Objects as Evidence: Quilted Pillow Cover

In this blog post, I will be using Prown’s model for object analysis to explore an item that has personal significance to me.

I have chosen to use one of a pair of quilted pillow covers that I made last year as part of my early forays into the world of quilting. Although there isn’t anything blatantly personal about it, for me it shows an important milestone in mastering a new craft.

Description: The pillow cover shown below is 16×16 inches (approximately 40x40cm). It is made of quilting cotton in contrasting colors, and cotton batting behind the front. It has what is called an envelope style backing. It is not heavily quilted, just a line inside each shape to reinforce the shapes as shown. There is some irregularity in how the pieces fit together, so not all the points are sharp.

Deduction: What may not be immediately obvious to someone unfamiliar with quilting is that the front was made from two 10 inch pieces of the white cotton, and two 10 inch pieces of the patterned cotton. Those squares of different colors were sewn together and then cut apart into half-square triangles in a technique quilters call the Magic Eight (I’ve included a picture below of what half-square triangles look like, and how they are cut out of the Magic Eight). Those half-square triangles were then sewn together to make the diamond shapes you can see on the pillow. There was a certain amount of pattern matching that went into making sure that the pattern ended up running the same direction in the final product. I’ve included a link to the YouTube tutorial I followed to make this project if anyone is interested in seeing it.

This object is has significance to me in several ways. Firstly, it is part of my collection of completed crafts projects, and something I made myself to match my living room furniture at the time. It is also a record of the first time I successfully completed a quilting project, learning new skills that are evidenced in the piece itself. I have two of these pillow covers, and they are important enough to me, and I am happy enough with my work on them that I brought them overseas with me.

Picture from Suzy Quilts

Speculation: I think that some of the significance of the object to me would not be evident to someone else looking at it not knowing where it came from. The errors made in the creation of it (i.e. the points not matching up and the simple, slightly uncertain stitching) would probably let someone familiar with quilting know that it was made by a novice quilter. However, the significance it has as my first time doing an actual quilting project would be lost. Also, there is no way to identify where it was made or by whom, because it isn’t signed anywhere and doesn’t have identifying marks of any kind. The materials themselves are quite generic and available from any number of places across the globe. I think if it were found here in Scotland it would be quite reasonable to assume that it was made here, rather than brought from overseas.

This has been a very interesting exercise in how much of the significance and history of our objects would be evident to a hypothetical person looking at them in the future. While the item I chose might reveal more than many mass-produced items might, a great deal of its story is lost unless recorded in some way outside of the object itself.

References

Prown, Jules David. “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method.” Winterthur Portfolio 17, no. 1 (1982): 1-19. Accessed November 14, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1180761.

Smartphones: Portability and Multi-functionality

When we think about smartphones, whether iPhone, Android, Samsung Galaxy, etc. we think of them in terms of how many different things we can do from this one device. The newest models are lightyears away from the first smartphones in terms of how many things they can do and how well they do them, but even with the first iterations of the technology did the job that you previously needed multiple devices to do, and combined that with portability–you could simply put it in your pocket and go.

“iPhone 1” by Ian D is licensed under CC BY 2.0 | “Papercraft iPhone 11 Pro Space Gray” by It’s Charlie is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

While Blackberry phones existed prior to the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007, for my generation the iPhone was the first smartphone that we were really aware of. I’ve put pictures of what the home screen for the iPhone 1 and then recent iPhone 11 above, and you can see that even with the first iPhone Apple was combining several different technologies into one: phone calls, text messages, email, music, camera, clock, calendar, and GPS just to name the ones that jump out at me here. The list has expanded exponentially as the the technology advanced and Apple started to support 3rd party apps on their platform.

Now, we can do just about everything from our phones that we would have needed a computer or other technology to do before. The leaps and bounds in the camera alone has meant that unless you are a professional photographer or its a major hobby for you, there is no need for a traditional DSLR camera like the ones sold by Canon and Nikon. We keep track of our whole lives from these phones, from the prosaic side of communicating by phone or text, to banking, paying for things through services like Apple Pay, sending emails, social media, surfing the internet and a seemingly endless array of other things, all based on the basic innovations that the smartphone provides, multi-functionality and portability.

I do find it interesting that my choice of transformative technology overlaps with the choices that other people have made in that smartphones either replaced them or was necessary for their technologies to exist. MP3 players are now all but extinct, most people don’t own cameras outside of the one in their phone, Spotify was made to be used on smartphones, etc. That in itself is a sort of lesson on the nature of technological obsolescence–smartphones were so transformative in large part because they they made so many other technologies obsolete, and kickstarted the creation of so many new technologies to keep up with the rapidly changing platform.

I still have some of the data that was on my first iPhone in the form of music I bought on iTunes and pictures I had taken. To be frank, that is something of a miracle, and is only possible because I have long been somewhat paranoid about losing the data and so backed it up regularly. My phone is backed up to iCloud currently, just as my computer is backed up on an external hard drive. It’s an interesting dilemma, actually. If I forget the passwords I used for iCloud and can’t recover them, how do I then get the data back in case of my phone dying a sudden death? The advent of iCloud as a storage option instead of backing the iPhone up to iTunes certainly made some things feel more unstable in that sense.

The Newberry – Research and Social Conscience

Founded in 1887, the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois is a research library primarily focused on the humanities. The physical collections comprise of around 1.6 million books, 600,000 maps, and 5 million manuscript pages spanning from the Middle Ages to the present according to their website. The library is open to the public as well as academics and researcher. Its primary stated purpose is supporting research, learning and teaching in the humanities.

