Hoover Wikipedians

The archival community has been slow to embrace Wikipedia, whereas the Hoover Archives staff have been adding information about Hoover's archival collections to Wikipedia for more than two years. Usually a simple entry is made in the "External links" section, which refers readers to the Hoover Archives, such as the following example in Wikipedia's Firing Line entry: "The Firing Line collection (with a program list and RealVideo clips) from the Hoover Institution Archives." We've added a lot of these links, from the entry about Boris Pasternak to one about Chiang Kai-shek so as to connect Wikipedia users to our collections.

Adding such links makes sense. Wikipedia entries rise to the top of the results of most search engine queries, with Wikipedia referring a chunk of traffic to the Hoover website. In addition, college students are frequent users of Wikipedia, according to an article in First Monday, which says that a majority of students always or frequently consult it for course-related research, usually for background information about a topic and to get started with research. The article was based on a study of how college students seek information. To reach out to students, then, there's no better place for the Hoover Archive's presence than this go-to source for those commencing their research.

Excerpt from Wikipedia's Firing Line entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firing_Line)

What Rhymes with Hungry?

Too often, the experiences and accomplishments of women in wartime remain hidden between the lines of diaries and letters or behind the shining medals of decorated generals. I was fortunate to learn the story of one such amazing woman when I processed the Marie Adams papers.

Marie Adams arrived in Manila in 1941 as a field director for the American Red Cross. Soon afterward, the war reached the shores of the Philippines, meaning that Adams and thousands of civilians became prisoners of war of the Japanese at Santo Tomás Internment Camp.

According to the letters she received from friends and family, Adams was loved by many and dedicated to her work with the Red Cross. As an internee, she suffered from both hunger and disease; however, she bravely put her pain aside to tend to the physical and psychological wounds of her fellow internees.

With limited access to food or communication with the outside world, Adams used poetry to document her experiences at the internment camp and relieve her suffering. Her poems capture her resiliency and sense of humor, even in the face of starvation. In January 1945, Marie Adams wrote one of her final poems at Santo Tomás, not knowing she was only days away from liberation. Below is an excerpt from this poem, titled "Life Without Lipstick."

I've gone without lipstick,

I'm always un-rouged,

I've lacked every comfort

To which I've been used.

I've gone without beefsteak,

Without even beans,

There's no coffee, no sugar,

I know what it means

To go to bed hungry

To awake just the same,

With the old sense of humor,

In this internment game.

The poem ends with the following verse:

But when it's all over

And we're out once again

I hope I can smile and say--

"Remember back--when!"

Marie Adams's book of poems, Life Without Lipstick, is available at the Hoover Institution Library; her personal papers are in the Hoover Institution Archives.

Marie Adams in 1941, Life Without Lipstick, Hoover Institution Library

Herbert Hoover, the graduate: have Stanford degree, will travel

As Stanford University sends off another graduating class into the world, students are faced with a bewildering array of questions: Should they continue on to graduate studies or immediately look for a job? Can a new graduate even find a job in this difficult economy? And what does the future hold in store for someone with a newly minted degree as he or she leaves “The Farm”?

It can be comforting to know that previous generations of students faced those very same questions, including one of the university’s most famous alumni, Herbert Hoover, who graduated in the pioneer class at Stanford in 1895. We can gain an intriguing look at the young Stanford graduate as he sought work as a mining engineer in the late 1890s, just a couple of years removed from his studies under the tutelage of geology professor John C. Branner, in the Hoover Archives’ R.A.F. Penrose correspondence, which contains a number of early Hoover letters from such locales as Berkeley (yes, Hoover lived as a young Stanford graduate within a stone’s throw of that other university), Western Australia, and China.

R.A.F. Penrose (1863-1931) was a professor of geology and a mining engineer who, among other accomplishments, surveyed the Cripple Creek gold claims in Colorado in the 1890s and later cofounded the Utah Copper Company, which developed one of the largest open-pit copper mines in the United States, at Bingham Canyon, near Salt Lake City. He also mentored younger geologists, many of whom went on to attain prominence in the field, such as Herbert Hoover, whom he presumably met when Hoover was an undergraduate at Stanford.

In Hoover’s first letter to Penrose, written from Berkeley on February 7, 1897, he sought Penrose’s help in obtaining a position as a surveyor of mines, discussing various options in the district of Randsburg, in the Mojave Desert of California, or in Prescott, Arizona. Hoover suggested he team up with a colleague named Means in that the two of them could do excellent work, surveying a mine in half the time that an individual geologist could and noting that “we both have very fine instruments” and that “we have both had considerable experience in all kinds of mine surveying,” adding that he (Hoover) also “had three of four jobs involving legal issues of importance and can therefore attend to matters of title, etc.” In reading this letter, we can imagine Hoover in the position of many recent college graduates, sending out letters of application and networking with mentors in his search for a suitable position.

