- About Archives
- About SAA
- Careers
- Education
- Publications
- Advocacy
- Membership
In this Issue:
• Windowless Schools and the Libbey-Owens-Ford Gloss Co. by April S. Dougal
• Unisys Donates Burroughs Historical Records
• New Approaches to Business Records
Windowless Schools and the Libbey-Owens-Ford Gloss Co.
by April S. Dougal
Exhibitions of business archives often depict company history in a narrative or chronological way. Utilizing an Interdisciplinary approach, a recent exhibit at the Ward M. Canady Center for Special Collections at the University of Toledo uses themes as an organizing principle. One of these themes is the role of glassmaking in education which on the surface seem to be two very disparate topics.
The Libbey-Owens-Ford Company (LOF) moved from New England to Toledo, Ohio In 1888, developed the mechanical process for production of glass bottles end flat glass, and produced the glass for the Empire State building in the l930s. By the 1950s, the company’s primary product was automotive glass but the company still had a vested interest In opposing the movement around the country the toward windowless schools.
Proponents of such schools were concerned with problems associated with large expenses of glass, stressing the threat posed by tornadoes and the expense of heating end cooling schools with an abundance of glass. Windowless schools appealed to some teachers who preferred the high degree of environmental control this afforded and the elimination of external distractions.
LOF sales executives emphasized the positive aspects of windows, providing emergency exits and ventilation in case of fire end alternate sources of light in cases of power outage. LOF issued a press release and photo depicting charred remains of a school building where broken windows had been the only means of escape for 40 students. They also noted windows have aesthetic values, provide higher levels of illumination, and give students an awareness of the outside world.
Newspaper articles in the LOF collection document this debate. Two centered on an Ithaca, New York, high school constructed with LOF glass. Educators also debated the Issue in the National Education Association.
An Interdisciplinary reexamination of the LOF collection, getting away from the usual chronological narrative has thus opened up new avenues for research and promotion of the LOF Company Records.
April Dougal is manuscript processor at the Canady Center with an M.A. in Public History from Bowling Green State University.
Unisys Donates Burroughs Historical Records
Unisys Corporation has donated a large collection of records, relating to the Burroughs Corporation, to the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis). It includes over 500 cubic feet of historically valuable records, correspondence, photographs, films, video tapes, speeches, sound recordings, technical material, and product literature covering over 100 years of the company’s history from 1883 to its merger with the Sperry Corporation. The donation will give historians of business and computing access to one of the most important sources on the accounting machine and electronic computer industries.
Unisys Staff Vice President David R. Curiy said, "Unisys is very pleased to have a setting such as that provided by the Charles Babbage Institute and the University of Minnesota for the century of business history represented by the Burroughs Corporation collection. We are proud to continue our productive association with the Institute with this important donation, and are pleased that scholars and researchers will enjoy excellent access to these materials in the future." The collection was developed over the last decade under the primary direction of I( Anne Frantilla, Unisys Corporate.
The Burroughs Corporation began in 1886 as the American Arithmometer Company, founded in St. Louis around a machine invented by William S. Burroughs, an accountant who desired to develop practical adding and listing machines. By 1905 the firm had relocated to Detroit and changed its name to the Burroughs Adding Machine Company. It established itself as a major manufacturer of calculators, bookkeeping machines, and transit listing machines for banks. By the 1950s the corporation moved quickly into the electronic computer industry with the acquisition of the ElectroData Corporation. It became a major supplier of mainframe equipment and systems, and by the 1980s had acquired the System Development Corporation and Memorex.
The records will be maintained and housed at the Charles Babbage Institute (CBI), a research center for the history of information processing located at the University of Minnesota. CBI was founded in 1978 to conduct research and preserve records related to the history of computing. Its archival collection contains extensive holdings of the computer industry and includes records, computer manuals, photographs, programming language materials, and market reports. CBI’s oral history collection has developed into the world’s largest group of historical interviews on the development and application of electronic computers. Most of the records and all of the Burroughs collection are open to the public at CBI’s facilities.
While the bulk of the collection reflects Burroughs’ history during the past fifty years, it also includes early financial data, correspondence, and technical literature. A few letters originate from William S. Burroughs, one in which Burroughs notes three years before his death that if he could leave the company unattended for just three months, he would buy a small cottage and turn his attention to inventing more machines. Of interest to artifact collectors is the vast array of reports and pamphlets detailing the components of different calculators and listing machines. Also, the collection holds extant records of some early acquisitions of adding machine companies, such as Moon-Hopkins, Pike, and Universal.
