Cataloging Textiles

Today I cataloged and housed articles of clothing for the first time. The two pieces I cataloged were a jacket and a snowsuit belonging to a former park geologist. To get information about the articles of clothing for ANCS+, I looked in the accession file for details about their significance. There, I found a few notes about each piece, which I included in their catalog records.

To label the clothing, I wrote their catalog numbers with acid free pen on twine tape, which I sewed onto the tags of each. I made cushioned hangers to store them by wrapping coat hangers with batting. Then, I hand sewed muslin cloth over the batting in the shape of the hangers. When the hangers were finished, I was ready to hang the two pieces in hanging textile storage cabinets.

One of the pieces I cataloged and housed

Sewn-on label

Coat hanger wrapped in batting

Finished coat hanger with batting and muslin

Today I also finished the metal rehousing project. I had finished putting all the objects in the collection with tarnish into corrosion intercept bags last week. I changed the location of each object in the database and put them away in their new storage location. Because the corrosion intercept bags turn black when they need to be changed, I made signs for the outside of the boxes that explained what was stored inside and that the bags need to be checked every six months to make sure they are still working. I also put notes to that effect in ANCS+ for each object .

Rehoused metal objects in their new location

Signs on the outside reminding that the corrosion intercept bags need to be checked

For the remainder of the day, I read about the 1999 buffalo walk performed by Native Americans. The walkers traveled 507 miles from South Dakota all the way to  the Roosevelt Arch in Gardiner for a ceremony to protest the park’s bison management plan. I started reading a binder prepared about the ceremony that included interviews, articles, and park documents that tried to give the full picture of this complex issue. I will discuss this issue in more detail in a later post.