Persevering at Preservation
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| Clara Kuck's Photo Album |
My first order of business upon receiving the albums belonging to Clara Elizabeth Kuck was to preserve them. I started with the photo album by carefully taking apart the album which was fairly easy since it was one of those expandable ones of the era but did require some gentleness since it is over 100 years old. Once apart, I did a high resolution scan of all 75 pages front and back along with the covers front and back. I did this once before with my great grandfather's World War I photo album which was in much worse shape and eventually put all the scans into an online book using Shutterfly that allowed me to see the exact layout and all the pictures as the original album but in new condition. I'm not sure I'll do that with this book but at least I have the option. I would have liked to be able to remove the photos from the album and do individual scans of some of them but time has welded them in place and the fragile pieces that hold the photos in place simply rip off, at least the one I tried. I would like to see if there is writing on the back as there was on the one I tested and some of the loose ones but I don't want to destroy the album in the process. For now though, I am not going to do so.
I have then moved onto the post card album which has surprised me a bit. Not only are the postcard pictures themselves of a historic time in Germany's history, but many of the backs have messages written on them. Some from Clara herself explaining the contents of the picture or how her life meshes with it and some from others writing her. I have found some that have comments on the contents of the day be it a future emperor or one that mentions the disaster of the Titanic which had just sank. For sure, there is lots of material, perhaps years worth, for future blog posts. But as much as I want to stop after each photo or each post card and crank out a post with my musings, I am focusing on preservation of everything first. The post cards are a ton of work as there is probably 75 pages of them with three cards on each side of the page which makes 12 high resolution scans which probably means 30 minutes of work without much pause. I'm not sure how long that means it will take but I know it will take me days if not a week or so to get through them all.
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| Clara Kuck's Postcard Album |
Whoa. Very impressive.
ReplyDeleteIt has been a lot of work.
DeleteWhat a nice collection of postcards! What a treasure!
ReplyDeleteAlthough the pictures are great and a treasure, I have enjoyed the postcards even more!
DeleteThat is so very cool that you do this sort of work for folks. I think the post cards especially are extra special! It was interesting that I had to a bit of a double take on the 021A photo.... the little glimpse I saw.... looked enough like how I did back when I was young.... that in my mind the thought flashed "What the heck am I doing in this album?!?!" Haha. It is funny how the mind can sometimes play tricks like that.
ReplyDeleteI found your blog as you are an internet friend of AC (as am I). I thought visiting other blogs might help me find more interesting things to read. I am hoping to return here regularly.
Thank you!
PipeTobacco
Well if you are a German orchestra composer and maybe in your 150's, it could very well be you!
DeleteOld postcards are indeed a treasure. I still write postcards because I'm OLD. You are impressive in your research and attention to preservation.
DeleteWrong blog address on my prior comment--oops!
DeleteI sometimes wonder if it is worth it and if it will survive another generation or two. I hedge my bets by putting some of it online, such as this blog, so that others may someday find them and know they existed.
DeleteI am trying to click on the individual post cards but I don't think I can. And I can't make the overall picture big enough to read them on my phone! I am looking forward to your blog posts on these. It's like you found buried treasure
ReplyDeleteSorry for the confusion but essentially you are just seeing a picture of my File Explorer folder where they are stored. I will create future posts where I will feature a number of pictures and postcards and you will be able to enlarge them and read what was written.
DeleteWhat a fascinating collection of images! I can't wait to see more. I love your idea of scanning the pages and re-creating them in a modern book via Shutterfly. I have my great-aunt's scrapbook and could do the same with that -- maybe I should!
ReplyDeleteThis album is in very good shape for being 110+ years old. I am undecided it I want to spend the money to do it right now because it does cost quite a bit. My great grandfather's World War I album of approximately the same age was in horrible shape and falling apart so I had no choice if I wanted to refer to it more often than a single time.
DeleteThat's a lot of amazing information. It fell into good hands.
ReplyDeleteI was really lucky.
DeleteThat is a lot of amazing work which is preserving a lot of history.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes wonder how long my efforts will go beyond me, if at all. But I enjoy it so I guess I would still do it even if the answer was not far.
DeleteGood gosh! That is an incredible amount of work. I hope you can then put it all into a photobook with your detailed information for your descendants. But in addition to that, download it onto some kind of back-up drive that can be passed on also.
ReplyDeleteAll my work in continuously and automatically backed up to the cloud these days so it has a fighting chance of living on for another generation.
DeleteI think blogging your work here is a great idea. My husband is the genealogy buff in the family, and he has created FB groups to share his photo scanning and history recording with family members. I think a blog might have more permanence than FB, but he has greatly enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteThe big benefit is that someone else searching for that person might discover it someday. It has happened to me over a dozen times and I’ve always ended up learning new things about my ancestors.
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