I’ve been preoccupied with all sorts of archival work lately, and I thought I’d pass along a few preservation tips for those of you that might have some “stuff” that you’d like to protect and save for the future.
Know your archival plastics!
Do you have photographs, artwork, manuscripts, letters, coins or currency that you’d like to preserve for years to come? Perhaps you’d like to enclose those items in a protective plastic enclosure, so that they may be viewed and handled with minimal damage? That’s a fine idea, but you should know that when it comes to archival storage, there are good plastics, and (very) bad plastics. With that in mind, I thought I’d share this helpful infographic, hoping that some of you may find it useful.
As always, feel free to click the image for a clearer, downloadable and/or printable version of the image.
Howdy! Sorry for the long blog silence. It’s not that I’m lacking for topics or material to share with you all, but I’ve been busy “behind the scenes” at the Clark House for the last month or so.
In particular, I’ve been working on two big projects. JCH executive director Nina Look and I have just published the Spring | May 2025 issue of the JCH Newsletter, and Nina and I have been collaborating with JCH intern Nicole Buerosse on a major, archival-quality upgrade for the preservation and display of the museum’s irreplaceable Bonniwell Family Bible.
Scaffolding at the Clark House? What’s up with that? Read on for more info…
Some of our recent and upcoming posts are focused on reading and evaluating source materials. The first of these posts, JCH Sources, part 1, was illustrated with this drawing…
Whistler, James McNeill, artist, Reading by Lamplight, etching and drypoint, 1859. MetMuseum. Bequest of Julia H. Manges, in memory of her husband, Dr. Morris Manges, 1960
This is James McNeill Whistler’s 1859 Reading by lamplight, an evocative drawing of a young woman, reading by the light of an oil lamp, a cup of tea at her side. The lamp is supported on a tall, slender metal stand. It’s light is raised even further by placing the lamp stand on a large, overturned bowl.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think this was Caroline Clark, or one of her other well-read sisters. Caroline would have been about 19 years old in 1859, when Whistler made this drawing. She was in the middle of her pioneering two-year high school course in Milwaukee, a talented, energetic young woman on the way to living a remarkable life of service. Here she is circa 1889-1900, around age 50, in the prime of life:
If you are interested in the history of the Jonathan Clark House, there are a number of published local histories that you might consult. Many of them are available online, as free, searchable, PDF downloads from Internet Archive, GoogleBooks, the Library of Congress, and other digital repositories. This is pretty cool but, as you might expect, not all sources are equal. Some are more reliable than others. Some contain detailed information about early settlement, settlers, government and politicians, pioneer businesses and other local affairs, often drawing upon old primary sources, some of which have since disappeared. Other histories are more content to paraphrase (and sometimes mangle) earlier volumes. How do you know which to trust?
A guide for the perplexed
In today’s post, I’d like to guide you to and through several of the published histories that I’ve spent a lot of time with. I’ll provide links to PDF copies where available, make a few comments on the range and quality of the information in each book, and give each book an overall grade for accuracy, style, and usefulness.
Among the real pleasures of writing a blog like this are the comments I receive from CHH readers. Recently, I heard from reader James Cornelius of nearby Grafton, Wisconsin,1 who had some thoughts about our January 24, 2025, post “Help the Historian: Mysterious (Bible?) Fragment.”2
As the original post explained, I had been examining a number of loose Bonniwell papers, scraps, and other ephemera that were donated to the Clark House along with the Bonniwell family Bible itself, and I was particularly interested in one little fragment of printed text that had me baffled.
The mysterious fragment, sides A & B, photo credit: Reed Perkins, 2022.
In my original post, I examined the text and typography of the fragment and estimated that the it was published sometime between the late-sixteenth century (at the very earliest) and—at the very latest—the first decades of the nineteenth century. And the mentions of “Moon” and “motion” and such suggested a source that might be more scientific or philosophical, and not necessarily a sacred text, but I couldn’t think what that might be.
A new possible source: Almanacs!
In his comment, James observed: My hunch is that this triangular scrap /bookmark came from an almanac, likely as common in 1800-1820 U.K. as in U.S. a half-decade later. Many fairly good or detailed ‘scientific’ discussions appeared in the old almanacs or ‘farmer’s friends.’
I think James is on to something. Almanacs seem like a very plausible source. But how common were farmer’s almanacs in the UK, and how likely was it that the Bonniwells had access to these annual “farmer’s friends” in Chatham, Kent, England, in the years before their 1832 immigration to North America?
