Meet Nels C. Nelson
Today Kelly and I continued our Phase 2 work in the Anthropology Archives. The beginning of the day was business as usual, and we made our way through a majority of Room 1. The last collection we looked at is the one that really caught our eye, belonging to Nels Christian Nelson. Nelson was a long-time employee at AMNH, serving in a number of curatorial positions at the Museum. He was also President of the American Anthropological Association, President of the Society for American Archaeology, President of the American Ethnological Society, and Vice President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
While we had written about mixed collections before, this one takes the cake! It was a mammoth collection made up of all different formats: papers, correspondence, photographs, negatives, lantern slides, maps, field journals, and film.
There were over 2,500 photographs and most were curling and brittle, even with sleeves. Luckily they are being digitized, so researchers can still access them despite their deteriorating condition. The maps were also in pretty poor shape, many were too brittle to be unrolled. However, the lantern slides and negatives appeared to be in good condition, with surprisingly no cracks and very little fading. Needless to say, it took us some time to go through and properly assess this collection, but is a great example of the different kinds of materials that make up each collection in the Anthropology Archives.
Archives
Describing Expeditionary field work at the AMNH
These posts describe recent discoveries and observations by the project team.In 2012, the Research Library of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) was awarded a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, through a program administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources’ (CLIR) Cataloging Hidden Collections. The AMNH Archive Project will produce in-depth descriptions, called finding aids, for major archival collections relating to Museum expeditions. The project will also result in brief histories of these expeditions and biographies of those who participated in them.
Available Finding Aids (PDF)
Recent Comments
- Andrew Waddington on CLIR 2010 Project Team
- Paul V. Guizzardi on Exploring geographic expedition exhibition records
- Tom Norris on Dr. Albert E Parr Museum Director 1942-1959
- Joseph R Ornig on Theodore Roosevelt and the AMNH
- Joe Kish on Dr. Albert E Parr Museum Director 1942-1959
Authors
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Ainu AMNH library catalog Anthropology Archives Archbold Archival Arrangement Authority Names CAT Cataloging CLIR 2010 clir 2012 Correspondence Crocker Land Department of Preparation and Installation Department Records EAC-CPF expeditions Fall 2011 Field Notes Finding Aid finding aids Hayden Planetarium Herpetology Archives hidden connections IMLS LARA linked data Mammalogy Archives Manuscript Collection Maps Museum History Non-Curatorial Field Notes Ornithology Archives Paleontology Archives Phase 2 photographs Photo Print Collection Processing Research Library Risk Assessment Slide Collection Spring 2011 Spring 2012 Summer 2011 Summer 2012 T. Don CarterLinks to Related Sites
- Encoded Archival Context – Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF)
- Bowdoin College Crocker Land Expedition Blog
- PACSCL Hidden Collections Processing Project
- Smithsonian Institution Field Book Project
- Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History Archives and Special Collections Blog
- Metropolitan New York Library Council
- Linked Data