Local Historical Societies?

Anybody here involved with your local historical society? Other then visiting the historical societies' museum in a town over on several occasions and a few college projects where I had to copy a few documents for research purposes I haven't really thought much about historical societies.

Other than some Facebook pages with old images I don't see a whole lot of interest in local history or preservation here unfortunately.

Your Thoughts?

 

I'm not really involved with the local one here, but have been a member for a while, and have gone on a couple of bus trips they sponsored. Almost 15 years ago I bought a house, and researched the history of it and the property it is on the best that I could. Found out that the historical society had rescued probate records for this town when the county was going to throw them out(!) some years before. I hope the county at least microfilmed them. Anyway, one of the curators found an old probate file for me, in their archive. They don't have enough space for an open research room, so they keep everything behind the scenes.

This is a link to their website. It is just for this town, not the whole county.
https://www.cfhistory.org/

 

Hi,
I used to keep up with the historical society in South Plainfield. Moved out of there 10 years ago. The other half did a heck of a lot of work with the Plainfield Historical Society. Since we moved neither of us have even given a thought to the historical society. We should start looking into the one here.
greg

 

Local, no. But having grown up summers for a lifetime on Block Island, and Mom having bought property there, often with decrepit old houses on the property, which often had abandoned old contents that she sometimes wound up selling and sometimes donating to the Historical Society there, I still have some things and am still somewhat involved, although minimally at this point. But B.I. Goes back to the 1600’s and it’s first settlers which I believe also included Massasoit Indians, so it has a deep history!! I also have some old papers/records which I have NO CLUE how Mom wound up with them, which WILL go to the Historical Society involving what was common practice back in the 1800’s to “indenture young men/boys until a certain age” when they then became free to stay on or move on! GREAT READING!!!! I love this old ‘stuff’ but know it should be preserved, and so it will be!!!! SORRY for the tome!!!!

 

It depends on the location, and who is involved. I've had interactions (donating scans of old unpublished photos) with a number of them from all over the country (USA). My experiences have ranged from terrible (New Jersey Historical Society) to fantastic. There are places where folks are very interested in their local history, and the people involved are extremely active. It just depends.
Although organized as a museum rather than "historical society", the Museum at Fishers Island NY is a wonderful example of how well local history can be preserved.

 

I am a member of our town's Historical Society, I am also on the town's Historical Commission - a completely different animal.

Our town's Historical Society puts on an antique show in July and I help with that. Same with the Society 2 towns over, they put a show on at the end of June.

There is a lot of political intrigue in our town's Historical Society. I only help with the antique show because I don't want to get involved in the nonsense

 

I used to send some old photos that I had collected to historical societies, without letting them know ahead of time. One of them -- I don't think it was in New Jersey -- sent back several photos I sent them. Although they kept one or two. They said they already had enough photos by the photographers who took the pictures. (The people in the photos were not identified.) I learned my lesson, and started contacting them ahead of time. But a while back, I just stopped doing it entirely.

 

My experience with New Jersey was as someone wanting to utilize their resources. About 100 years ago, a family member donated some old photos, including the only known photo of a relative born 1790, died 1872. The donor was a grandson of the man in the photo, and also involved in the historical society at the time.
Basically they said they didn't have the staff to allow us access to the material, they didn't have the staff to access it for us, and if they were to allow access, they wouldn't allow a copy to be made unless it had a prominent watermark across the middle (which would basically be across the face). I'm sure the relative who donated the material thought they were placing it in a safe place where future generations could access the photos.
It took about 5 years, but after multiple contacts (many of which were ignored, even though we offered to pay for their time), we were finally able to get a copy of the photo, with the watermark below the face, after providing signed affirmations that the photo (of a direct ancestor) would not be published or copied in any manner.

 

This is all very interesting.

I am on the board of the Cape Cod Antique Dealers Association, every year we put out a directory of our dealers. On the cover we have a photo and since I am doing the directory now I have pulled a bunch of historic photos for possible use. Almost all of them came from various historical societies' web sites on Cape Cod. Some are posted as high resolution, some are low resolution but I can request a high resolution version to use on the cover.

