what you will pull from the depths.

While learning the traditional approaches to archival research is rich and rewarding, for those uninitiated, looking through a finding aid or even a list of collections on an archives’ website can be daunting. Such a long list with so many words. What if there was another way to ease into full blown, archival research?

Data visualization is the presentation of information or data in graphic form; it can encompass a dynamic timeline, a beautiful infographic, or even a simple pie chart. These days, anyone with a WordPress blog or access to Google Analytics is familiar with data visualizations.  Forums celebrating well-designed visualizations, like r/dataisbeautiful to name just one, are flourishing. David McCandless explains it best in his TED Talk, “The Beauty of Data Visualization:”

“There’s something almost quite magical about visual information. It’s effortless, it literally pours in. And if you’re navigating a dense information jungle, coming across a beautiful graphic or a lovely data visualization, it’s a relief, it’s like coming across a clearing in the jungle.”¹

Bubble chart of manuscript collections by size.
Click here to interact with the full chart.

Perhaps archives and special collections can use data visualizations as easy on the eyes gateways into their holdings. After all, archives already have a surplus of data readily available. Most archives create detailed finding aids for their collections, which include important information such as the size of the collection, dates the collection encompasses, other related material, and much more. All archives need to do is gather already existing data and present it in a visually engaging way, and luckily, there are many free tools available to help! Here is how I went about it:

I decided to start with the low hanging fruit. I knew that the finding aids of the manuscript collections at The American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives each include the linear feet and the dates covered by each collection. For the staff here at the archives and perhaps even researchers, it would be intriguing to see how the collection sizes relate to each other and where the collections overlap in time. I also wanted to do a timeline; we have a list of the building dates of many of The Catholic University of America’s campus structures, general information about them, and historic photographs. This data could be of interest to the campus community and alumni if presented in a dynamic timeline.

To create my visualizations, I used two freely available tools: Tableau Public and TimeMapper. The Tableau Public website includes a variety of resources as well as a gallery of other users’ creations for inspiration. TimeMapper is much simpler.  Their website is one page with user instructions and provides a Google Sheet template to enter your data. Timemapper offerss three options to portray your information: on a map, on a timeline, or both. Beautiful in its simplicity, Timemapper is also user friendly. Tableau Public, while a bit more complicated, gives users the flexibility to upload their data in a variety of formats and display it as a bubble chart, histogram, bar chart, and much more. What takes it beyond the average Excel chart is the ability to make a “dashboard” of interrelated charts, which can be dynamic, interactive, and colorful.

Timeline of early Catholic University buildings.
Click here to interact with the full timeline.

Using Tableau Public, I created a chart of Manuscript Collections by Date Range and Size as well as a Manuscript Collections by Size Bubble Chart. Using Timemapper, I created a CUA Early Buildings Timeline. The simple data spreadsheets used to create these visualizations are available below for reference:

Presenting data in this engaging format could help first time researchers visualize an archive and what it holds. At the very least, archive staff members can use data visualizations to view their collections in new ways and discover previously hidden patterns. Data visualizations could be an engaging tool to help archivists and researchers alike explore the information jungle of the archives.

¹McCandless, David. (2010). The beauty of data visualization. TED. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization/transcript?language=en

The Archivist’s Nook: Irish Love Letters from English Prisons

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Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa (center). From the Fenian Brotherhood Records and O’Donovan Rossa Personal Papers.

Author Katherine Santa Ana served as Graduate Library Pre-Professional (GLP), 2015-2017.

“Moll my Love, why don’t you write to me every day? You know it pleases me to get your letters. Did you know the desire I used to have to hear from you before we were married, and did you know how little that desire has weakened you would write to me every day. After these times are passed it is possible they may leave us unable to write to each other.”

So wrote Irish Fenian leader Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa to his wife Mary Jane (“Moll” to him) while confined in an English prison. O’Donovan Rossa and several other Fenian leaders – including James Stephens, John O’Leary, and  Thomas Clarke Luby – were arrested by the British government and charged with treason in 1865. Their poor treatment while imprisoned was immortalized in his book “O’Donovan Rossa’s Prison Life: Six Years in Six English Prisons” in 1874.

Mary Jane and O’Donovan Rossa were married only a year when he was arrested, and their first child together was born 7 months afterwards. O’Donovan Rossa was by no means a model prisoner, and often lost letter and visiting privileges as a result. Mary Jane and their infant son were not permitted to visit until almost a year after the arrest, when little James was three months old. She sent a photograph of herself and the baby, which O’Donovan Rossa never received. After it was returned to her with a note explaining photographs were not permitted, she composed a poem:

Letter excerpt. Richmond Prison, September 25, 1865. From the Fenian Brotherhood Records and O’Donovan Rossa Personal Papers.

