Archives student Juliana Lueders has processed the poetry series of the Gilbert Stuart McClintock collection. This poetry series includes works by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Fitz-Greene Halleck, William Henry Furness and British Major, John André.
Lueders is a junior English and philosophy double-major, with minors in ethics and women and gender studies. She has been working in the archives department for three years.
“I began on the Normal Mailer collection, and then I moved to the Thomas Campbell collection, which I finished and (it) is digitized in a similar fashion as the McClintock series. And then during the fall I finished the McClintock series,” said Lueders. “Currently, I’m covering the George and Helen Ralston collection, but that one will take a while.”
Suzanna Calev, archivist and Lueders’ supervisor, said, “I’m very proud of Juliana for her detailed analysis and transcription of the manuscripts, correspondence and printed materials within the collection.”
Calev explained that her goal is to “get more of these materials digitized and online to promote research and scholarship on these collections that were previously hidden.”
In addition to transcribing old handwriting and scripture, Calev has students research and gather historical context of the time period in which the items were written. They then make connections between the items they’ve researched to see if there are any larger themes at play.
“My experience with this particular collection was similar to the Campbell one: The beginning is always tough,” Lueders explained. “I have to transcribe our primary documents and this means dealing with tiny cursive writing on a delicate, age-worn page and typing it all into a new workable document.”
“A lot of the challenges that students face when working in the archives and processing the McClintock collection is that because we live in such a digital age, it’s often difficult for students to transcribe old handwriting and scripture,” Calev said.
Along with the analytics and research, Lueders shared, “for writing the blog posts I’m allowed to put in some of my own thoughts and theories about the content, which is also very fun. Blog posts are more so a highlight reel of my favorites from the collection, but I also try to treat them as a short summary of the collection itself by including a broad range of content.”
Lueders shared a few takeaways she had from processing these collections. She realized how much depth everything has and how items hold history and personality that goes beyond their physical form.
“When it was over I just hoped that I did the item justice in my analysis. I was also happy about it being complete and was excited to find out my next project,” said Lueders.
Lueders offers advice to other students, encouraging them to look for jobs available on campus either within their major or something adjacent to it. She states that what students may find may prove to be a great source of experience or learning that can help in the future.
Lueders’ blog post has a link to the finding aid with digitized items along with her reflections on the poems in the series. It can be found on the archives website by following the link to https://www.wuarchives.home.blog and searching under the Jan. 2023 tab.
Photo Courtesy of: “Ballads, Battles, Love, and Loss: Processing the Poetry series of the Gilbert Stuart McClintock collection”