We are a non profit, there is no charge for the directory, maybe that makes a difference?

 

Our local historical society seems to be somewhat typical. Not as bad as New Jersey, that's for sure. Anyway, they have a 19th-century row house, a nice Victorian furniture collection (I helped identify some of it), and a collection of gowns belonging to various state First Ladies. A great place to go for out of towners, although the hours are short, no doubt due to their reliance on volunteers.

Having said all this, they seem to have a somewhat adversarial relationship with our other, larger, historic preservation group in town. Don't know why, but they seldom even mention each other, and never do any events together. My guess is that it's down to personalities, which it so often is.

 

So, what I think I’m picking up from reading here is that local historical societies aren’t looking to become “collection spots” for random unidentified albeit OLD photographs, but possibly just pertinent “Identifiable ones relative to the history of the town/city”??? I could see how it could become unmanageable if they accepted just everything sent to them.....I suppose they have to find some way to filter what is and is not relevant!

 

You are right @Aquitaine. They don't want everything, and that applies to more than just photos. They may need to be even more selective with things that take up space. I don't bother them with random photos. For the old photos I have, if I think the photos are historically useful, and pertain to the area, I contact the historical society and ask if they want scans of them. So far, all that I've approached have seemed pretty happy to get them, and have, in return, helped me by providing additional info on what's in the photos, and helped me pin down exact locations of a few in the group that I wasn't completely sure of.

The point I was raising with New Jersey was that they shouldn't become black holes that suck up historical material, and then hide it away forever.

 

This discussion is interesting to me for another reason. A friend of mine inherited a 19th-century CDV album that belonged to his paternal grandmother. Many of the people in it are identified, and I'm currently trying to figure out for him which ones are related and which are friends or colleagues. The photos are all identified with handwritten captions, although some of the photos of the grandmother's close relatives were removed years before my friend got the album. Anyway, my friend also has tried to get advice from people as to what he can do with the album. I gather that he doesn't think any of his relatives will want it, but I'll ask about that. He is wondering about donating it to some historical society, or some other institution. Reading the posts in this discussion is interesting and will help in how I advise him.

 

@Figtree3 - Some websites about disconnected photos
https://www.deadfred.com/faq_05.php
https://returnthephotos.com/2020/03/01/how-return-the-photos-got-started/
Although it's a little more effort, a good way to get images of people to interested family is to find their record on https://www.familysearch.org and attach a good scan of the photo to that record.

 

Thanks! I appreciate it. There are also several Facebook groups for this kind of thing. So, I know about them and I know the research methods (being a librarian, and a genealogist and all ). I just have too many (probably dozens) that could use this kind of research, if I was so inclined. At this point I'd rather spend time on my own research.

However, I regularly check on Find A Grave and if I am certain one of my photos is the same person on the memorial, I will upload a scan of the photo to that record. Interestingly, somebody recently contacted me about a photo I added to Find A Grave three years ago. It was a member of a historical commission or committee in the town where the young woman in the photo lived. Apparently about 40-50 years after the photo was taken she was the first (or one of the first) women who voted in that town, after it became legal. They wanted to use my scan in a presentation. So I sent them the original scans, since it's probable that Find A Grave resizes the photos.

 

I was Vice President of the Orleans Historical Society until they decided to try and purchase a huge, expensive historic inn that we might have been able to buy with a donation from a benefactor, but in no way could we maintain. Heck, one of our Board members was paying a local guy $100 a month to mow in the summer and shovel in the winter. Local societies are usually shoestring operations. I left the Board, the sale didn't go through and now they call themselves CHO - Center for History and Culture in Orleans. (They apparently dropped the second C). They did finally spend the donation to do needed rehab to the old Meetinghouse and they had a second building down the hill that they've raised up and put storage underneath so it's on the same level as the Meetinghouse and they'll have more space now. I'm next town over from Marie. I also maintain membership in my home town Historical Society, the New Hampshire one and the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth because my friend works there and talked me into it. They are the most active on the Cape. They have events and operate two properties and they do trips to different places in the summer. They have an annual dinner with good speakers.