Was it much to ask them, Baby,
These rough menials of the Queen,
Was it much to ask to give him
This poor picture, form and mien,
Of the wife he loved, the little soul
He never yet had seen?

Here at the American Catholic Research Center and University Archives, the prison letters of O’Donovan Rossa to Mary Jane are full of longing and love, but also share details of his case and plans for her future. In a letter dated September 25, 1865, O’Donovan Rossa encouraged his wife to pawn his watch and chain to  fund her passage to America. She did, and made something of a sensation on a speaking tour describing the suffering of the Fenian prisoners and reading her nationalist poetry.

August 9, 1870, O’Donovan Rossa wrote a letter laying out his plan to give evidence before the Commission looking into his case. As he worried Mary Jane would not approve of this decision, he explained “I would not leave it in the gentlemen’s power to say that any refusal to give evidence was proof that the statements could not be substantiated.” Both Rossa and his wife had lost much of their hope that he would be released; as he wrote “I am really pleased Moll that you are so strong, that that sickness of expectation + hope deferred is left you, and that you have made up your mind for the worst, for it is only thus that you can act for the best.”

However, in 1870, O’Donovan Rossa and many other Fenians were pardoned with the understanding they could not return to England or Ireland for the remainder of their sentences. In a letter of December 28, 1870, before he knew exactly when he would be released, O’Donovan Rossa wrote one last tender note to his wife:

“I wish that these lines may find you well. Settle down for a few days or it may be a few weeks, but settle so to be ready to start up immediately, since you are willing to remarry one who has nothing to offer you but increased love.”

Jeremiah and Mary Jane “Moll” O’Donovan Rossa would go on to America together and had a total of thirteen children. Their descendants still live in the United States today.

Per the instructions, “The Convict’s writing to be confined to the ruled lines of these two pages,” but O’Donovan Rossa was often in trouble for writing too small and too much on his allocated prison paper. From the Fenian Brotherhood Records and O’Donovan Rossa Personal Papers.
Mary Jane O’Donovan Rossa. From Fáilte Romhat.

 

The Archivist’s Nook: A Very Merry Christmas from the Fathers Hartke and Magner

Posted on by Guest Blogger
In 1972, Rev. Magner’s Christmas card transports us all the way to Jerusalem.
In 1972, Rev. Magner’s Christmas card transports us all the way to Jerusalem.

Author Katherine Santa Ana served as Graduate Library Pre-Professional (GLP), 2015-2017.

In the history of The Catholic University of America, two priests are truly larger than life:  Father Gilbert V. Hartke (1907-1986) and Rev. Msgr. James Magner (1901-1995). Both men served the University community for decades: 28 years for Magner and 37 years for Hartke. Best known for running CUA’s theater program, CUA’s playhouse still bears Father Hartke’s name today, while Rev. Magner was renown on campus for leading world wide tours to such far flung places as Mexico, India, and even behind the Iron Curtain.

“May the joys of Christmas shine brightly for you throughout the New Year.” Signed Lady Bird Johnson and Lyndon B. Johnson, 1967.
“May the joys of Christmas shine brightly for you throughout the New Year.” Signed Lady Bird Johnson and Lyndon B. Johnson, 1967.

Nothing makes these big personalities more human and relatable than the several dozen Christmas cards they’ve left behind. Rev. Magner meticulously kept track of the names and addresses of each person he sent a Christmas card to every year. Here at the Archives, we have many copies of his personal cards from the 1940s to the early 1970s. His cards have a somewhat trademark style drawing on his adventures abroad; they usually involve a solo shot of this well-traveled priest in an exotic location. Some of our favorites include Japan, Costa Rica, Alaska, Jerusalem, and Ireland.

Although show-biz priest Fr. Hartke did not create signature personal Christmas cards, he certainly received them! He received not just one, but a total of five White House Christmas cards from then President Lyndon B. Johnson and First Lady “Lady Bird” Johnson. These large, gold framed Christmas prints showing White House winter scenes remain part of the Archive’s museum collection today.

Merry Christmas to our High Flying Friend!
Merry Christmas to our High Flying Friend!

While we were unable to locate a presidential Christmas card among Rev. Magner’s papers, he did get three impressive hand drawn cards from a devoted pair of ladies. Whoever they were, Helen and Betty really captured something of Rev. Magner’s glamorous, jet setting lifestyle. In one card, a Hawaiian shirt clad Magner climbs into an old fashioned cocktail while another depicts a fez wearing Magner flying a magic carpet and simultaneously smoking hookah.

Judging by their Christmas cards, these two priests effortlessly lead interesting and adventurous lives. These ephemeral items give a glimpse into the personal lives of two men who redefined their roles as priests and did great things for Catholic University in the process. Whether making and receiving Christmas cards or living life to the fullest, each of these men did it in their own memorable way. Merry Christmas from the Fathers Hartke and Magner!