Defining a Legacy

A Tribute to Three of the Bentley’s Finest

In 2012, three longtime staff members at the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library retired—William K. Wallach, Jim Craven, and Tom Powers. Their students and coworkers shared their thoughts on their influential colleagues and the impact they’ve had on the institution and the archival profession.

William K. “Bill” Wallach

Francis X. Blouin, Director

It’s hard to imagine that thirty-one years have passed since the SAA Annual Meeting at the University of California-Berkeley when we first explored the idea of Bill coming to the Bentley Library. Those initial discussions led to his appointment as assistant director in 1981. Throughout these years, his work has been integral to the many successes that the library has enjoyed.

Most notable, of course, is the fifteen years he spent as co-director of the research fellowship program in modern archives. With a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the library began the fellowship program in 1983 that enabled archival professionals to come to Ann Arbor for one to four months to pursue research related to professional issues. During its fifteen years of existence, the fellowship program funded a total of 122 fellows who worked on 84 individual and team-based projects. It fostered systematic research on problems relating to the archival management and scholarly use of modern documentation.

The research fellows who were funded through the program significantly enriched the extant body of archival literature relating to problems in the selection, use, understanding, and administration of contemporary records. These fellows published more than seventy articles and monographs, many of which became staples in the curricula of archival education programs in the U.S. James M. O’Toole, professor of history at Boston College, stated that the Bentley’s fellowship program has “produced much original and creative thinking about the problems of archival theory and practice” and that “the work done by fellows at the Bentley includes many of what are now considered the seminal works in the contemporary professional literature.” Richard J. Cox, professor of archival studies at the University of Pittsburgh, wrote, “This single program has been the source of some of the most original and provocative archival thinking and writing [on archival issues].”

Bill also worked on a number of complicated projects at the library, most significant in the twenty-first century was the coordination required to realize the addition to the building. This project involved a complete renovation of the existing 1972 building and new construction that doubled the size of the structure, increasing stack capacity by 120 percent. All this had to be done while the library continued its service obligations to the public.

During Bill’s time at the library, he was an eager participant in many of our international programs. In 1993, he was a member of the Bentley Library delegation to the Joint Seminar on Diplomatics at the Ecole nationale des chartes in Paris. He also participated in several aspects of the joint program between the Bentley Library and the State Archives Administration of China.

One of the most challenging international projects Bill tackled was organizing the records of the South African Liberation movements at the University of Fort Hare in 1998. As the alma mater of Nelson Mandela and other anti-Apartheid leaders, Fort Hare received the records of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). Bill helped train staff at Fort Hare and devised a processing plan for the records. Bill often told the story of arriving at the airport with colleague Brian Williams after a long international flight. When they weren’t met at the airport as expected, they rented a car and proceeded to navigate their way through mountains late at night as Bill drove a car with the steering wheel on the passenger side and a stick shift on the left.

We also want to acknowledge the important contributions of Bill’s late wife Randy, who engaged his work and supported so many of the library’s activities. There were the dinners and cookouts associated with the fellowship program. There were the preparations for the participants in the exchange program with the State Archives Administration of China. There were also, as the historian Kevin Boyle pointed out at the seventy-fifth anniversary of the library, many little kindnesses extended to researchers and visitors. We shall always be grateful for their joint efforts in this regard.

Bill was promoted to associate director in 2001. In more recent years, he has overseen the visiting researcher program at the Bentley Library, which provides grants to scholars with promising projects to come to the Bentley Library to conduct research in its holdings. Over the past 22 years, 175 scholars have benefited from this program. Most have gone on to publish their work, and several of those works have won major awards, including the Bancroft Prize, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize.

Bill will be remembered for fostering the research libraries on campus to become true centers of research in a variety of areas. All at the Bentley Library and all in the archival profession who have benefitted from his wise counsel wish him well in retirement.

Jim Craven

Ann Flowers, Associate Archivist; Adele Laporte, wife of Jim Craven; and Dianna Samuelson, Conservation Assistant

Jim Craven retired from the University of Michigan in November as the university’s longest-tenured staff person. He began his career at the university in 1949, working under his father George Craven at the university bindery. It was in this position that Jim learned the practical aspects of running a large bindery serving the university, as well as the art of fine bookbinding and the conservation of rare books and related materials. His work was interrupted for three years when he served in the Korean War, but he later returned and became head of the bindery in 1964.

When the university closed the bindery in 1974, Dr. Robert Warner, the director of the newly opened Bentley Historical Library, brought Jim and much of the bindery equipment to the Bentley, where Jim set up his conservation lab. Since that time, he has worked for the Bentley as well as for the Clements Library and Special Collections Libraries and the rare book room of the Law Library at the university. 

Jim has conserved and restored a variety of rare materials that hold great value to the university, including manuscripts, books (as well as incunabula), maps, atlases, prints, photographs, parchments, architectural drawings, and historical objects. Each item is unique and provides its own set of challenges. Jim also has excelled at inventing and constructing new tools and techniques.

In addition to his work as a conservator, Jim has taught extensively. Several of his sixty-three students have gone on to conservation labs at other universities and archives. He also has taught classes in the community, provided lectures and tours to various groups, and contributed his expertise to numerous professional organizations. 

One source of great satisfaction for Jim was the opportunity to design a new, spacious conservation lab during the 2004 addition to the Bentley Library. Having observed many other conservation labs in the United States, Ireland, and China, Jim and his staff believe our lab is the finest anywhere.

