Tim,
I haven't been able to reply until now, sorry for the delay.
The obvious answer would be a state historical society.
However, you may want to look into giving the documents to the American Antiquarian
Society.
http://www.americanantiquarian.org/
Michelle Laycock
Racine/Kenosha WIGenWeb
Tim Stowell <tstowell(a)chattanooga.net> wrote:
This week I was contacted by a former Archivist with the University of
Georgia Libraries who fully understands the importance
of preserving original documents, care and handling thereof.
I shared with her how several years ago I had the privilege in the company
of my brother, to see, the discovery of the finest known example of a work
- that prior to that point only the rare book division of a library in
Boston had the only known copy in existance. This book was 'stored' in an
open faced dress box in this woman's attic!
What a thrill it was to see first hand a booklet published in 1860, in
Griffin, only aged by 140 years of storage - in as pristine a condition as
one could imagine and to be dumbfounded as to how it was stored. The lady
was gracious enough to allow my brother to photocopy this booklet - (the
one in Boston too fragile to even photocopy) - to use in his doctoral work
along with an original note dated 1849, wherein a woman told her intended
that most likely her father would give them a couple of slaves as a dowry.
I writing to find out your thoughts on places for persons to contribute
original documents that can not only be used for research but will be
available for the public at large to view.
In the last year or so, I've had delivered to my inbox copies of two really
neat original documents -
- muster roll of an Illinois unit, names of soldiers, rank, pay, if they
had a horse or mule - that served in the Black Hawk War (Crawford County)
- today - list of scholars, age, study, number of days attended for the
school term in a particular township (yet to be determined which one) for
Feb. 1857. Additionally a copy of a note telling of the demise of the
instructor in early May of that same year in Dodge Co., WI (Richland County)
What I'd like to do is let the contributors know and encourage them to
consider donating or loaning these documents to a repository that can
perserve them.
Tim
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