Glacial Deposits.indd - Department of Geography - Geology - Illinois ...

have been answered from archival sources. Of much interest are extended statements from
persons such as Mabel H. Ward (Isaiah Bowman’s secretary for 13 years). She wrote, “In the
thirteen years that I worked for [Isaiah Bowman] my accumulated notebooks filled the space of
one deep shelf in my closet. I enjoyed taking down and transcribing the occasional long letters
he wrote to professional correspondents” (statement of 4,000 words, Mabel H. Ward-G. J.
Martin, December 27, 1973). Details followed in her statement about his visitors, and about her
role first as Stefansson’s secretary, then Ogilvie’s secretary, and finally Bowman’s secretary, the
sort of detail that with the passing of the person in question becomes priceless documentation.
In the last 51 years, the author traveled to more than a dozen countries and visited 135 archival
deposits, each archive ranging in size from a few dozen to many thousands of pages. Most of
these letters were handwritten; hence copies of them were not maintained by the authors.
Typewritten letters became more popular from the teens though abundant handwritten
correspondence continued to the 1940s and 1950s. To view these letters, one needs to travel
usually to their place of destination. Since (in the period 1870-1960 on which my current
research focuses) most of these letters were sent to Great Britain, Germany, France, Sweden,
and many destinations throughout the United States, that is where one must visit to read and
assay the letters. And since a postal system was not a reality in the United States until 1847,
exchange of letters nationally and internationally was a clumsy and lengthy matter prior to that
time. With development of postal systems came letter writing and the transport and sharing of
scientific thought. A word concerning privately held collections is necessary. One cannot
anticipate circumstances. Your author located the diary of the deceased Mark Jefferson—one
page at a time—under a large coal heap in the basement of Jefferson’s house in Ypsilanti,
Michigan. Some sheets of the diary were located in his barn. Your author put these together and
otherwise edited the diary (some pages have been permanently lost) and published it with
Edwards Brothers, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Jefferson was the chief cartographer for the American
Commission to Negotiate Peace at Paris, 1918-1919. Now, a copy of this diary resides in the
National Archives, Washington, D.C.; and scholars from various disciplines exploit its content.
Other private holdings may be restricted in whole or part.
Once correspondence is acquired, a collection begins. Keep it dry, preferably out of sunlight,
and in an order suited to your mentality. Then a study site, a powerful magnifying glass, the
ability to read erratic abbreviations and difficult handwriting (and writing north-south and eastwest
on the same page!), and the ability to read French and German (especially script that
Germans today are unable to read, as script was invariably used prior to about 1900) are all
valuable assets in the quest for comprehension. Incidentally, you will not be able to find these
letters via computer, though you may be able to secure data about authors, and possibly
“Finders Guides” to some collections. However, beware of error if you are going to use the
machine. People working in the history of geographical thought sometimes copy data from the
computer; and matters including names of persons, dates, and titles of articles may be incorrect.
This collection of incorrectness may then be transferred into publications, whereby the whole
metastasizes and the mistake may become the norm. One final matter concerns the dimensions
of collecting. My holding includes roughly 51,000 sheets, by what is conservative count, all
stored in my dwelling. This collection of papers consumes a very large amount of space.
Several filing cabinets have been filled, and book cases hold many photocopy sheets in threering
binders. All holdings need to be named and numbered, and identified as to source. In my
case, some 20-22 percent is the product of my own correspondence.
Yet it must always be remembered that quantity is not the index of archival worth. Photographs
(identifications carefully added to the back of same are vital) are also a vital part of such a
collection; in this genre the history of geography is quite weak. One might write letters to the
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