Most of the collection is of more recent vintage, including computer product literature, records from various departments and individuals, advertising, press releases, documents from annual meetings, patent files, publications, and audio-visual materials. Of particular interest are the photographs and films; there are prints and negatives of a wide range of computer products and company events, as well as films produced as early as the l940s. A sample of subjects include: a Burroughs’ launch computer from the 1960s, a prototype mail sorting machine, electronic computers, a Sensimatic accounting machine demonstration, the B 5000 computer, and Burroughs’ military products from the late 1950s.
The Burroughs Corporation records will provide researchers with an excellent primary source from which to study the accounting machine industry, banking automation, the main frame computer industry, technological development in the United States, and computing machine applications. While few American firms have taken any measures to preserve their history, Unisys has been a leader in this area. Its commitment to history, even during difficult times for the company, has ensured the availability and preservation of one of the most important historical resources relating to the history of computing.
New Approaches to Business Records
The session by this name chaired by Patrick Nolan, of the Hagley Museum and Library, at Philadelphia was one which evoked many comments from the floor and afterward.
On one hand there was Steven L. Wright, new business archivist at the Cincinnati Historical Society (CBS), speaking on how that society has designed a program to appeal to local business to transfer historical records these.
On the other hand there was Bruce Weindruch, founder and CEO of the History Factory in Washington DC, who subtitled his talk "Archival Consultants Coming Out of the Closet."
The Cincinnati story – The historical society there is very aware that the story of Big Business will be told, as most corporate archivists work for big businesses. The focus of their new program is smaller businesses which might be ignored by historians of the future because their records are not being saved now. Since 85% of American workers are employed in small and medium-sized businesses, neglect of this collecting area would lead to the loss of a significant portion of labor history in this country.
CHS has prepared a brochure describing its program. On the records survey level, Wright assesses a business’ historical records for $35 an hour. The processing service costs $l75 per cubic foot for labor and material. Storage is free when access to the records is unrestricted; a $l6 foot/year fee is charged for storage of closed records. Corporate membership in the society, which includes Business History lectures, exhibits in the business lobbies and other activities, is a prerequisite for the program.
The historical society is not competing with for-profit records storage centers in this new business archives program. There are internships available through local colleges and volunteers are used. Wright finds that his best local contacts are the Cincinnati Society on World Affairs and the Japanese Society of Cincinnati, with its strong sense of history. He estimates that by the year 2000, over 200 businesses in Cincinnati will be l00years old; this is the market CHS is cultivating now.
According to Wright, this program will lead to what all archivists want -"Meaningful and non-accidental historical records." He called for an SAA task force to educate businessmen and women on the value of archives. Weindruch, whose eleven-year-old firm did over $2 million in business last year and received full-page coverage in Forbes Magazine, says his opening line when he first began the business in a recessionary year was, ¯We don’t do books." He was trying to distinguish his market-oriented history service from the academic style, which is to come into a corporation to write a book.
Banks were his first customers, as they were deregulated in 1980 and found off-site storage essential to save on costs. Then the banks began asking for a more active use of their archives as mergers and acquisitions began to heat up in the industry. As a result of this, Weindruch developed a line of products including Answering queries from businesses in one hour turnaround on "real time."
He now has fifteen employees in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. His business has created thirty archives from scratch, maintains fourteen different business archival collections in Washington D.C., and started thirteen archives off-site for major businesses.
One compelling argument for good business archives, according to Weindruch, is that news directors are barraged with information and if a corporation gives them good information, including video news releases with history in it, they will use it This gives the corporation good public relations - an edge on competitors. As an example, the History Factory produced information on the banks in the San Francisco earthquake at the turn of the century at the time of the most recent earthquake and the media was so hungry for news that The History Factory was surrounded by TV camera trucks when no one could get in touch with people in San Francisco.
The History Factory follows archival procedures but accessibility, simplification, and cost effectiveness are key to its operation too.
Historian Philip B. Scranton, of Rutgers University in Camden, was asked to comment on business records. He said less history was needed on the Fortune 500 and more on ethnic, immigrant, women and minority businesses. Also more is needed on banks, especially in the 19th century, on wholesalers, and on hi-tech since the Second World War.
When asked about ways in which the SAA could increase interaction between businesses and the association, Scranton suggested exhibits at trade association meetings---go to the source.