2017 Museum Insider

Joe Pilkington is seen here in the third-floor gallery of the historic C&H library building in Calumet.  Joe worked for the LSCMC as an intern while completing his masters degree in GIS.

Interns & Volunteers Contribute to Collections Documentation

The Lake Superior Collection Management Center (LSCMC) was established in 2013 to provide the highest standard of care possible for the museum and archival collections of Isle Royale National Park, Keweenaw National Historical Park, and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

The management, care, and documentation of these large and varied collections would be overwhelming for the LSCMC’s three full-time staff people, if it weren’t for the contributions of many talented volunteers and interns. Here are some of their accomplishments:

In 2017, Joe Pilkington spent hundreds of hours processing (arranging and describing) the first three series of the Isle Royale National Park resource management records, including land purchase files, and two series of park central files. Joe was employed through the National Council for Preservation Education (NCPE) as an intern for the LSCMC while completing his masters degree in Geographic Information Systems at Michigan Technological University in Houghton. Jenny Murphy and Martin Hobmeier are also employed as NCPE interns at the LSCMC, and work at the Houghton museum storage facility to catalog natural history specimens for Isle Royale and for Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Martin also attends Michigan Tech, where he is working on his PhD in biology. Jenny recently graduated from Humboldt University with a BA in Anthropology, focusing on archaeology.

From January through June, Eléna Vivion interned at the LSCMC, processing the Jones family papers, the Manzini family papers, and the John Lasio papers. Eléna, an archives graduate student at l’Université de Picardie Jules Verne in Amiens, France, was the LSCMC’s first international intern.

Christine Porter is employed through the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) as a senior worker at the LSCMC. In 2017, Christine finished the final edits and formatting of the finding aid for the Quincy Mining Company records, and continues to process the Community Church of Calumet records. Jonathan Fairchild was employed through the NPS Pathways Program as a student trainee archives technician in the summer of 2017. Jon worked as a reference assistant, but also helped complete the processing of the Isle Royale resource management records. Jon is a PhD candidate in history at the University of Houston in Texas.

Sharon Turovaara is a long-time volunteer at the LSCMC. In 2017, she rehoused and organized incoming collections, and worked on digital collection management and scanning of material in the Foster collection. Sharon worked as an anesthesiologist, and is also retired from the US Air Force Reserves.

 

Avis West, Anita Campbell, and Ruth Gleckler, members of the Houghton Keweenaw County Genealogical Society, are seen here in the LSCMC archives reading room.  The society, as well as individual volunteers, logged many hours for the LSCMC in 2017.

Selina Johnson has also worked on scanning material in the Warren Schuler family papers. Selina has children at home, but enjoys the opportunity to volunteer for the LSCMC and get out of the house for a little while each week. Gary Lassila produced catalog photographs of hundreds of objects as a volunteer for the LSCMC in 2017. Gary is a retired Michigan State Police trooper.

In the summer of 2017, two volunteers joined the LSCMC staff for a little over a month. Donna Weathers processed the Gene Antonette Copper Country history collection and the Richard and June Ross Cornish genealogical collection, began processing the Rosalie (Cwoidrak) Stark papers, and developed a history note for the Isle Royale resource management records. Donna is retired from the US Navy, and travels the country doing genealogical research and volunteering for national parks and the Sierra Club. Dutch Hodges also volunteered at the LSCMC in the summer of 2017. She also helped process the Ross collection and made a shelf-list of Pictured Rocks archival materials. Dutch lives in Colorado and is retired from PBS. She has also volunteered extensively for the Peace Corps.

In 2017 volunteers from the Houghton Keweenaw County Genealogical Society spent hundreds of hours processing the Hanchette and Lawton law firm records, which include both profesional and personal correspondence as well as case files. The society is also working on a name index for the case files, which will be very useful for those doing family history research in the Keweenaw.

Ruth Gleckler has volunteered for the LSCMC with the genealogical society, as well as individually. Ruth helps manage the Keweenaw library collection, especially focusing on the vertical files, which are now much more useful to researchers thanks to her efforts. She also helps with filing reference paperwork for all three parks, and other clerical tasks. Ruth is retired from the US Forest Service in Houghton.

 

Donating to Lake Superior CMC

The national parks of Lake Superior were established to preserve and interpret nationally significant natural and cultural resources of the region.

Some of these resources are too big to miss – including cliffs and forests, lakes and streams, lighthouses and shaft-rockhouses – but the NPS also preserves smaller-scale resources such as biological specimens, miners’ lunch pails, commercial fishing nets, historic business records, and family photographs.

The National Park Service’s primary purpose in collecting nationally significant objects, specimens, and documents is to preserve them for posterity. These items are also available for research use, and contribute to educational exhibits, such as the Risk and Resilience exhibit at the Calumet Visitor Center. However, these secondary uses are always carefully managed so that the primary goal of preserving the museum objects and archives is not compromised.

Many items in the collections were donated by current and former Upper Peninsula families who wished to see their own family history preserved, and others who wanted to contribute to the broader understanding of the history of these special places. The NPS is very grateful to donors for their foresighted generosity.