On March 17, Hoover wrote to Penrose regarding a promising position with a British mining firm, Bewick, Moreing and Company, whom he had been put in contact with by Louis Janin, a well-known mining engineer based in San Francisco whose reputation had been established through his work on the Comstock Lode in the 1860s. Hoover thanked Penrose for his letter of recommendation to Bewick, Moreing and explained that the firm had “asked Mr. Janin to nominate them a man and to my surprise he nominated me.” Hoover needed additional references, however, and noted that he could benefit from “some eastern influence” (Penrose was based in Philadelphia) because his sole recommendation until then had been from Janin. He was especially eager to win this job because it paid well ($6,000 a year, with fees and bonuses, potentially $10,000) and was with “a strong company in a confidential position in a new country.” As if Penrose hadn’t already understood Hoover’s strong desire to land the job, he added, “I am therefore anxious to secure it.”

By April 12, Hoover had found success: he had been offered the position with Bewick, Moreing, noting in a brief letter written that day that he was being sent to Coolgardie, in Western Australia, with a salary of $5,000 (roughly equivalent to $100,000 in today’s dollars). Hoover wrote to Penrose, “I desire to express my great obligations to you for the various kindnesses you have so freely extended and I hope I shall be able to vindicate your good opinions.” The rest, as they say, is history. Hoover’s position as a mining engineer in Western Australia led him to survey and discover several very profitable mines, such as the Sons of Gwalia, which in a few years earned Bewick, Moreing tens of millions of dollars and placed Hoover on the fast track to a successful career as the “doctor of sick mines,” and subsequently, as a well-known humanitarian, as the secretary of commerce, and, eventually, as the president of the United States.

As these letters demonstrate—even in reading between the lines—Hoover’s path began in a manner similar to that of many college graduates: humble requests to respected mentors, dogged determination, countless application letters, and a few lucky breaks. In some respects, the experiences of this Stanford graduate of 1895 may not be so different from those of today’s graduates.

Herbert Hoover poses for his portrait at a studio in Perth, Western Australia, after beginning his position with Bewick, Moreing, 1898, Herbert Hoover Subject Collection, photo file E, Hoover Institution Archives

Herbert Hoover (seated, lower left) with other Stanford geology students and their surveying equipment, 1893, Herbert Hoover Subject Collection, photo file D, Hoover Institution Archives

First two pages of a letter, dated March 17, 1897, from Hoover thanking Penrose for his letter of recommendation and giving him directions for sending it to Bewick, Moreing, R.A.F. Penrose miscellaneous correspondence, Box 1, folder 3, Hoover Institution Archives

The remaining pages of Hoover’s letter to Penrose of March 17, 1897, R.A.F. Penrose miscellaneous correspondence, Box 1, folder 3, Hoover Institution Archives

From reference request to preservation project

Previous blog posts have covered our preservation queue for sound recordings: the delicate balance between the physical stability of the medium and importance of the content that dictates our usual operations. Meanwhile, patron requests, which always receive prompt attention, often interrupt this, sometimes happily. Let me explain.

A visual appraisal usually tells us what we need to know about a sound recording’s physical stability. However, one hidden benefit of patron requests is those cases where this usually doesn’t apply. In those cases, we monitor the tape during digitization and thus spot things originally not apparent that affect the sound quality: bad splices, slitting issues, odd track configurations, and so on. Because some collections were created at the same time with the same tape stocks, the issues on one or two tapes can tell us a lot about the rest of the collection.

What this means is that what we thought was a stable collection isn’t. We then reassess the collection and modify its place in the queue, with it possibly becoming a preservation project. Of course, I’m writing this inspired by recent examples. One is the sound recordings in the Mont Pelerin Society records, which had bad splices of acetate tape. A second was an inquiry from my alma matter leading me to poorly wound acetate tape recordings of Gamal Abdel Nasser. As you may recall, acetate tape is one of the more unstable formats, and acetate tapes with abnormal problems are worse. Thus the Mont Pelerin tapes became a project; the Nasser tapes, though moved forward in our queue, are still awaiting preservation.

On the lighter side, there’s another benefit: the content is sometimes humorous and timely. Within a week of the opening of the movie Atlas Shrugged, Part One, I hear Lawrence Fertig describe Ayn Rand’s book (Atlas Shrugged) as “one of the recent books that has caused a sensation.” He was extolling the virtues of the novel at the Mont Pelerin Society’s 1960 meeting, joking that Ayn Rand had called Ludwig von Mises “a left-wing deviationist.”

An offending splice point, Box 61, Mont Pelerin Society records, Hoover Institution Archives

Herbert Hoover and the Great Mississippi Flood

The Mississippi River is expected to crest at 57.5 feet at Vicksburg today, a foot above the record 1927 “Great Mississippi Flood.” In April that year the river broke through the levees, submerging vast expanses of farmland and destroying the homes of more than one million people.

