April showers to May flowers: weather in Clarke primary sources

-

 

Recent rainstorms and severe changes in weather, typical of Michigan springs, are occurring of late. We've gone from below freezing to nearly 70 in a day. Above is a view from my window this week. This got me thinking about weather of various kinds, rain, snow, sleet, hail, ice storms, floods, tornados, forest fires, etc., that are documented in the Clarke collections. We have books and articles about the weather, and weather is always found in newspapers and travel and tourism information. While the secondary sources discuss weather on land or aboard a vessel on the Great Lakes, our primary sources mainly focus on weather impacting the land. In our primary source collections weather most often is recorded in the diaries of farmers whose crop success depended on the weather. It is usually the first thing they note in each diary or journal entry. The second most likely place weather is recorded is in Civil War soldier's letters and diaries because they were usually outside marching, trying to sleep and fight in rain or hot sun, freezing in the winter with inadequate clothes and thin tents, unable to sleep under their rain soaked tents, their clothes or food rotting due to rain, they couldn't light a fire because of the rain, etc. Journals, diaries or letters describing people's travels, and their photograph albums also record the weather they encountered. All of these examples can be found in our catalog with a keyword search of "weather". Severe weather such as floods, ice, sleet, hail or major snow storms, and tornadoes are also documented in primary sources, but are rarer. If you search for those you need to keyword the specific term like "flood". While most of the primary sources are letters, diaries, or journals, there are handwritten accounts, government emergency plans, insurance records for homes, businesses, and maritime vessels, and Channel 9 & 10 News film footage documenting severe weather, filmed both from land and airplanes. With April showers comes May flowers. Here are magnolia blossoms from a tree planted near the CMU Park Library. 





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

25th work anniversary

-
Image
Today is my 25th work year anniversary. I don't think anyone knows it but me. On July 5, 1996 I parked in the small lot west of Park Library and took the elevator to 4th floor. I had just cracked my windshield and was so embarrassed about it. My desk was in a work room with a kitchen where everyone ate, no privacy at all. My first job with a few students was processing Senator Griffin's 400 cubic foot collection. I had a brand new, huge computer that wasn't plugged in yet. It took up most of my desk space. When I taught Lib 197 we did so in a room where only I had a computer. My job has morphed so much since then. I am grateful for all the positives over the years and through my various jobs. Mostly it's been good. I try to learn from the good and the bad. I thank God for  this job and the interesting work I've done, and mostly for my amazing students throughout the years, and all the wonderful people on and off campus I've met and collaborated with and been pri
Read more

Packing the last of CMU. Athletics' physical historical records cache

-
Image
Yesterday my students, Rebekah and Natalie, and I had quite an experience. We loaded my car with 100 flattened cubic foot boxes. We drove them to the Athletics complex and unloaded and made them into boxes. With help from four of the Athletics staff and students we moved the boxes down three levels to what was a handball court, now a storage room. The elevator only goes down one level. We then started boxing file cabinets and a table full of CMU Athletics' student athlete folders and photographs. It was hot and humid with no air flow. We packed about 25 cubic feet. We could not pack everything because three cabinets remain locked. While one is missing a drawer, the rest are completely full of records. Once those cabinets are unlocked, the Athletics students will pack their contents. Eventually, Facilities Management will move all those boxes to the Clarke. Yippee for collaboration. Everyone did a great job. This is the last of Athletics' historical physical records cache in the
Read more

Slides and negatives

-
Image
  Yes, we still get non-digital slides and negatives donated. There are two negatives of an identified man holding his infant son in the backyard in summer. The slides are of  buildings, street scenes, and trees, some in winter, in Millbrook, Michigan, where the man lived. There are also slides of a goat. Many of the images are dated with a year, which is helpful for anyone researching the village's history.  During archival processing I will withdraw duplicate images, of which there appear to be many, and images of the goat. It's cute, but has no long term research value. 
Read more