Today Kheir and I emptied out 2 of the 4 glass display cases on the 4th floor of the library, one of which was material from the Provident Hospital of Cook County (the first Black-owned hospital in America), and the other case was historic Maxwell Street material. We brought the stuff that was in there back down to the archive on the 3rd floor, and I found a space for and labelled the material.
I also spent some time going through boxes of the Justice Charles E. Freeman material, mostly newspaper clippings (though I did see his senior year of high school yearbook and his photo in it). What I was finding was that I had to familiarize myself with the different types of courts, because it was immediately apparent to me that I didn't really know the different levels of courts, which is important to know, seeing as how Justice Freeman had started as a judge in the lower courts and then moved up until he was eventually appointed Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court. Also, I found it useful to make a timeline, because as I was encountering information about him doing things in the community, I would look at the year and see which type of judge he was at the time, whether it was on the Cook County Circuit Court or the Illinois Appellate Court and so on. Until I started working on this timeline, I thought that when Justice Freeman swore Mayor Washington in in 1983, he was already the Chief Justice. It turns out he wasn't at the time -- he was actually on the Cook County Circuit Court. And also, he was formerly a legal practice partner with Harold Washington (notably their practice was in a one-story building connected to the Shell gas station at 7859 S State Street). I enjoy these incidental details (connected to a Shell station!) as I am going through this material.
Kheir suggested that we actually do a timeline for display at the commemoration exhibit we're going to do in February with the matieral. I thought that would be helpful for people. If I was encountering things I didn't know, they probably would too.
Also today: we talked about the requirements for the actual "class" part of my Practicum 5970 as per what is loaded through the Brightspace platform, like the sign in sheet, the letter of assessment from him, and my learning agreement I am in the process of putting together that I will have to submit. Kheir also gave me a nice outline he had composed of tasks for me related to the Feb 17th commemoration. It details orientation/scope, core exhibit concept/structure, guidelines for selection ideas for the exhibit, other accompanying documentation tasks and more. The event happens in February but the semester goes until May. After the event, my work in the archive will center around the Lerone Bennett Jr. material in the CSU archive. There are many boxes of it! The Justice Freeman material is a very small quantity in comparison.
Of note is the sassy Justice Freeman quote from the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin dated Saturday, 4/25/98, which, as someone who has had jobs where I've felt "important" but also "underpaid," this stuck with me:
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Also of note but totally unrelated: in looking at the newspaper clipping today I was amused by this story in the Chicago Tribune MetroChicago section dated 2/11/98:
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| Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the schlepping of the your limp leftover restaurant salad home in a doggie bag or to tape the The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder in 1998 |
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Today's standards fulfilled as per the Society of American Archivists Curriculum:
A. CORE ARCHIVAL KNOWLEDGE, 3. Contextual knowledge, a) Social and Cultural Context, d) Underserved & Underrepresented Communities (pp. 7-8)
B. COMPLEMENTARY KNOWLEDGE, B. Structure of the Learning Process (pp 8-9)
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