Known for his monumental humanitarian relief work in Europe during and after World War I, then secretary of commerce Herbert Hoover (who's commerce department records are in the Hoover Archives) was called on to organize relief for the victims of the epic disaster. Hoover swung into action, assembling hundreds of ships to carry supplies, overseeing the creation of tent cities for refugees, and making radio and press appeals that helped raise millions of dollars for the Red Cross. “I suppose I could have called in the whole of the army, but what was the use? All I had to do was to call in Main Street itself,” Hoover said later. “No other Main Street in the world could have done what the American Main Street did in the Mississippi flood, and Europe may jeer as it likes at our mass production and our mass organization and our mass education. The safety of the United States is its multitudinous mass leadership.” Hoover did everything he could to provide the means for relief, but he knew then, as we know now, America’s greatest resource is its citizens and their boundless generosity, resilience, and hope.

Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover broadcasts a plea to the nation to donate funds for disaster relief for the victims of the Mississippi flood, April, 1927. Herbert Hoover Subject Collection, Photo File, Envelope V.

Resolved: That Firing Line Fans Want to Know Why All Episodes Aren't Available

Without a doubt one of our most popular collections at the Hoover Institution Archives is the Firing Line Broadcast Collection; as a result we get a lot of comments about it through the website. Going through these comments has made the assistant archivist for visual collections and I (the administrative associate for AV services) realize that, aside from the collection having a vocal and enthusiastic fan base, most users have the same questions. We at Hoover have therefore resolved to explain the logic and methodology behind our seemingly cryptic treatment of Firing Line programs.

Let us begin with the core question that most fans ask in some way, shape, or form:

Why aren’t all the episodes available?

There’s a long answer and a short answer to this question. Because the short answer—“because not all of them have been preserved yet”—only leads to more questions, here’s the long answer:

As we explain on the Firing Line website, there are 1,505 episodes in the series. The general policy of the Hoover Institution Archives is to allow researchers only to access copies of audiovisual material so as to limit excessive handling of the originals. This policy especially applies to Firing Line where the archival master videotapes are in obsolete broadcast quality formats. Those tapes must be shipped to a laboratory specializing in archival media that reformats them to access and preservation copies on modern videotape stocks so that not just the general public but we archivists can actually view them.

The preservation treatment and reformatting costs are not inconsequential. Depending on the videotape format, its condition, and the duration of the program, creating the necessary preservation and access copies currently costs between $325 and $800 per episode. To do all 1,505 programs at once would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars!

Since funding is limited and we have numerous collections requiring preservation and digitization, we send the programs to the laboratory in batches of twenty to thirty at a time. Due to the physical toll shipping and lab work inflicts on videotapes, we only send unpreserved archival master videotapes to the laboratory if preservation work will be done on that trip. To date, approximately a third of the programs have been preserved.

The pace of preservation may not wholly satisfy every one; keep in mind, however, that “slow and steady wins the race” and the race to preserve all Firing Line programs in our collection is one we intend to finish.

William F. Buckley, Jr. meeting audience members Mrs. Fred Harris and her mother at the WETA studio, Washington, D.C., Sept. 14, 1971. Box 8, Firing Line Broadcast Collection, Hoover Institution Archives

Film or Video?

Motion picture film enthusiasts can revel in more than a century of people and places, the artistry of Bergman or Hitchcock, the shimmering beauty of nitrate prints, all preserved on film, which boasted a golden age before videotape was born. Hollywood's film industry was an actor's dream and a tourist's destination before tape existed. Early TV shows were preserved not on tape but on film taken by pointing a motion picture camera at a television screen. Movies offered a brief escape from the Great Depression; television is now derided as the opiate of the masses. But if you associate video with television, videotape may win the numbers game with film because American homes hold so many TV sets. Yet it seems that film has the edge.

But I'm thinking labels (again). The archives relies on labels to identify the content of audiovisual materials. A vague or incorrect label--or even worse, no label at all--lowers the preservation priority of the item to which it is affixed. When we've got thousands of sound and moving-image materials identified with good labels, the poorly identified ones inevitably fall to the bottom of the work plan--unless we can play them back.

Playback can be problematic. We can only play an item if we've got the right equipment, which is often lacking. In addition, in our efforts to preserve the material, we play archival sound recordings and moving images only once, during the reformatting process.

That leaves the simplest operation: carefully unwinding the reel and eyeballing the content. Videotape is magnetic, existing as particles on a tape base. It looks black, undeveloped, opaque. You can't discern anything when it has been unwound. Film is optical, a sequence of photographs. Look at it with a light box, and you can see the images, overcoming the obstacle of a missing or damaged label. Score one for film!

Frames from film of German Day ceremonies held in Hindenburg Park, Los Angeles, 1936, Warren Olney motion picture film, Hoover Institution Archives