Monthly Archives: October 2020

1924 Silent Films from the Yale University Press

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The following post was authored by Michael Lotstein, University Archivist, Manuscripts and Archives.

Image of volumes of the Chronicles of America volumes

Chronicles of America volumes published by Yale University Press. Image source: chairish.com

In 1918, the Yale University Press published a fifty-volume book series on American history entitled Chronicles of America. The series included contributions from Yale faculty, including Ellsworth Huntington, Charles Seymour, and Charles McLean Andrews. In 1923, the Yale University Press commissioned the production of historical films based on the series. Ultimately, fifteen films were made at a cost of $1.25 million dollars ($15.2 million dollars today) that proved to be a financial failure. The films not only proved to be theatrically impractical, but unusable in schools that at the time lacked the means to incorporate films into the classroom. Two of these films—“The Puritans” and “The Pilgrims,” both produced in 1924, provide instructive glimpses into how academic historians of a century ago envisioned the shared heritage of the America and New England. Note: The films are posted on YouTube, so there may be commercials included that are unaffiliated with the films or with Yale University Press.

Archival Processing Work at Manuscripts and Archives, July-October 2020

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Image of a CD-ROM with rainbow gradient.

Image credit: User Black and White, Wikimedia Commons

The following information on recent archival processing work at Manuscripts and Archives (MSSA) was written by Alison Clemens, Head of Processing.

As I mentioned in my most recent processing post, I usually share quarterly updates about collections and additions to collections for which MSSA has recently acquired and completed processing. Since the Sterling Memorial Library (SML) building was closed from mid-March until this fall, our processing staff shifted their attention to processing born-digital material at MSSA. Processing staff have recently begun entering the building on a part time basis, so we’ll soon be balancing our born-digital processing work with processing materials stored in the SML building.

As a reminder, born-digital material is material that was created in a computer environment. Since March, MSSA processing staff have been consulting the recently-created Yale University Born Digital Archival Description Guidelines in order to describe our born-digital materials in a standardized and consistent manner to facilitate user access.

Since my last post in July, MSSA staff have begun or completed description and processing for born-digital materials from the Edward Grant Oral History Project Records, the William Silver Papers, and several other collections. For my next quarterly update, I expect and look forward to sharing more news about both our physical and digital processing work.

For more information about Yale’s work with born-digital material, see the Saving Digital Stuff blog.