The artifacts from Jane's scrapbook included in this archive are divided into five separate categories, which are then sub-grouped into exhibits. Exhibits may contain one or multiple artifacts from Jane’s scrapbook. I chose to label the subgroups ‘exhibits’ primarily to draw attention to the visual, interactive qualities of Jane’s scrapbook that are akin to the traditional museum exhibit. Chen claims that museum exhibition “encourages viewers to interpret handwritten documents as objects,” to understand the value not only in the text but in the visual, material properties as well, which is the experience I hope to provide for my readers.

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Interestingly, Wernimont and Flanders are currently in the process of developing an “exhibits” structure for the WWO archive, which will exceed the archive’s current reliance on explanatory essays on particular themes (e.g., an essay on devotional writing to serve as an introduction to particular works in the archive) and instead “permit more experimental forms of commentary and linkage between texts” (427). Their exhibition model will allow the archive to exceed the “project of ‘mere’ recovery” and transform it into a site for reinterpretation, knowledge expansion, and experimental forms of translation and annotation (Wernimont and Flanders 427). The space afforded to the digital archive allows for expansion of contextualization and annotation at the discretion of the editor(s). Exhibits not only include original artifacts (or in the case of digital exhibits, facsimiles of original documents), but supplementary explanatory information as well. Thus, the exhibit is a much more inclusive space in which readers/viewers can gain a fuller understanding of the original materials. 

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The artifacts in this archive are loosely divided into categories based on various aspects of Jane’s social life, which are then subdivided into exhibits. The categories are loose because all of the artifacts are related to one another through the common thread of teen culture; they often overlap. For instance, a date (category 3) may take place at a school athletic event (category 4). As such, the categories are not meant to sever exhibits from one another, and readers should feel encouraged to make connections between exhibits and to use the information in certain exhibits to elucidate information in others. The category and exhibits are divided in the following manner:

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Cat. 1. Introduction to Jane's Social Life: This initial section includes only one exhibit, a three-page note written by Jane that details the time she spent visiting a friend in South Carolina the Summer before she first attended Appalachian State Teachers College (ASTC). I chose to place this artifact first because it provides a broad introduction not only to Jane's writing style but also to the variety of social activities that are exemplified in the artifacts throughout the rest of the archive (e.g., dating, riding in automobiles, and attending school functions).

 

Cat. 2. Appalachian State Teachers College Student Handbook: This section also contains only one exhibit, the Student Handbook from ASTC. I chose to place the handbook here for a few reasons. First, the handbook serves as an introduction to college life, and specifically life at ASTC, in the 1930s. Second, the rules and regulations for student conduct stated in the handbook are often the source of Jane's and other students' desire to push back against authority figures and gain more social independence. Many subsequent exhibits refer back to regulations listed in the handbook. For instance, the newspaper clipping and scrapbook note regarding a student strike at ASTC are written in direct objection to specific rules stated in the Student Handbook. Thus, it is important for readers to first view the handbook in order to fully understand some of the subsequent exhibits in this archive.

 

Cat. 3. Dating: This section focuses on the dating aspect of teen culture in the 1930s and includes six exhibits: Note from Joe, Date with Cicero, Party at Ruth Watts’, Movie Program, Dorothy Dix's Letter Box, and Valentine Card. These exhibits are intended to show the process of asking someone out on a date (Note from Joe) and then the range of activities that daters commonly enjoyed in the 1930s — from riding around in cars to attending parties to going to the movies. Furthermore, the newspaper clipping of Dorothy Dix's Letter Box is included to show popular attitudes toward teen dating and the types of dating advice teens received in the 1930s. Last, I included the Valentine Card as a demonstration of the types of tokens and gifts dating teens gave one another in the 1930s.

 

Cat. 4. School Athletic Events: Included in this section are tickets that Jane collected from sporting events at ASTC and pictures of the school sports teams that Jane clipped from the newspaper. In addition to sports tickets and photos, this section contains the newspaper clipping and scrapbook note about the student strike at ASTC. I have included these artifacts in this section because the strike was brought on by regulations at school athletic events, which all students were required to attend on a regular basis.

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Cat. 5. Activities with Friends: This final section includes six exhibits that represent a broad range of social activities friends enjoyed in the 1930s. The exhibits in this section are as follows: Dinner Party, Ride with Doug, Cigarettes, Disposable Spoon, Outing at Lake, and Photos of Friends. There is a lot of overlap between this section and the third section because dating often coincided with group events like parties, where guests arrived in pairs but also spent time in larger groups. The last exhibit in this section does not depict any specific activity shared by teens in the 1930s, but rather presents photos of Jane and her friends that are intended to illuminate all previous documents by providing visual demonstrations of the attitudes and relationships of peers in the 1930s.

 

The categories outlined above serve as an organizational tool for the editor and are not listed in the scrapbook section of this archive. Instead, the scrapbook artifacts are labeled solely according to exhibit. Although the artifacts appear in the order I have laid out here, I do not suggest that they should only be read in that order. While it may be useful to view some exhibits before others (as is the case with the Student Handbook and Student Strike exhibits), each exhibit can stand on its own.

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Offering multiple pathways for viewing editions/archives is a major advantage of digital scholarship, and as such I have included two methods for navigating this archive: (1) by clicking on exhibits from a comprehensive list of hyperlinks and (2) by clicking on forward and backward arrows that allow for a linear, exhibit-by-exhibit viewing. I want readers to have the option of viewing the exhibits in the sequence I have described above; but I also want to encourage readers to explore the exhibits in a spontaneous, nonlinear manner if they feel so inclined.