Just a reminder: Saturday, March 1, 2025, from 9:00 am to Noon, the Jonathan Clark House Museum, at the corner of Bonniwell and Cedarburg Roads in Mequon, will host a special museum open house featuring an up-close exploration of our newly-acquired 1860 Plat Map of Mequon.
Kimmel and Forster, publishers, “Winter Pleasure in the Country,” circa 1865. National Museum of American History, Peters Prints Collection, Smithsonian Institution.1
Talk of sleighs and sleighing in our recent CHH posts on Snow! and Shoveling out -and other winter chores, plus our January, 2022, essay on Stuff Happens – on a sleigh ride, got me wondering again about winter travel in old Washington/Ozaukee county during the Clarks’ era. Assuming most of the more successful farmers—such as the Clarks, Bonniwells and Turcks—owned a one- or two-horse sleigh, how easy was it to navigate that sleigh on the early county roads? Could you ride all the way to Milwaukee? And if you could, how long might that take?
We’ve had some snow in my corner of southeastern Wisconsin, several modest snowfalls over the past few days. I’ve had to shovel the walks and driveway at our house a few times this week, and there’s more snow—and shoveling—in the forecast. With that in mind, I thought you might enjoy the snow-related images and stories from a revised edition of this post, which originally appeared here in February, 2023.
Homer, Winslow, A Winter-Morning,—Shovelling Out, 1871. Wood engraving. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Harvey Isbitts.
Winter chores
I empathize with the lads in this 1871 engraving by Winslow Homer. Unlike these fellows, with their (homemade?) wooden shovels, I have a lightweight, sturdy, ergonomic, plastic and metal snow shovel to work with. And although we do get snow in 21st-century Wisconsin, I haven’t had to deal with shoulder-high accumulations like the ones in Homer’s picture since I lived in western Massachusetts in the early 2010s. It looks like our 1871 snow shovelers are dealing with the kind of snowfall that Clark family neighbor Rev. James W. Woodworth described in these January, 1871, diary entries:
I’m spending some of my time this winter on projects related to the cataloging, interpretation and display of our historic Bonniwell Family Bible. One of the items on my “to do” list involves the study of a number of Bonniwell papers and other ephemera that were donated along with the Bible itself. Some of the miscellaneous papers are self-explanatory and easily understood. But one little fragment of printed text has me baffled, and I need your help, history lovers!
Revised 17 February 2025 to include some additional material about my Beckmann-related talk at the Cedarburg History Museum in Spring, 2023.
Cedarburg News, October 14, 1885, page 1
I’ve been spending time with historic local newspapers online, searching for those tasty tidbits of local news that never quite make it into the history books, but are often found in the 19th-century local press. Today I was browsing through 1880s to early-1900s issues of the Cedarburg News, Fred. W. Horn, publisher, and found some interesting random bits o’ history that are connected to the Clark House and to some work I’ve done for the Cedarburg History Museum.
Fred. Beckmann and kin
You may remenber a post I wrote back in July, 2020, about newly-married German immigrant Fred. Beckmann, who farmed and lived on the Jonathan Clark property from 1868 until 1873, at which time he and his growing family moved to Cedarburg, where he then owned and ran the Wisconsin House hotel for the better part of the next four decades. I followed that up with an April, 2023 presentation at the Cedarburg History Museum, where I spoke about the life and the extended circle of family, business associates and friends of Fred. Beckmann. His story connects the hardscrabble early days of our area’s Yankee, Irish and German pioneers (Jonathan and Mary Clark’s generation) with the following generation of established and settled German-American farmers, business owners and civic leaders, such as himself. And Fred also connected and illuminated the story of the Jonathan Clark House with those of nearby Hamilton—and its Concordia Mill—and the development of downtown Cedarburg in the 19th-century.
That 2023 presentation was followed by a March, 2024, illustrated talk I gave at the Cedarburg History Museum as part of their big 2024 Civil War exhibition and lecture series. My subject was “From the ‘Burg to the Battlefield…and Back: Cedarburg’s Beckmann Family and the Civil War.” In my talk, I tried to take a more personal and local look at the war by examining the military service of few of Fred. Beckmann’s Cedarburg relatives, including his brother Charles Beckmann, future brother-in-law, Charles Gottschalk, and future father-in-law Henry Hachfeld/Hackfeldt.
Well, I wasn’t really looking for more info on Fred. Beckmann today, but I stumbled across some interesting things, and thought I’d share them with you here…
Clark House Historian 