“The Newberry’s community of discovery is driven by a shared commitment to promoting research, inspiring learning, and using inquiry across the humanities as a tool to engage critically in a vibrant democratic society.” (source) Image by Richie Diesterheft

The library’s website is obviously geared towards research and academia, with a multitude of links to the collections and very clear information about all the available ways to access them and how to use them. There is an admirably clear page about copyright and re-use of material from the collections in a section on the website entitled Services for Readers and Researchers. There are also many resources for local genealogy researchers, adult learners, teachers, etc. Even with the focus on humanities research, they go to a good deal of trouble to create avenues for interest in the library for the general public from access to their reading rooms to a service on the website where you can reach out to the library with questions. There are also instructions on how to donate personal collections to the library, and how those are evaluated.

There is also an entire page in the About section on the website dedicated to acknowledging that the land the library sits on were native lands inhabited by several different tribes. The library also houses extensive collections of materials on tribal history and culture. According to the “Land Acknowledgment” the library is committed to keeping sight of that historical context and building “reciprocal relationships with the tribal nations on whose lands we are situated”. Combined with the statement quoted above, it seems evident that this is an institution is one dedicated not only to research but also to the role of learning and critical thought as essential to being part of a healthy, multicultural, democratic society. The library hosts and annual debate on current social issues, and as of today, three out of the next six events posted on the library’s website have some bearing on sociopolitical life. One of those is a symposium on how indigenous people interact with and contribute to archives and museums. Programs and Events

Image from Wikipedia Commons

I find that the website for the Newberry Library gives a very clear picture of the history and priorities of the library, as well as clear and easily navigable resources for anyone looking to access the collections and various other resources, whether in person or digitally. I really appreciate that the Newberry seems to be more involved in the world than some purely academic institutions are, and that they acknowledge and embody the intersectionality between knowledge acquisition, awareness of history, and being involved citizens in wider society. It’s an interesting example of an archive that has embraced social responsibility rather than cling to the idea of the archive as impartial. At the Newberry, the archive has currency, currency that can and should be leveraged.

Sources:

“Newberry Library.” [n.d.]. Twitter.Com <https://twitter.com/NewberryLibrary&gt;

“The Newberry – Chicago’s Independent Research Library since 1887.” [n.d.]. Newberry.Org <https://newberry.org&gt;

Fires at the Library of Congress, Malicious and Accidental

The discussions we have had this week about the disasters that can occur with archives has encouraged me to consider how we think about them. Often when we think of disasters that might befall archive or library collections, we think of natural disasters such as floods, tornados, and hurricanes; otherwise we think of destruction caused by accident or human error. We don’t think as often of intentional destruction caused by humans in the same way, which is in some ways surprising given how often human conflict begets destruction or pillaging of cultural resources.

Drawing of the Capital Building after burning by British soldiers, 1814 | Library of Congress

The United States Library of Congress has endured two massive fires within the first fifty years of its existence. The first of these was during the War of 1812 when British troops set fire to the then unfinished Capitol building which was housing the collection at the time. This occurred on August 24, 1814, in conjunction with the burning of the White House by the invading British troops. While the exterior of the building survived as seen in the drawing above, the interior was heavily damaged and the entire collection of around 3000 volumes was destroyed. Interestingly, in order to replace the collection, Congress bought former president Thomas Jefferson’s entire collection of 6,487 books in 1815, and hired a professional librarian for the first time.

The second large fire in the Library of Congress was in December of 1851, and destroyed about two thirds of the 55,000 volume collection, including over half of the volumes that had come from Thomas Jefferson. The library has been working to find replacements for those lost volumes ever since, starting with money allocated by Congress in 1852. At this time the Library of Congress was still housed in the Senate wing of the Capitol building, and would continue to do so until the opening of the Thomas Jefferson Building in 1897.

Construction of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 1893 | Library of Congress

The major fires that the Library of Congress endured in its early years have served to inform efforts to reduce risk and to plan for emergencies. At different times in history this has meant different things. After the first fire and a minor one in 1825, the Architect of the Capitol was requested to look into fire retardant materials. In recent years, the library has invested significant time and money in fire prevention efforts including laboratory research on fire suppression techniques, as well as salvage in case of fire. They also advocate what their website calls a “Continuity of Operations” plan that takes into account emergency planning as well as mitigation, recovery and salvage of the collections.

I also found reference to a project carried out in 2019 by the office of the Architect of the Capitol to replace 77 stair doors with fire-rated replicas and changing the directions some of the other doors open in order to improve egress in case of fire. The process of removing one of those doors is pictured here.

All in all, it seems that the librarians in charge of the Library of Congress have learned from the disasters of the past, and hopefully in the unlikely case that another such disaster occurs they will be better prepared to protect the enormous collections from destruction.

Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson building | Pixabay

Further Resources

“An 1825 Library of Congress Fire.” [n.d.]. House.Gov <https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1800-1850/An-1825-Library-of-Congress-fire/> [accessed 2 October 2020]

“Fire Egress at the Library of Congress.” [n.d.]. Aoc.Gov <https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/blog/fire-egress-library-congress> [accessed 2 October 2020]

“History of the Library of Congress.” [n.d.]. <https://www.loc.gov/about/history-of-the-library/> [accessed 2 October 2020]History.com Editors. 2010.

“Fire Ravages Library of Congress,” History.Com<https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fire-ravages-library-of-congress> [accessed 2 October 2020]

“Library of Congress Wise Guide: In Case of Fire.” [n.d.]. Loc.Gov<https://www.loc.gov/wiseguide/dec07/fire.html> [accessed 2 October 2020]

“Out of the Ashes: A New Library for Congress and the Nation.” [n.d.]. Loc.Gov<https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/out-of-the-ashes/online-exhibition.html> [accessed 2 October 2020]