Tech Talk / By Martha Knight

Different technologies for different times, right? When the transformations are happening,little by little, we don’t have a sense of the old order changing, giving place to the new. We see something new and different and think it’s interesting, but don’t think the familiar items are likely to disappear from the scene.

It is interesting to me to see how these various technologies overlap, and augment one another. I love to see how what we have now can rescue or preserve the record of what used to be.

Ross Porter, retired teacher, founder of Planet Smethport and other websites focusing on the photographic record of local history, addressed the Canoe Place Historical Society of Port Allegany several years ago, when it had not been organized for very long.

The then-mayor of Smethport, and owner of some historic mansions which are bed-and-breakfast hostelries. Porter understood well the difficulties of developing an actual museum. Without a building for a physical museum, or a place to keep, let alone display properly, a collection of lots of objects, some fairly bulky, we might feel discouraged, he acknowledged.

After all, we were still in the process of becoming incorporated. The organization needed to be “real,” with its ability to remain in existence even as individual members of the organization left service and this life. Successors to the present officers of the organization would carry on certain responsibilities, as provided for in the articles of incorporation.  Ownership of the organization’s “collection” was vested in the organization, the corporation, not individual persons, mortals, all of whom would die eventually.

So, Porter told the group that night, it is not necessary, nor wise, to collect prematurely a lot of objects and display them somewhere, to function as a group that was “collecting” and preserving and even displaying the history of the area.

In fact, collecting lots of historical goodies without having a safe, appropriate, temperature- and humidity-controlled place to store or display them, was more destructive than otherwise.

Documents of historical value, such as old newspapers, prints, ledgers, correspondence and photographs should be kept out of bright light. Direct sunlight is especially harmful, but so are bright reflected light and artificial light. Fabrics and paint fade and age in light, and plastics degrade.

There is a practical approach to collecting and displaying paper-based items and even photos using other media, Porter explained. Digitize them. That is, turn them into digital images. That way they can be displayed, while the originals are tucked away safely, stored appropriately. The Society’s curator, Lanny Nunn, does quite a lot of that, sharing his own collection and items he borrows.

Images can be acquired, and objects can be photographed, in some cases, without ownership changing hands! Of course it is also possible for people or organizations to give, or just to lend, objects to the local historical society, or maybe to the McKean County one or some other properly constituted one.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, history can be served, and photos and documents especially can be preserved, and shared, and displayed, and authentic copies can be made, while the originals are spared further wear and tear, and protected from further handling and damage.

That this is true of family treasures (which may or may not have historical value outside that specific family) was demonstrated to me recently.

We wanted to have a celebration of life concerning my late cousin Prudence Seyler. It happens that her mother, Maud Cook Seyler, and Prudence herself had been avid scrapbookers and makers of photo albums.

Auntie Maud had been a school marm before her marriage. She collected stories, information, projects and pictures galore, to use in her teaching. (She taught all subjects, through eighth grade, in country schools.)

The Cook family had gone to the local photographer often enough to acquire photos of family members sufficient to record their changes in age and stage, their marriages, the new arrivals. Maude kept a portion of those collections in her new family and set about collecting more, and keeping it all updated and organized, busy as she was with household and farm chores.

Prudence acquired the album making habits and skills by osmosis. Year after year she created new books, everything in order and clearly labeled. She included relatives, friends, classmates, pets, teachers, places seen on travels, scenery local and remote.

Her scrapbooks and those of her mother include news of the day and some of the entertainment people enjoyed. There are slices of history there, especially about U.S. presidents. And greeting cards by the hundreds, and post cards, and letters, stored in their envelopes.

Some of the photo albums were displayed at the celebration of Prudence’s life. Some had provided the material for a slide show I put together, which played continuously on a laptop during the gathering at the Veterans Memorial Home.

Using two scanners I had digitized hundreds of those photos. They could be assembled into slide shows, sent to anyone else with internet access, put onto thumb drives, stored on other hard drives, printed in black-and-white or color, enlarged, framed, collaged, added to family tree charts…

We are fortunate that my maternal grandmother, who died at age 44 when my mother was five years old, faithfully noted events of each day, year after year, in composition books. I transcribe these so they can be further preserved, and mean to add some of the photos of the times she recorded. We can’t share the hard copy originals with everyone, and preserve them indefinitely. Perhaps the next generation will have lost the ability to write or read in cursive (longhand)! But Grandma Carrie’s journals can be read, and those long departed kinfolk can be seen, now and later, in digital form.

Roots! Family history! Mementos! Old documents and images! Preserved better, longer, shared more broadly, thanks to modern technology.