My primary objective in determining how to present Jane's scrapbook was to communicate the socio-historical value tied to the original artifacts (specifically in their visual qualities) while also providing easy access to the textual content of those artifacts. All editorial decisions have been made with an intended readership of non-experts interested in teen culture in the 1930s. Since I relate Jane's social life to the general population of middle-class American teens in the 1930s, this archive should appeal to a broad readership today. My ultimate goal in reproducing artifacts from Jane's scrapbook is to show contemporary readers, who have likely experienced youth in more recent years, what is was like to be a teenager in the 1930s, and in particular, what struggles young women faced regarding authoritarian structures (specifically the college/university) that placed constraints on their social freedom.

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Mary-Jo Kline and Susan Holbrook Perdue warn that editing a journal (or scrapbook) is often a challenging process because "pages may be difficult to transcribe and its references may be baffling to annotate" (95). Scrapbooks are typically "informal in nature and private in intent," and they "lose rather than gain by any attempt to impose excessive conventions of print publication" (Kline and Perdue 135). Maintaining the integrity of Jane's scrapbook is, therefore, paramount, and making too many alterations to her original artifacts would likely conceal some of the eccentricities of her writing style. My editorial objective in this archive is for readers to experience the artifacts as close to their original forms as possible, while at the same time being able to read the text in the clearest manner possible. In order to accomplish this goal I have chosen to present facsimile and clear text versions of all artifacts.

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Facsimiles

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Facsimile reproductions are particularly important for this archive because scrapbooks have compelling visual elements that are not easily duplicated in other formats. Online platforms have been particularly useful for presenting facsimiles of historical scrapbooks in recent years. The Lewis Carroll Scrapbook, for instance, utilizes digital scrapbooking software to display full pages of Carroll’s scrapbook, along with clear text versions accessible through an adjacent portal (Zhang).

Scrapbooks typically contain nonverbal artifacts and a variety of paper products with both handwritten and printed text. Text also often appears in varying angles and sizes, and the placement of collected artifacts can create a unique visual experience (i.e., collage). Since the artifacts within scrapbooks are typically visually distinct, and since scrapbooks are created with an intentional visual experience, facsimile reproductions are essential for any scrapbook archive.

 

All facsimile reproductions in this archive are digital photographs of Jane's original artifacts. While high-resolution JPEGs are undoubtedly the most accurate way to depict the original artifacts in an online format, Reese Jenkins and Thomas Jeffrey remind the editor that photographic reproduction “is itself a translation" (7). The William Blake Archive provides perhaps the best current model for editors working to digitize written documents that contain distinct visual qualities. Joseph Viscomi, editor of The Blake Archive, defends the process of color correcting used by the archivists to achieve facsimiles that are “faithful” to the originals: “Images need to be ‘color corrected’ because the very process by which they are digitized results in a loss of color quality. Color correcting compensates for their loss by changing an image’s shadows, midtones, and/or highlights, hue, and saturation” (37). The editor may alter the image on the computer screen in comparison to the original physical artifact. Comparing the two— the original and digital facsimile— allows the editor to produce the most faithful facsimile he/she can, which will of course never be one hundred percent accurate (even using Photoshop). It is important for the reader to remember that the photographic color may not reflect the exact color of the physical artifacts. Viscomi maintains, however, that an editor with good eyes and skill with image-enhancing software (Photoshop, in my case) can create trustworthy facsimile reproductions.

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Viscomi also warns that during the image editing process, the editor must “master the temptation to ‘improve’ the original aesthetically,” to restore the image to its “presumed original pristine condition” (38). The editor, he maintains, should avoid fixing blemishes or increasing/decreasing the saturation of colors. While I agree with Viscomi’s high standards for image editing, I must divulge that there are some facsimiles in this archive that have been altered in contrast so as to enhance their readability. One such instance is in exhibit l., Ride with Doug, wherein the handwriting on the original document was faded and the paper was ripped and stained in such a manner that made it extremely difficult to read the unaltered photographic facsimile. In this situation, I made the decision to alter, very slightly, the contrast of the JPEG in favor of readability. Other instances of photographic manipulation — primarily alterations in contrast — are equally insignificant and do not drastically modify the appearance of the original artifact.

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My ultimate goal in creating the facsimiles was to duplicate the experience of viewing Jane's original artifacts — as they presently exist — as closely as possible, yet also to enhance the quality of the digital photographs when the text or graphic detail could not be read clearly.

