Mathew Brady's Civil War photographs

Mathew Brady is probably the most famous photographer associated with the American Civil War.  The UVa Small Special Collections Library has a small collection of the photos, mounted on individual cards.

The photos are kept in climate controlled storage, but the box they were in was a little too big and allowed the photos to warp.

Not good.  But fixable!
First, the photographs are humidified between two layers of Gortex, to relax both the cardboard and photograph layer.

Then it is time for my old favorite technique, the "back and wrap" which is great for stabilizing individual items.  The flattened photograph is placed on a piece of mat board that is slightly larger.  Since each photograph is labeled on the back with the number and title of the photograph, plus Brady's copyright warning, I photocopied the backs of the photographs, cut out the labels and adhered them to the back of the mat board.  I also wrote the call number on each one.

The photo and mat board are placed face down on a piece of Mylar and the corners of the Mylar are trimmed away. 

The Mylar is wrapped around the edges of the board and secured with double stick tape.  A neat package that buffers the photograph from environmental shifts, provides enough stiffness to keep the cardboard from warping, and the Mylar protects the photograph from scratches, fingerprints and dust.

A neat little package that makes it possible to handle the photographs more safely!

broken lantern slides

While our library collection is primarily books and manuscripts, we do get other sorts of artifacts.  I had an earlier guest post about a collection of glass plate negatives that presented significant storage challenges.  With a big collection you can set aside staff time for a re-housing project that addresses all the issues of access, handling, supplies and so on.  When you have just a few items that come in as part of a larger collection sometimes you have to create solutions on the fly.

This lantern slide is cracked but still intact.  Given the shards of glass, it is not really safe to use, nor is it a good idea to put it into storage without stabilizing it in some way.  Most of the slides that came in this collection were just fine, but what to do with the few that weren't?  It is better not to separate the slides and
make different workflows, so the stabilization needs to be done promptly, ideally making the slide safe to

store and to use. 

Backing and wrapping is a technique I use to exhibit small or thin items and when I saw these slides come through our processing unit I thought it would work well for broken lantern slides.  The basic technique involves cutting a piece of white mat board just a few millimeters larger than the slide, wrapping a piece of clear 3ml. polyester around the slide and board and then securing the polyester with double stick tape.  The white board allows for viewing of the image and the polyester holds all the shards in place, protecting anyone viewing or handling the broken slide.  This back and wrap can be done quickly, and with offcuts we have on hand from other projects.

wrapped slide, front

wrapped slide, back

Neat and effective!