Kenneth Spencer Research Library

There is a hashtag – #todayinthelab – that conservation and preservation professionals on social media attach to posts that allow followers to look over the conservator’s shoulder at what they are working on at the moment. My post today is in this vein, taking a look at and around my workbench to see the materials from Spencer’s collections that are currently awaiting or undergoing treatment. I hope to make this a semi-regular feature, since the supply of wonderful Spencer materials crossing my bench is constantly changing.

A few times a week, I will make the rounds of Spencer to collect items that have been identified as needing conservation treatment or assessment. Spencer staff will deposit fragile or damaged materials in a designated area, along with a slip on which they will note each item’s condition issue. Sometimes staff will email conservators with information about materials that need attention, or they will hand-deliver them to the lab. In any case, I record basic information about all items that come to my bench on a paper log. We have a number of spreadsheets and databases where we document our treatments, but for my day-to-day purposes, I love my low-tech list!

Behind my workbench I keep my brand-new but already-beloved green truck. It is rarely empty! Today its top shelf holds recently treated materials, beautifully boxed and labeled by our student employees, that I need to check off my log and return to either Processing or the stacks, as the case may be. Below are some materials I am preparing for a small but delicate rehousing project – I am making flat, safe enclosures for a group of medieval parchment documents with large seals. After working out some logistics with the curators and manuscripts processing coordinator, I have begun to pre-cut and stage as many of the components as can be prepared ahead of time in order to streamline assembly of the enclosures.

There is so much to love about our new lab space, but I am especially fond of our big workbench cabinets. These feature shelves on the top half, and an assortment of shallow and deep drawers below. Most of the drawers in my cabinet hold supplies, but I keep two in reserve for materials that I am treating. I am in the midst of a months-long project to mitigate (old, not active!) mold on a large archival collection. As I treat each box, I am replacing the old boxes and folders, so I keep a stock of fresh folders available. The folders are sharing the drawer with a scrapbook (made by a KU student prior to her time at KU) that awaits treatment.

Next to my workbench I have a beautiful press table, with two spacious shelves below. These currently hold six boxes of material from the recently acquired John C. Tibbetts Portraits Collection. The gouache paintings in this collection had been matted and framed, and I have been working to remove the mats prior to processing. I have just about completed the work on this third phase of the acquisition and look forward to having clear shelves again, if only until the next treatment comes along.

Finally, here are the upper shelves of my cabinet. Among the materials currently under my care, there are items from Special Collections (rare books, artists’ books, parchment manuscript documents), Kansas Collection (a Socialist newspaper from the Wilcox collection, a rolled and torn certificate), and University Archives (so many student scrapbooks!). There are also a few enclosure models that I’ve been working on (I’m in the process of writing up instructions for an enclosure I’ve modified, so that I can share it with other conservators), as well as diagrams and notes on other enclosures that I haven’t made often enough to have memorized yet.

Thank you for visiting my workbench!

Angela M. Andres
Assistant Conservator for Special Collections

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

View of campus looking south along Oread Avenue, 1890s. University Archives
Photos. Call Number: RG 0/24/P 1890s Prints: Campus: Panoramas (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

From left to right are Spooner Hall, Old Blake Hall, Old Fraser Hall (roughly where modern Fraser Hall is located), and Old Snow Hall. Also visible is Marvin Grove – the area of trees on the right side of the photo. The empty area on the right is where Dyche Hall and the Kansas Union now stand.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

 ‘Barteldes’ stands for quality and we spare no expense or labor to keep up this high standard of quality.
1912 Barteldes seed catalog

In 1860, six years after the first settlers arrived in Lawrence, Friedo Barteldes was the proprietor of a small grocery business on Massachusetts Street. He added a few seed packets to his inventory, and this aspect of his business grew rapidly. It became the Kansas Seed House, the largest seed firm west of the Mississippi. The business employed four salesman on the road, plus fifteen to twenty employees who worked at the House, cleaning and shipping seeds.

Barteldes Groceries & Provisions and Seed Store, 1864. Douglas County Historical Society
Manuscript Collections. Call Number: Call Number: RH MS-P 1435. Click image to enlarge.

Friedo’s nephew F. W. Barteldes joined the business in 1874. Upon Friedo’s death in 1887, F. W. Barteldes and Max Wilhelmi became the company’s proprietors. In 1906, the Kansas Seed House was incorporated as the Barteldes Seed Company. It expanded that same year, adding locations in Denver and Oklahoma City. The company’s headquarters moved to Denver in 1961.

 

Pages from the Kansas Seed House catalog, 1897. F. W. Barteldes published his company’s first
seed catalog in 1876. He took them along as he traveled during the summer months, taking seed orders
that he filled once he returned to Lawrence. Call Number: RH C4970. Click images to enlarge.

Pages from the Kansas Seed House catalog, 1901. Call Number: RH C4971. Click images to enlarge.