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Clear Text

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Uncorrected clear text versions of artifacts appear on the page opposite their facsimile counterparts in this archive. Clear text versions adhere to line end breaks in the original documents but contain neither critical symbols nor footnote numbers to show that an emendation has been made or that some detail has been omitted (Kline and Perdue). I chose clear text for this archive for two reasons: (1) the items in Jane's scrapbook require few textual emendations, and (2) I did not want readers to be burdened by frequent symbols and notes that can disrupt the reading process.

 

Kline and Perdue advise that clear text is justifiable "only when that reading text will be accompanied by a full record of editorial emendations and suppressed inscriptional details or a companion facsimile" (175). My project includes both facsimiles and a back-of-book emendation list so that readers may access those visual and inscriptional details omitted in the clear text versions. Facsimile companions provide a resource for reconstructing the original artifacts, making the inclusion of textual emendations within my transcriptions less important. The facsimiles emphasize the visual, material features of the original artifacts, while the corresponding clear text provide an easier option for reading the textual content.

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Emendations

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I have chosen to report all emendations in a back-of-book list (or rather a back-of-website list, as the emendations are listed on a separate webpage from the scrapbook exhibits). I have limited emendations to accidentals — spelling, punctuation, word-division, and other “accidents” that primarily affect the “formal presentation” of the document (Greg 21). Substantive emendations were avoided because I wanted to preserve not only the socio-historical integrity of the artifacts, but Jane's intended meaning as well. For instance, outdated slang and idiomatic phrases (e.g., Jane's use of the out-of-date phrase "high hat," which means to pompously ignore someone) have not been modernized. Instead, contextual footnotes identify and define these words and phrases.

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Kline and Perdue advise editors to record emendations in a back-of-book list only when "the extent of editorial intervention is so slight and of so little substantive importance" that it does not significantly modify the artifact’s content (174). Not only does this archive meet Kline and Perdue's criteria, but it is also intended for a general readership, which means that readers likely will not desire emendations to be listed alongside documents. The back-of-book list gives readers the option to reconstruct Jane's original artifacts, while remaining unobtrusive to the presentation of the clear text and facsimile versions.

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Accidentals— primarily punctuation and capitalizations— are emended and indicated in the back-of-book list with labels corresponding to each exhibit, page number of the exhibit, and line of the page. This is not to say, however, that capitalizations and punctuations are standardized in all exhibits. In clear text transcriptions of Jane's handwritten notes, for instance, I have made no attempt to standardize capitalizations or punctuation in an effort to maintain the eccentricities (and informality) of Jane's writing style. In transcriptions of printed documents like newspaper articles and Jane's student handbook, however, I have standardized punctuation and capitalization because inconsistencies of these kinds are attributable to editing or printing accidents that bare little to no substantive significance. Again, these accidentals are indicated in the back-of-book emendation list.

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Text appearing sideways or upside down in original artifacts also appears right side up in clear text versions — for obvious reasons — and these emendations are indicated in the back-of-book list. Abbreviations and acronyms are not expanded in the clear text (with the sole exception of Jane's "and" symbol, which is silently emended throughout all clear text versions due to its frequent use and the difficulty of accurately reproducing the symbol using a word processor). Any abbreviations or acronyms are addressed in the contextual footnotes so that readers can view more accurate transcriptions of the original artifacts, yet also have a reference tool for unfamiliar terms.

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Scrapbook Failure

 

Digitization issues arising from structural failure of original materials challenge any editor working with multi-textual documents that have received little preservative attention over their lifetimes. During the editing process, I inevitably had to confront the fact that Jane’s scrapbook is nearly 80 years old and has received little, if any, intervention for preservation. The scrapbook is suffering from numerous forms of structural failure that pose unique problems in the editing of its content. Jennifer Hain Teper identifies six general types of structural failure that can occur in scrapbooks over time:

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(1) binding failure
(2) page detachment
(3) support failure due to high acidity or (4) embrittlement
(5) attachment failure
(6) deterioration of memorabilia (53) 

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Not surprising, Jane’s scrapbook has experienced all six of these broad categories of structural failure. Some areas of failure, however, are not of particular importance in this archive due to its selectivity (or non-comprehensiveness). While Jane’s scrapbook has experienced binding failure, page detachment, and attachment failure, these types of failure are not of central concern since I elected not to present the scrapbook in its entirety. These types of failure will have to be addressed in the future, however, if I expand the archive to include a page-by-page facsimile reproduction of the scrapbook.