Donating material to a professionally managed museum or archival repository will ensure that the donated items will be properly cared for in years to come. Professional repositories in the Upper Peninsula include the Central Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan University Archives, found online at www.nmu.edu/archives/, Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections, found online at www.mtu.edu/library/archives/, Finlandia University Finnish American Heritage Center Archives and Museum, found online at finlandia.edu/FAHAM, and the Lake Superior Collection Management Center at Keweenaw National Historical Park, found online at www.nps.gov/kewe. Each institution has a different mission and policy for selecting material they will collect. Please contact them directly if you have any questions.

If you are interested in donating material to the LSCMC, please contact Curator Brian Hoduski at [phone] or [e-mail], or Archivist Jeremiah Mason at [phone] or [e-mail].

 

First- and second- generation Finnish immigrants Jacob, Margaret, Armas, and Amanda (Warren) Blander are pictured around 1908 in this historic family portrait photograph from the Margaret Blander and Helmi Warren family papers at Keweenaw National Historical Park.

Finnish-American Experience Documented at Keweenaw NHP May Challenge Attitudes Toward Refugees in Finland Today

Tuuli Koponen, a Finnish archaeologist and doctoral candidate at the University of Oulu in Finland, visited the Copper Country in September of 2017 to learn about the Finnish-American experience in Michigan. Tuuli visited the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections, the Finnish American Historical Archives, and the Keweenaw National Historical Park archives at the Lake Superior Collection Management Center.

The Margaret Blander and Helmi Warren family papers at Keweenaw NHP were interesting to Tuuli because of the rich assortment of photographs contained in the collection. She was also intrigued by a questionaire answered by Margaret Blander, circulated by Dr. Heikki Waris from the University of Helsinki when he was studying the Finnish diaspora in the mid-1930s. Tuuli is interested in the ways first- and second-generation Finnish immigrants adapted their way of life to their new surroundings. She looked for evidence of adaptation by studying material culture, such as clothing, household items, and buildings associated with Finnish immigrants, as documented in the photographs. The Waris questionnaire included a personal description of the prejudices Finnish immigrants faced in the Copper Country early in the 20^th century.

For Tuuli, studying these aspects of historic Finnish immigrant life can provide a valuable counterpoint to the way immigrants and refugees, especially from the Middle East, are treated in Finland today. She said, “Of course the photographs themselves are heritage objects and as such interesting for an archaeologist. I think it is interesting how the photographs portray the life of Finnish immigrants and what those images could mean in Finland as cultural heritage today; what could the Finnish learn about the lives of people who left in the late 19^th or early 20^th century and made new lives for themselves in a foreign environment? I think this has important implications for how we look at immigration and refugees today.”

 

Doing Research at Lake Superior CMC

Archival collections at the Lake Superior Collection Management Center include collections from Isle Royale National Park, Keweenaw National Historical Park, and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Collections include National Park Service records, as well as acquired historic business records, organizational records, personal and family papers, and photographs. If you are interested in researching these collections, please contact the LSCMC archivist to make an appointment.

The Lake Superior Collection Management Center Archives is located in the Keweenaw History Center, in the historic Calumet and Hecla Mining Company Public Library building at the southeast corner of Red Jacket Road and Mine Street in Calumet. Plans for the rehabilitation of the historic library building include changes to allow for universal accessibility. In the meantime, please notify LSCMC staff if you are not able to navigate stairs, and they will arrange accommodations for you in another building.

If you are interested in researching family history in the Keweenaw, the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections is the best place to start. It has comprehensive collections of local mining company records and Houghton County directories, along with many other collections. The archives, located at the J. R. Van Pelt and Opie Library on the Michigan Tech campus in Houghton, is open Monday through Friday from 10AM to 5PM. Walk-ins are welcome. Please visit the Michigan Tech Archives website at http://www.mtu.edu/library/archives/ for more information.

 

NPS Photo

From the Collections of Keweenaw National Historical Park:

This parade banner belonged to a Hungarian mutual benefit society based in Red Jacket (Calumet). It says “A Red Jacket Mich. Elso Magyar Betegsegelyzo Egylet” or First Hungarian Sickness Association of Red Jacket, Michigan. On the reverse it says, “Alakult 1897 Julius 4en” or Formed July 4, 1897. It was donated to Keweenaw National Historical Park by the late Edward Lutz of Wolverine, who salvaged the banner and other materials from the Hungarian Reformed Church in Wolverine, which he attended, before it was razed in 1951.

Though small compared to the size of some other immigrant communities in the Copper Country, the Hungarians were influential in the history of the area. They were especially noted for being largely supportive of the general strike in the Copper Country in1913-14. A section of the Miners Bulletin, published by the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) during the strike, was printed in Magyar each week. This support likely led to the decline in the local Hungarian population shortly after the strike’s unsuccessful end for the WFM. The early departure of many Hungarian families makes objects like this banner particularly rare in the local area. Recently, a researcher documenting Hungarian immigrant communities across the United States noted that this banner is an exceptional example of its type, not just locally, but one of the best he has seen anywhere in the country.

This banner is one of 750 cataloged objects from the Keweenaw collection that have been uploaded to the National Park Service web catalog. To see catalog records for this and other objects from the Keweenaw collection, please visit the NPS web catalog at museum.nps.gov, and search for “KEWE” in the search bar. In coming months and years, LSCMC staff hope to upload many more records and photographs of objects to the web catalog for all three parks.