To Borrow but Not to Keep: Making Electronic Copies

At times, people come to the Museum with a lovely photo or document that they are willing to lend to the Museum, but not to donate. For several years, the Museum had no inexpensive way to preserve such items. Due to a grant received from the Document Section of the Historical Resource Development Program in 2001, the Museum was able to purchase a high quality scanner in 2003 that allows the Museum to preserve electronic images of photos and documents that donors want returned. Due to this equipment, the Museum was able to scan two fascinating collections dealing with Civil Rights.

On November 10, 2005, Patti Miller of Fairfield, Iowa attended a Brown Bag lecture and talked with me after the lecture and told me her story. While a student at Drake University in Des Moines in the spring of 1964, Patti saw a flyer asking for volunteers to go to Mississippi in the summer of 1964 and register people to vote. Patti volunteered for the program and was accepted. She kept many documents from that summer including instruction on what to bring and how to respond if she was arrested, the program for slain Civil Rights’ Worker, James Cheney’s funeral, and a KKK flyer dropped from a helicopter. While Patti was willing to share these documents, she was not willing to donate them. Museum Registrar, Eva Hinrichsen, was able to scan these documents while Miller waited.

On November 18, 2005, Fred Seay of Keokuk, was attending a meeting in Cedar Rapids. After the meeting was finished, he stopped by the museum to show me a number of documents that he has purchased on E-bay in the past ten years. They were fundraising letters sent out by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the 1960’s and 1970's seeking support. Seay uses these documents when he makes presentations to at-risk youth on the Civil Rights movement. Both collections add significantly to the archives of the Museum.

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