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The most common types of failure in Jane’s scrapbook are page embrittlement and deterioration of memorabilia. There are many places where the paper has been damaged or torn. Damage primarily occurs in the form of discoloration due to the paper’s high acidity. Teper notes that most old scrapbooks — those constructed before the ‘magnetic’ black paper that became popular in the 1970s — were made from low-grade wood pulp paper. This paper was typically white or cream in color (which indeed seems to be the case with Jane’s scrapbook) but turned yellow-brown over time due to high acidity (Teper). See, for instance, exhibit c. Note from Joe: the folded version of the note is stained brown, while the inside of the note is closer to the original paper color because it was not exposed to light. Aside from discoloration, other instances of damage have occurred where the pages of Jane’s scrapbook have adhered together over time and then split into layers of paper when pulled apart. This type of damage is particularly evident in the final page of the Student Handbook, exhibit b.8, wherein the parts of the document that stuck to another page in the scrapbook are darker in color.

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Instances of tearing, on the other hand, most often occur around the outer edges of the scrapbook due to embrittlement, causing some words at the end of lines to be indecipherable. The most prevalent instance of tearing occurs in Jane's note Ride with Doug, exhibit l., wherein four out of six line-ending words are torn from the paper. All other occurrences of tearing in this archive are minor in comparison.

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Addressing Damage and Tearing

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Instances of missing words — places where the original artifact was torn or damaged beyond my ability to determine with reasonable certainty an entire word — are indicated within the clear text version with closed brackets: [].  Likewise, missing letters — places where the original artifact was torn or damaged beyond my ability to determine with reasonable certainty an entire word due to the absence of some letters of the word — are indicated with an asterisk: *.

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If the original document is torn or damaged, but I was still able to determine with reasonable certainty the obstructed or missing word, the word is inserted in the clear text. For instance, in Ride with Doug, exhibit l., the page is torn, causing a sentence to read, "we wen to the lake." I was able to determine with reasonable certainty that "wen" was originally "went," so I inserted the completed word in the clear text. All instances of torn or damaged text are indicated in the back-of-book emendation list so that readers can gain an accurate understanding of the extent of editorial intervention performed in each unique case. 

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Some Additional Editorial Practices

 

Many of the artifacts in Jane's scrapbook include both print and handwritten text on the same piece of paper. For example, Jane inscribed her name and address in cursive onto the cover of her ASTC Student Handbook. In such instances, handwritten text is italicized in the clear text in order to differentiate between handwritten text and print text.

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Dashes, underlines, and quotation marks are replicated as close to the original as possible in clear text versions. These textual accents and punctuations are easily duplicated using a word processor, and as such, pose little trouble for maintaining the substantive value of Jane's original artifacts in the clear text.

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Color of text and paper is standardized in all clear text versions and is not included in the back-of-book emendation list. Readers should refer to facsimiles for colors of original artifacts.

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In places where the size of text varies in Jane's original artifacts, the size is duplicated in the most accurate manner possible in the clear text since text size often has substantive value within a document, particularly in documents that vary text size drastically or frequently. In newspaper articles, for example, larger text indicates headlines, while smaller text is reserved for the body content. The more important the newspaper article, the more substantial the headlining text will likely be. As such, I attempted to stay true to changing text sizes in clear text versions. Readers can also refer to companion facsimiles for the most accurate depiction of text size variation within the original artifacts.

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Concerning nonverbal artifacts — those items deemed primarily visual and/or tactile, as opposed to textual, in nature — clear text versions are not provided, and readers should refer solely to facsimile reproductions. The absence of transcriptions, however, should not indicate that the nonverbal artifacts are somehow of lesser significance to verbal artifacts. As Jenkins asserts, nonverbal artifacts are "original records — historical documents — with an integrity equal to verbal documents” (40). Furthermore, Jenkins and Jeffrey stress that "in the case of artifacts, the annotations must bear new burdens by providing information about the materials, motions, and operations of the artifact that the translation cannot provide" (7). Since this archive focuses primarily on the cultural-historical relevance of artifacts, in particular their relation to teen culture in the 1930s, I would add pertinent contextual information to Jenkins' and Jeffrey's list of necessary annotations for nonverbal artifacts. I have provided explanatory notes for each artifact to convey relevant historical information about the artifact and its significance to Jane's social life.

