The Neutral Magazine, Michelle Godfrey - May 15, 2013

Today I scanned The Neutral Magazine. This publication had some interesting articles and some of the recurring feature columns were “Strange Characters in Houston”, “Motion Pictures” and “Newsboys’ Department”. The book was bound with some of the pages out of order. One of the issues went up to page 9 correctly then had pages 14/15 next. That was followed by pages 12/ 13, 10/11, and 16/17.

Another issue contained an ad that had the word, 'Lades'. I did not know if that was a typo for ladies or lads. It would definitely be an attention grabber to have the keywords 'ladies', 'soliciting', and 'attractive' in the same ad.

I also started scanning another book for the Port of Houston and got about halfway through it.





Old Vault Letters & Franklin Beauty School - Elaine Patton, 5/13/13

Today's Old Vault letters: MSS0113-b01f15-04, -b01f20-04, and -b01f21-03.

The first letter is again addressed to Eliza Fannin and is so parental in tone, from "you haven't written..." to a quotation advising care of mind over appearance (the unnamed source here) to chastising her to take better care of her teeth (recommendation: rub with pulverized charcoal and a toothbrush). For some reason the last page (with the address) is largely occupied with a list of rulers of England.

The writer inserts forgotten words into the left margin with a ^ added wherever it belonged in the sentence. It was a little confusing to encounter the first time, since (unlike the pictured example) the word belonged further down the line, and I wasn't sure where the extra word was actually meant to go.

The second document is deceptive. It starts out as a typewritten article that had been OCR'd, but near the bottom and on the back of the page is begins handwritten (in smudged pencil)...notes? An addendum? It's a bit messy, and the paper is thin enough that on the back that the type shows through and further muddies things.

The last item was another transfer of property and so-so in difficulty.  Pretty legible with some difficult places helped along by remembering the general language of these things from past documents.

Last box (#49, photos 721-810) of Franklin Beauty School photos went by with no complications. This set had been skipped over initially, and I added them to the spreadsheet in order (I highlighted the left column yellow to distinguish them, since I wasn't sure whether they should be in order or just come at the end).

Sheet music collection - Mary Sommerfeld May 9, 2013

There were a  few challenges along the way today.

But it was fairly productive, rows 192 to 206 were dealt with and 6 new entries added.
That gave a grand total of 20 entries.

I left my USB cable at home so I will be adding some cover art in the next few days.

Old Vault Letters, Michelle Godfrey - May 8, 2013

Today I worked on MSS0113-b01f15-06, -b01f19-04 and -b01f19-05.

The first item was another letter to Eliza Fannin. It had some condition issues, including a large hole in the paper. The pages were scanned in such a way that the endings of some of the lines rolled onto the next page and looked like they were part of the text there. With both pages side by side, it was possible to make out some of those questionable areas.

The second and third items were actually part of the same letter but the pages were out of order. We previously worked on a portion of the letter a few weeks ago. It was easy to recognize because of the letterhead on the stationary.

Old Vault Letters and Litterst Dixon Photographs - Elaine Patton, 5/6/2013

Today I reviewed the letters Michelle worked on previously, MSS0113-b01f13-01, -b01f15-02 , and -b01f15-03. Not much for me to add (though I think I actually had to add some misspellings to the second letter!). The second and third letters are part of the correspondence between Eliza Fannin and her family (-b01f13-01 dated 2 years after -b01f15-02). Her education was obviously paying off-- such a difference in style and spelling between her letter and the one from her father!

(He charmingly refers to influenza as "influenzy" a couple of times in his letter: )

The Litterst Dixon photographs were great, though one image was mislabeled. MSS1248-2910 was supposed to have been the Preston Hotel but was instead a duplicate of MSS1248-2911.

Just for fun, another comparison photo with modern/historic Houston. As near as I can tell, this is the same area on Main Street (the red flag possibly being where the movie theaters had been in the first modern photo; where the Kirby theater had been and looking from the opposite direction in the second modern photo), 1930 vs 2011:

 

(A 1961 postcard photo is shown on this page about the theaters.)

Sheet Music Collection, Mary Sommerfeld May 1, 2013

Working with the sheet music found on the 5th floor.
I worked through 19 entries (row 172 to row 191).
I also added in 3 new entries to the spread sheet.

One of the folders contained two different covers for the same music.
What was interesting was that each were published in the same year and stated the song was featured in two different shows.

The other cover that stood out has a very pleasant picture. The song title "The Children of the Clouds" refers to raindrops.

 

 



 

Old Vault Letters, Michelle Godfrey - May 1, 2013

Today I switched to the group of letters Elaine previously completed which included MSS0113-b01f12-08, -b01f15-01, and –b01f15-05. I only found a few extra words to add since she had done a great job getting everything else figured out.   

The first document was like the one last week with the property sale listing an endless list of block and lot numbers. 

Our second letter was not in the best condition and was obviously really old, unfortunately, there was not a date written on it anywhere so it's a mystery as to when it was written.

The last letter written to Eliza Fannin seems to be connected to one of the letters I worked on last week (-b01f15-05).  Both letters mentioned the same things about clothing, especially underclothes, traveling to Salem for a visit, and family news updates.