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Sitting with Woody:
The Northeast Document Conservation Center
Helps Preserve Access to Original Materials at the Woody Guthrie Archives
Story and photos by
Julie Martin, NEDCC
Woody Guthrie was not only a prolific and iconic songwriter and documenter of American culture from the 1930s through the 1950s, he also produced a vast creative legacy of artwork, journals, notebooks, letters, and detailed scrapbooks. When he died in 1967 of Huntington’s Disease, he left nearly 3,000 songs unrecorded.
| The collection is now more accessible to musicians, artists, scholars, and others who visit the Archives to find inspiration while “sitting with Woody.” |
Many visitors to the Woody Guthrie Archives are powerfully moved when they find themselves sitting in the presence of manuscripts in Guthrie’s handwriting, his original artwork, and other unique ephemera that he carefully pasted into scrapbooks over the years. The extensive and eclectic collection is now more accessible to musicians, artists, scholars, and others who come to the Archives to find inspiration while “sitting with Woody.” Due to the preservation efforts of dedicated archivists and administration at the nonprofit Archives, these original materials will remain available for future generations of researchers of American culture.
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The Woody Guthrie Foundation was established in 1972 by Woody’s wife, Marjorie Mazia Guthrie. Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter, is now the driving force behind the preservation and dissemination of information about Woody Guthrie’s significant cultural legacy. Since 1996, the Foundation has served as administrator and caretaker of the Woody Guthrie Archives, the largest and foremost collection of Woody Guthrie material in the world. The Archives and Foundation have recently moved to a new facility in Mt. Kisco, NY. |
| Nora Guthrie shows NEDCC staff one of Woody Guthrie’s illustrated notebooks during her visit to the Center in Andover, MA, to deliver some of the Archives’ materials for conservation treatment and digitization. |
PLANNING FOR THE PRESERVATION
OF THE WOODY GUTHRIE COLLECTION
Preserving the Woody Guthrie collection has been a main objective since the Foundation was first established. As a result of ongoing consultations with Deb Wender, the Northeast Document Conservation Center's (NEDCC) Director of Book Conservation, Guthrie Archives Curator Jorge Arévalo Mateus succeeded in shepherding the Archives through a preservation planning process that included an initial site visit, consultations on specific materials, and a formal preservation planning survey, conducted in 2006 by NEDCC Preservation Services Representative Rebecca Hatcher.
NEDCC’s preservation survey report included recommendations on the Archives’ collection environment as well as other collections-care issues such as storage and handling procedures, security, and emergency preparedness planning. The survey helped prioritize the materials in most need of conservation treatment, based on their condition, their importance to the collection, and their frequency of use.
NEDCC’s recommendations were used as the basis for a successful grant application and award in 2009 from the prestigious Institute of Museum and Library Services and administered through the New York State Education Department. Jorge Arévalos Mateus was instrumental in securing the grant, which allowed the Archives to proceed with the much-needed preservation and conservation work.
CONSERVATION TREATMENT AT NEDCC
RESULTS IN NEW ACCESS TO MATERIALS
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NEDCC’s Director of Paper Conservation Walter Newman tests inks for solubility on a loose page from one of the scrapbooks. The page contains a drawing by Woody, a fragment of writing, and a playbill for a performance by “Brownie McGhee (Blind Boy Fuller No. 2).” |
The Northeast Document Conservation Center recently completed conservation treatment and digitization of six unique scrapbooks kept by Guthrie and other family members, chronicling his life and career as he traveled through Oklahoma, Texas, California, New York, and Florida. The scrapbooks contain original family photographs as well as artwork, telegrams, ticket stubs, postcards, and other ephemera documenting his travels among the music greats of the 1940s and 1950s. The scrapbooks also include several rejection letters from major record labels that Guthrie carefully saved along with everything else.
When NEDCC’s Senior Photograph Conservator Monique Fischer was removing photographs from one of the scrapbooks for cleaning, she discovered that there were captions on the back of many of the photographs. These inscriptions, not seen since the day the scrapbook was created, have identified people and places that were previously unknown to the Archives. “It has changed the way we research,” says Guthrie Archivist Tiffany Colannino, “and solved more than a few mysteries.”
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Left caption reads: Your "Purtiest" son, George Right Caption reads: Jan. 1943, Phoenix, Ariz |
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| I am not asleep either! I ain't mad either! Its just the sun. |
Roy- |
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The conservation treatment of this portion of the Archives will dramatically increase researchers’ access to this treasure trove of American cultural history. In fact, as a result of NEDCC’s conservation treatment, some of the scrapbooks are now available to be viewed and handled for the first time in many years. Several of the scrapbooks were so fragile that not even Archivist Tiffany Colannino had been able to examine them fully. After treatment and encapsulation by NEDCC, Ms. Colannino said, “It is like someone went back in time and gave us back our scrapbooks. It’s a miracle!”