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Contextual Notes

 

One of the major advantages of the digital archive is that it is more accommodating to large amounts of explanatory content accompanying artifacts. Peter Shillingsburg notes that scholarly editions have traditionally “exclude[d] explanatory annotations because the space they require would add unduly to the cost (already out of the reach of ordinary mortals and nearly out of reach for the ordinary research library)” (23). Photographic images of manuscripts or other related documents of historical significance add even more to the cost of publication. Thus, editors have tended to either develop text-only editions (which may include poor-quality monochromatic images of manuscript originals) or publish separate colored photographs at high costs (Earhart).

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The vast digital space allows editors to package all of these materials in one location. What’s more, this freedom of space allows scholars to begin to view their work as ever expanding and never complete. Archives can continue to be added to and editions can incorporate additional versions of texts. Jacqueline Wernimont and Julia Flanders, editors of the Brown University Women Writers Project (or Women Writers Online, WWO), cultivate a research philosophy that views the WWO as an ever-growing “conduit through which to experiment with new modes of scholarly intervention — at the level of production as well as analysis” (425). They allow for discovery, quick alterations, and experimentation in the presentation and annotation of facsimiles of original documents in the WWO archive. What’s more, Wernimont and Flanders are acutely aware of the limitations, or incompleteness, of their archive: “While WWO satisfies a certain initial project to recover women’s voices … it runs up against an archival limit when asked to satisfy later feminisms that require more than just the recovery of white women’s voices (433). They acknowledge, in particular, the lack of work written by women of color included in their archive.

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Wernimont and Flanders make such admissions in order to convey the importance that digital editions/archives do not “inadvertently appear to claim comprehensiveness” (433). While digital humanities offers a seemingly boundless space for massive archival and editorial projects, that space is still subjected to the limits of human capability. Thus, while I have made an effort to include a wealth of explanatory information in the form of socio-historical commentary and contextual footnotes, I do not claim to have created an all-inclusive archive. I encourage my readers to approach this archive with a critical eye and to consult additional sources that may offer more in-depth information on certain topics. This is, after all, one of the main purposes a bibliography should serve in any work.

Explanatory information is particularly important in projects that deal with obscure materials written in confusing language and about unfamiliar people and places. Valentina Bold, editor of the Glasgow University’s Broadside Ballads (also known as The David Murray Collection), notes that one of the main challenges she faced in constructing the collection was that the original materials were obscure and required a lot of detailed contextualization, which proved an especially difficult task due to the lack of supporting literature available. My archive similarly deals with unfamiliar texts that require contextualization from outside sources. As such, I have consulted a diverse range of historical, socio-cultural, and institutional literature in an effort to accurately contextualize my great-grandmother’s original scrapbook artifacts. Furthermore, the more general the intended readership, the more explanatory information the archive should typically provide (Kline and Perdue). An editor cannot expect a general reader to approach an archive with previous knowledge of the subject matter. Since my aim is to produce an archive that appeals to a broad audience, I have paid special attention to explanatory information to ensure that I do not alienate any readers.

 

In this archive, contextual information for nonverbal artifacts appears beside or below facsimiles, and contextual information for textual artifacts is presented primarily in footnotes at the bottom of all clear text versions. Footnotes include information about people, places, activities, and events referenced in documents; but they also serve as an inventory of additional readings on teen life in the 1930s and the places and institutions specific to Jane's life. Additionally, explanatory notes on subjects of particular significance sometimes accompany exhibits. These notes are intended to help the reader attain a fuller understanding of the documents’ socio-historical significance. They serve to explicate the significance of Jane's artifacts to teen culture in the 1930s.

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All contextual notes are primarily intended to help the reader to understand the artifact in the same way that a 1930s reader would have. In the case of place names that have changed over time, however, current information is provided for the benefit of the contemporary reader. For instance, Jane references a place named Filbert in exhibit a., Week with Evelyn, which was a township of York, S.C. at the time that Jane comprised her scrapbook. Since then, however, the town of Filbert has been disincorporated, the land split between York and Clove, S.C. Although this information obviously would not have been known to a 1930s reader and therefore does not affect one's understanding of the text, I have included it nonetheless so that my readers are able to easily locate historic Filbert on a current map if they so desire. With few such exceptions, footnotes primarily give readers information that would have been known to a 1930s audience.