Pages from the Barteldes seed catalog, 1915. Call Number: RH Ser C1257. Click images to enlarge.

Barteldes Seed Company was located at 804 Massachusetts Street. Its warehouses – where seeds were stored and tested for germination – were located at 805-811 New Hampshire Street. The store was connected to the warehouses by a walkway over the alley. In 1999, the steel beam walkway was still visible. Today, 804 Massachusetts Street is occupied by Sunflower Bike Shop.

Kansas Seed House storefront at 804 Massachusetts Street, 1886. Owner F. W.
Barteldes is in the middle, wearing a hat. Douglas County Historical Society Manuscript
Collections. Call Number: Call Number: RH MS-P 1435. Click image to enlarge.

Fire was a persistent concern for the Barteldes Seed Company. The first fire occurred in 1863 during Quantrill’s Raid. Friedo Barteldes was the first shop owner to rebuild and accounts state that the work was completed within seven days. Fire struck again in 1904, and the two-story building was rebuilt with a third floor. As a result of these incidents, the warehouses were reconstructed with fire safety in mind. Seeds were stored in steel cabinets with wire trays. All the doors and walls were fireproofed, and at least some of the ceiling and floors were glass. Each floor was equipped with a large fire hose, and each aisle had a fire extinguisher.

At times during the twentieth century, Barteldes sold more than seeds. In December, the basement of Warehouse A was used to store Christmas trees, and nearly all of the Christmas trees in Lawrence were from Barteldes. For many years, Barteldes also processed and marketed popcorn under their registered name TNT Food Products, Inc., which was formed in 1952.

Meredith Huff
Public Services

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

The first day of spring is less than one month away! Who’s ready for some warmer weather?

Women students in a car on Jayhawk Boulevard, 1940-1949.
Bailey Hall is visible in the background. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/0 1940s Negatives: Student Activities (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

This month’s temporary exhibit in Spencer’s North Gallery – titled “Spencer Research Library and Archaeology” – features a collection of materials available through Spencer that could or have proven to be useful in archaeological research. Spanning from tomes written during the developmental days of archaeology as a science to modern articles on the forefront of archaeological investigations, the collections at Spencer Research Library offer a broad assemblage of knowledge not available through most library settings.

The first display case demonstrates the spectrum of resources available to archaeological researchers by highlighting a sample from each of Spencer’s collections. This includes documents of early Old World archaeology, books on regional archaeology, archaeological reports, and serial clippings and publications featuring archaeological findings and collections. Such materials are often used as supplementary materials in extant studies, though there is plenty potential for new studies to be conducted as well.

Archaeologia cambrensis (Welsh Archaeology), volume 1, number 1, January 1846.
Published by the Cambrian Archaeological Association with the goal of interpreting cultural significance
over material value, Archaeologia cambrensis illustrates a transitional period
in the development of archaeology as a science. Call Number: C16530. Click image to enlarge.

Kansas Archaeology, 2006. This work offers a broad perspective of the
archaeological history of Kansas. It is accessible to those with or without a
strong background in archaeology. Call Number: RH C11685. Click image to enlarge.

The second display case features materials available at Spencer Research Library that have been used in archaeological projects. One such project is the Douglas County Cellar Survey, known colloquially as the “Caves Project.” The Caves Project is a survey funded by the Douglas County Natural and Cultural Heritage Grant Program with the goal of locating and documenting stone arched cellars. The cellars (referred to as “caves”) – constructed from the 1850s into the 1920s – represent a cultural phenomenon unique to the region; thus, archaeologists hope to properly document these caves before they are lost to time. The Caves Project has utilized Spencer Research Library materials such as plat maps, deed records, and topical books on regional history.

Plat map of Lecompton Township in Plat Work and Complete Survey of Douglas County, Kansas, 1909.
This map was used in the Caves Project to locate potential cave structures. In addition to
revealing site locations, the map was also superimposed with older plat maps of the same area to
indicate images that were no longer extant. Call Number: RH Atlas G32. Click image to enlarge.

Also included in the second display case is an artifact, known as a projectile point base, that comes from the Clovis Paleoamerican culture of North America. Likely a broken spear tip, this artifact is likely around 13,000 calendar years old. Found during a 1976 pedestrian survey of site 14DO137 near Clinton Lake in Douglas County, Kansas, this point base is one of the only remaining items left by some of – if not the – first people to ever walk in eastern Kansas. Reviewed as part of an ongoing survey of literature for the Caves Project, multiple archaeological reports indicated that the point was donated to the University of Kansas Archaeological Research Center. Thanks to their cooperation, the point has been loaned to Spencer Research Library for this current exhibit and, as seen below, three-dimensionally scanned. The point has been used in a number of archaeological investigations, including a report on the presence of Clovis people in southeastern Kansas by KU’s Dr. Jack Hofman.

https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/14do137-02823a31be3c479291888da220191b9a

Frank Conard
Spencer Research Library Public Services Student Assistant and KU Anthropology Major

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