Hello everybody!
So I actually only managed to look up one of the things on my list, but I did look up a few different things that I'll be writing about today. First though: The item I looked up was the Addressograph. Which, funny enough, does exactly what it's name implies. Who knew? The Addressograph, known by many other names such as the address machine, was used by advertising companies, and also the mail service, to put addresses on items! For example, if you had a large list of subscribers to your magazine you could just put the address on the machine and then stamp it onto labels. It made it easier for publishing companies to send their magazines to a large group of people. I'm not exactly sure what they would have used before the Addressograph. However, I do know that there were two types. A manual machine that was created in the far back in 1859, however the machine that the museum houses is probably from around 1892-1896. (I'll have to get a better look at it.) Later in the 1900s electric adressographs were created.
So right now I am doing the inventory for this museum and I'm putting everything into Past Perfect. I had a chance to go over the manual of this program and I discovered a few things. All of the items that had been entered into Past Perfect were entered off of index cards that the museum had used previously. There were no locations put down into the program! So that means I have to locate everything on my own. Well that opened up a bigger problem. Not only were there no locations put in, no one had drawn up/thought up a plan so that things could be assigned locations. So last Friday I spent the day walking around the museum and drawing a map, kinda, of where everything was located, assigning shelf numbers, and so on and so forth. I got the basement done and the 1st floor, but I messed up my count on the 2nd floor, because its a bit confusing and messy up there. So deciding to get started on the amazing number of artifacts that I had to inventory, I'm leaving the map for upstairs until I'm ready to tackle it.
Another thing I noticed, while reading the manual, was that nobody had measured any of the artifacts. And of course, there are no pictures of them either. So I have to take the pictures and measure the artifacts. So I went to the museum on Tuesday and I thought, okay, I'm gonna get right to work measuring these artifacts. Only problem, they're behind glass! So I asked the director of the museum how to get into a few of the cases. (I still have to ask him, about getting into the wall cases.) So we grabbed one of those suction cup holder things and a screwdriver and walked over to the case. These cases were donated by a local... gosh I can't remember the type of school it was but it's kinda like a trade school. They're not really museum friendly. The glass for the panes, is really thin. It's also really hard to get off. And if you're a small girl like me....
Well lets just say. I broke one of the panes of glass putting it back in the case. Luckily the director was trying to help me, and had just been telling me he wanted to put safety glass in the case. So that's one pane of glass they'll be replacing right away. These cases are so long and so tall and so difficult! I could only get about half of the artifacts measured on the second shelf. I didn't bother with the bottom shelf because some locally made flint points were down there and it would've taken all day to get done with those. I got about 5 artifacts measured on the top shelf but two of them were cloth and I just wasn't sure how I was going to measure them. The only way I could've gotten more artifacts measured from there was if I had climbed into the case myself. I'm not that sure it wouldn't have come crashing down, so I didn't do that.
Finally frustrated with these cases I turned to the walls and looked at the glass and I think I know how to get one off, but I'll have to ask the director before I damage something else. : d So instead I turned to underneath the wall shelves. Underneath these wall shelves are a bunch of artifacts that aren't really easy to see, because of how low it is. It might be worth it to make a small exhibit for little kids so that they can see some of the stuff. But other than that, the director and I are thinking that it would be best to put some doors of curtain there, in order to create a storage space. But before that I have to measure everything under those. I got about one done, before finally, all the dust had gotten to me. (I'm trying to dust off the artifacts as I go, and the shelves they're on, because its a pretty thick layer.)
After writing down the measurements for those artifacts, I spent 2 hours putting about half of them into the system. I did my best to track down any maker's marks of anything definitive so I could put some information and history down in the description and note fields. So here is some of what I found:
The best artifact I saw Tuesday was a Brush blade, also known as a Bank blade, with WPA inscribed on the handle. This dates the artifact to around the 1930s. It was most likely used by the Works Progress Administration to cut down brush, or to give out of work surveyors a job. (The bank blade is a surveying tool. Information found on this site: http://www.americantrails.org/resources/info/tools3.html)
The second coolest object I found was a hide stretcher. I can't find anything on the company that made it. But its a tool used by trappers to stretch the hide of animals they kill so that it can be made into something. I thought that was pretty awesome.
That's all for today. Tomorrow I head back to the museum.
(Information on the Addressograph found here: http://www.earlyofficemuseum.com/mail_machines.htm)
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