The Sanford High School Collection

     The collection that I have been assigned to is the Sanford High School Collection. Sanford High School was built in 1902, at 301 W. 7th St., and is currently the Public History Center. The name of the first Sanford High School changed to Sanford Grammar School when the new high school was built in 1911 at 9th St. & Palmetto. This new building served as the high school until 1926 when a third high school was built and renamed Seminole High School. My project covers Sanford High School from 1902-1926.
     When I began my internship, the collection was already compiled and organized in a couple boxes. This is the first part of archiving a collection. Before the internet age, putting together and organizing the collection would have been the end of the project, aside from creating a register/inventory. Now with the internet age, historians have the ability to make collections more accessible to the public. This is done through entering the collections into PastPerfect and Riches M.I. This is a time consuming task, because of the amount of detail that has to be entered for each item in the collection. I will explain more about these two programs in future entries.
     First, I acquainted myself with the collection, to become familiar with what I would be working with. The collection is made up of photos, documents, and yearbooks. The photos are of the students and the two school buildings. There is a photo of the first graduating class of Sanford High School, which was in 1907. There were only four graduates that year, all ladies, Alberta Hill Howard, Peacha Leffler Wiggins, Clara Millen, and Mabel Bowler Bram.  There are more photos of graduating classes from later years, and miscellaneous student pictures. The weird thing about looking at these old photos is that, at the time the photo was taken, the people in the picture had no idea what was going to occur in the twentieth century. Some of these photos were taken before the Titanic even sank. Some were taken before Women's Suffrage, World War I & II, and the Civil Rights Movement. We are able to look at the twentieth century in hindsight, but right now, we are practically in the same position that they were. It is currently 2014, and we are oblivious as to what conflicts, advances, and changes this century will bring. Food for thought...
     There are many items in my collection that are on display throughout the Public History Center. It was a long process to take them down, scan them, and hang the copies back up on the walls. The process was a lot longer than it should have been due to an uncooperative scanner. There were a lot of original photos on display. I replaced these with copies, so we could keep the originals in a safe, dark and dry archival box. I was disappointed to see that many of the original photos had been "damaged" by poor knowledge on how to treat archival items. Almost every photo on display has a typed caption glued to it. Now, the caption cannot be removed without causing some damage to the photos. If you are ever dealing with important documents or treasured photographs, never tape, staple, or glue anything to them.
     The Sanford High School Collection also has some student exams and homework assignments saved from the years 1905-1908. These made me realize that I need to improve my cursive reading skills. They consist of various subjects, like Latin, English, Geography, etc. The collection also has one report card.
     The collection has yearbooks from 1910, 1912, and 1914-1926. These books were called Salmagundis, and they are a wealth of information about Sanford High School, and the city in general. I have a lot to get done in order to complete this collection by the end of the semester. Until next time, Samantha