Comments on: Secret Agent Historians

By: Secret Agent Historians, part deux: “Day Rider” attacks! : Historiann : History and sexual politics, 1492 to the present

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:18:46 +0000

[...] our first installment, Squadratomagico wrote of her research inside a “secret agent”-like labyrinth of a modern…. In today’s installment, “Thrown Off the Plantation,” Clio Bluestocking writes [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:43:27 +0000

I’d like to second Duke Humfrey’s reading room at the Bodleian: I’ve been twice, on single-day visits in 1997 and this past summer. Both times I looked at a particular manuscript, where one must sign one’s name in another book which is a permanent record of everyone who’s ever looked at the manuscript in the library–when I asked for the book from the librarian, he said “I guess you last looked at this in 1997, is that right?’ Between 1997 and 2009 about one page worth of scholars had consulted the book–and frankly, I was surprised it was so many!

The Parker Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is undergoing renovations, I guess. But I do recall working with early medieval manuscripts there at one point when the windows were open to help keep readers cool.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:35:51 +0000

Paul, I love the MHS! I just thought Vowell’s description, as a non-professional and as a Westerner, was funny. I’ve always been warmly received and treated kindly–the staff at the MHS are incredibly helpful and professional.

And I do adore that Copley portrait of M.O.W., which doesn’t let on at all what a troublemaker she would become.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 03:37:54 +0000

I don’t have any particularly dramatic stories about visiting archives, but I actually kind of like the somewhat formal, old-fashioned atmosphere at places like the Massachusetts Historical Society. That’s kind of what I imagined that a historical archives should be like, so it almost feels comfortable. Of course, I’m probably horribly biased by the fact that I enjoy working at a different archival institution that has a somewhat similar atmosphere – neo-classical building, lots of old portraits, etc. (We actually have sort of a friendly rivalry with the MHS.) I certainly hope that the atmosphere doesn’t make anyone feel unwelcome.

By: Digger

Digger — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:25:53 +0000

Exile~ That’s a hella story! Perhaps they’d suffered visitors with sticky fingers, and it was all a performance about how stealing wouldn’t get you very far, because they knew where you lived and what your passport photo looked like! And if all your friend owes you is a single beer for that, could you look something up for me??

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:00:59 +0000

Historiann, good question about the unpublished woman’s diary and an unofficial bid to visit the stacks. It vaguely rings a bell. I was heading over the river this evening to the Tylenol Institute for Juicy Gossip and thought I might run into somebody there who could throw light on this matter, but no luck. I’ll keep it on file for reference. These are great archival anecdotes, and I’d like to hear more of them. The last one is pretty amazing.

By: exileinacademia

exileinacademia — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:34:49 +0000

I think I once managed to convince an archivist I was a spy. Exactly what kind of spy spends her days reading 16th century manuscripts I don’t know, but here’s how it went down. While I was researching my dissertation in Western European Country’s state archives, a friend was doing her research at the British Museum. She asked me to transcribe a letter one of her subjects sent to someone in Western European Country. The letter was in the University Library Special Collections, so I had to apply for a reader card. In order to get the reader card, I had to submit a letter of reference from a faculty member at the university. No problem. There was also an application form, which included a section on which collection one wanted to see and why. So, I explained that this was a favor for a friend.

I received the card the next week, and went to transcribe the letter. When I submitted the request to see the document, the lady at the desk looked at my card and said I would have to speak to the head of Special Collections first. I was escorted to her office, where she wanted to know exactly what I was doing there. She pulled out a thick file, which turned out to include copies of:

my passport
my visa application from the Los Angeles consulate
my official residence permit
my application for an official residence permit
the receipt showing I paid for the permit
my Fulbright application
letters of recommendation from my committee
my dissertation abstract
the photo included in my application
the photo taken when I arrived in the country
my high school diploma
my BA and MA transcripts
my rental agreement
my application for a bank account
my application for my reader card at the state archives.

That’s what I could identify in the file, as Scary Head Archivist was slowing going through the papers. There were other papers in the file that I couldn’t see.

Scary Head Archivist wanted to know what I was doing in her archive. She didn’t see how the document I requested was relevant to my research on the Reformation. I explained the whole story again about doing a favor for a friend. After going over this story, and explaining my friend’s research, she finally approved my request to see the one letter. Of course I also had to fill out a reader card application for my friend, even though I couldn’t answer all the questions.

By now, the whole interview process has taken over an hour. I got the letter. They assigned me a work space in full view of the ladies who worked at the front desk. It took me about 10 minutes to type out a transcription. The letter was a request for more information about a certain kind of plant found in the region. By this time I was wondering if the whole thing was some kind of code for state secrets. 18th century state secrets of some kind? What kind of plant was this, anyway? I finished that letter and hightailed it back to the state archives, trying to remember what _Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy_ said about how to know when one was being followed. Where’s George Smiley when you need him?

My friend has never been to Western European State, but I’m reasonably sure they have a file on her by now. What I do know is that my friend still owes me a beer for this one.

By: Brian Ulrich

Brian Ulrich — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:26:49 +0000

The Egyptian National Library is impressive in an Egyptian bureaucratic sort of way. However, my best stories come from others. A member of my MA committee chickened out of going to an archive when told by the authorities he would need to bring a gun to help protect against Tuareg raiders. My advisor has a few stories, though since I’m under my own name I won’t share them. One involves off-roading for a week in Sumatra to reach a mosque archive. Heath Lowry’s book on Ottoman origins also has a funny bit about dodging security guards while trying to clamber around the roof siding of a Bursa mosque to see an inscription.

Since part of my motivation in visiting Buraimi/al-Ain is that it comes up in my dissertation, I can say that it represents the only place I have snuck across an international border illegally.

By: Digger

Digger — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:21:08 +0000

Squadrato, it actually makes perfect sense, at least to me (if that’s at all helpful).

The coolest place I’ve found myself was in the old storage facility of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard. I went to photograph a small box of local artifacts, and was overwhelmed by the thousands of years of artifacts around me. These were the sorts of artifacts I’d only ever seen in photos (obsidian blades, steatite bowls, clay pots, carved smoking pipes, casts of South American friezes). Seeing pictures and being in their physical presence, however, are entirely, ENTIRELY, different things.

By: Feminist Avatar

Feminist Avatar — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:31:10 +0000

The most ‘secret’ archive I ‘visited’ was the one I briefly worked in and that was mainly because it was so badly catalogued and inaccessible. The archive was the county archive and held the archives of the local regiment but it was only partially catalogued so you had to phone or email the archivist asking if they had any relevant material and as most of the archive was in his head, he would say yes/no and then you made an appointment to come and see it. On the day, you came to the offices where you were placed in a room about a foot wider than the desk where the archives would be given to you to view. But, they were very flexible and happy to have you – you could photograph and use their photocopying facilities for free.

Plus the actual archives, which were offsite, were truly secret and only shown to the chosen few. They were unmarked- one was in an old school-building and another was in a very rough area in an very modern, warehouse. The latter they kept a very low-profile on as they didn’t want to encourage break-ins (seriously when I first went, they looked all around as if waiting to be mugged before unlocking the door). But, they were truly amazing- the warehouse held large items such as 19th century fire engines, big furniture items, a rock and coal collection, and the seats from the now non-existent cinema; while the other archive held a large collections of costumes, ceramics, paintings, and over 30,000 uncatalogued photographs, as well as large collection of letters, business records, etc. I practically skipped around it- it was so exciting.