A NEW WOODY GUTHRIE PUBLICATION IS LAUNCHED
AS A RESULT OF EXPANDED ACCESS TO MATERIALS
The Woody Guthrie Archives is presently working on a new project that will take locals and tourists alike on a tour of 19 places throughout New York City where Woody Guthrie lived, worked, and played. My Name Is New York: A Guide to Folksinger Woody Guthrie's Residences in New York City from 1940–1967, will launch as a pocket-sized guide in Spring 2011.
The guidebook highlights over 75 original items from the Archives, such as never-before-published photographs, lyrics, and artwork by Woody Guthrie, documenting the 27 years he spent in New York City. The book will include a multi-CD audio companion with historic interviews, narration, and newly recorded Guthrie songs about New York City. Of particular importance when researching this guidebook was Scrapbook #3, Guthrie's personal collection of letters, photographs, and drawings, which he compiled during his first years in New York City.
“As a result of the conservation treatment of the scrapbooks at NEDCC,” Ms. Colannino explains, “this 230-page scrapbook, which had previously been restricted, is now accessible to researchers in the Archives. It contains a wealth of newly unearthed biographical and personal information about Guthrie and his friends and associates during this time, including musicians Leadbelly, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Pete Seeger, Alan Lomax, and many, many others.”
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“This 230-page scrapbook, which had previously been restricted, is now accessible to researchers in the Archives. It is like someone went back in time and gave us back our scrapbook. It’s a miracle!” - Tiffany Colannino, Archivist |
DIGITIZATION OF WOODY GUTHRIE MATERIALS
STREAMLINES RESEARCH AT THE ARCHIVES
The Northeast Document Conservation Center’s Imaging Services department also digitized over 4,000 pages of the Archives' collection of journals and notebooks, a series of composition books, pocket diaries, and other blank books in which Guthrie collected his song lyrics. Many notebooks include original writings and artwork by Guthrie. As Nora Guthrie describes them: “Woody expressed himself in many different ways - as a songwriter, a writer of fiction, journalist, illustrator, and a furious letter writer. The notebook and diary entries are much more personal and intimate than many of his song lyrics which often deal with political and current events. I have the feeling that he was so comfortable writing in a ‘lyric’ style that even his thoughts regarding his personal and daily life often have a lyric quality.”
The Archives is working on new procedures for accessing the digital versions of the originals. “We hope to be able to deliver the digitized material to remote researchers in a way that mirrors the procedures followed by in-house researchers,” explains Ms. Colannino. Currently, researchers interested in working in the Woody Guthrie Archives are asked to complete an “Application for Research Form” prior to visiting the Archives. Information on the Archives’ research policy can be found at www.woodyguthrie.org/archives/policy.htm.
Digitization of the materials has streamlined the way the Archives’ original materials are accessed. Ms. Colannino stresses that the digital files will never replace the immediacy of the in-person visits to the Archives. But she has found that the digital thumbnails are very useful in helping visitors decide which items, among the thousands held in the collection, they would like to see, thereby saving time and focusing the visitor’s research experience.
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In one of NEDCC’s custom imaging studios, Senior Photographer David Joyall prepares to digitize one of Woody Guthrie’s personal notebooks. |
NEDCC’s Imaging Services Lab uses only flash photography to avoid the duration and heat exposure of continuous lighting common with other methods of digitization. |
WOODY GUTHRIE ARCHIVES – A CULTURAL LEGACY PRESERVED
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The purpose of the Woody Guthrie Archives is to preserve Woody Guthrie's personal material, to collect Woody Guthrie-related materials, and to make them available to researchers interested in the cultural legacy of this unique artist. The Archives contains a wealth of research material pertinent to the study of Woody Guthrie and his life and times in America during the 20th century. The Foundation and Archives rely solely on generous contributions from individuals who share their goals and ideals. Donations to the Archives can be made online via their website.
The Woody Guthrie Archives staff has helped ensure the longevity of the Woody Guthrie collection by doing their “preservation homework,” and by planning and carrying out the activities required to protect the original works of this legendary artist who inspired musicians such as Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, Jonatha Brooke, and many others.
“Woody is just Woody,” wrote John Steinbeck. “Thousands of people do not know he has any other name. He is just a voice and a guitar.... But there is something more important for those who still listen. There is the will of a people to endure and fight against oppression. I think we call this the American spirit.”
View a photo essay on the conservation treatment of the Woody Guthrie Archives materials at the Northeast Document Conservation Center. |
Or view the slide show above. [To view full screen, click the arrow icon on the lower right. Click "show info" to view captions.] |