Jim also values the need to take the necessary steps to protect his workplace, and he encouraged this attitude in his students and coworkers. When Ann Flowers was a student, for instance, he assigned her a task that was a novel idea at the time: writing a disaster plan for the Bentley Library to deal with floods, fires, and other catastrophes. This proactive attitude comes from Jim’s years of experience with disasters—the worst of which was the 1981 Christmas Eve fire that destroyed the UM Economics Building. In response to this event, Jim immediately put the Bentley Library Disaster Plan into effect. He used several vacuum chambers (at UM, Bendix, and Wright-Patterson AFB) to freeze-dry the materials.

In 2002, Jim and his wife traveled to China as part of the Bentley’s exchange program with the State Archives Administration of China. While there, he gave a talk that generated so much interest it led to the publication of a widely distributed pamphlet in the Bentley Bulletin series. The pamphlet—Not Perfect, But Just Right—outlines the scope of work done in the conservation lab, the techniques employed, and the values used to determine appropriate handling of materials that come into the lab.

Articles about Jim and his work have appeared in many publications. (A profile even appeared in a Michigan vs. Ohio State program!) He has been interviewed for both radio and television shows and had many opportunities to share his observations about and enthusiasm for his work. He believes archival work is important because, as he says, “it keeps history alive. History holds meaning to our society. [It’s beneficial] to visit actual documents that say, ‘This is what happened’.” But the pleasure and pride he takes in his work is best illustrated by this sentiment that he shared with a colleague: “I like being able to take a book that’s in trouble and fix it so that it works well. I am a conservator. I may do artistic work from time to time…but that’s not really the high point of my work. I like fixing things and giving them a new lease on life. If someone looks at a repair I’ve done and says, ‘What did you do?’ because it looks so natural, I take that as one of the greatest compliments.”

Jim is also known for his dry sense of humor. He has a piece of goatskin hanging on the wall bearing a phrase stamped in gold: “Do no harm. If you can’t fix the thing, don’t screw it up for someone who can.”

Asked about his remarkable professional longevity, Jim will tell you that he has had the privilege and pleasure of working for decades with outstanding colleagues in the warm and supportive environment of the Bentley Historical Library, directed by Francis Blouin since 1975. People tend to come here and stay, which speaks volumes about the place and the people.

Tom Powers

Jarrett M. Drake and Cherie Edmonds, processing assistants and second-year graduate students at the University of Michigan School of Information

Tom Powers, Johanna Meijer Magoon Archivist of the Michigan Historical Collections (MHC) at the Bentley Historical Library, recently announced he’ll retire after forty-five years of service. As two processing assistants working under Tom, we’d like to pay tribute to his career and wish him well. We felt the best way to honor him is to reflect upon his greatest legacy to the archival profession with those who know him best. His legacy, we believe, isn’t the thousands of feet he’s processed or the hundreds of finding aids he’s compiled. It’s the invaluable guidance and support he’s given to the many student processors he’s supervised throughout his career at the Bentley.

Tom took the helm of MHC in 1968. One of his first hires was Bill McNitt, who worked under Tom for three years. Bill eventually transitioned to his current role as archivist at the Ford Presidential Library, but still recalls being inspired by Tom’s ability to rapidly process large amounts of material. Frank Boles (Central Michigan University) agrees with Bill, referring to Tom’s approach as “enlightened pragmatism.” Frank added, “[Archivists] have to assess the situation and develop a pragmatic plan of action that works,” a point that Tom constantly reinforced. Adriane Hanson notes the lessons she learned from Tom on efficient processing helped her in her former job at Princeton University and in her current position as processing and electronic records archivist at the University of Georgia.

Tom has a unique ability to push others to justify their decisions. Mark A. Greene, who spent two years at MHC, credits Tom for influencing his contributions to the “Minnesota Method,” wholesale reappraisal, and MPLP. Matthew Schaefer, currently the reference/outreach archivist at the Hoover Presidential Library, recalls Tom’s influence as well. Rather than respond to students’ questions definitively, Tom’s responses often included “What do you think?” or “Why would you do it that way?” This Socratic method empowered Matthew in his decision-making process and instilled confidence, a feeling shared by Jennifer Sharp, who recently finished a four-year appointment at the Connecticut Historical Society.

Tom, however, didn’t demand perfection. While working at the MHC, Rebecca Bizonet (Benson Ford Research Center) and Julia Corrin (Arkansas State University) learned that the processor’s job is not to make a collection perfect but instead to “make it better than it was.” Tom didn’t mean that processors could treat collections inadequately. Instead, he urged them to make collections accessible to the public as soon as possible after they were received from a donor. Alexis Antracoli (Drexel University) learned this lesson from Tom in her first month on the job when he remarked, “We’re like social workers, you know?”, referring to the fact that many donors give materials to an archives as a permanent home for a family legacy, and as such, providing them with timely closure is a core function of archival work.

In addition to the tangible processing and appraisal skills Tom instilled in the processors, he also inspired them to see archival work as fun and adventurous. Rand Jimerson (Western Washington University) fondly remembers Tom’s “dramatic storytelling about archival lore” that often included dramatizations by staff members. Both Mike Shallcross (Bentley Historical Library) and Dan Santamaria (Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton University) mentioned their first experiences with Hat Day, an MHC tradition during which processors adorn anything from football helmets to cowboy hats at work. Indeed, there’s never a boring day when you work under Tom. Herb Hartsook (University of South Carolina) recounted how Tom frequently regaled processors with lessons in donor relations, particularly his successful strategies for garnering discretion regarding weeded materials with the line “If perchance I find a stray Kleenex...”

There are many more facets of Tom’s teaching and personality that are impossible to capture within this article. They include his warm sense of humor (Helmi Raaska, Ford Presidential Library), his “throw them in and hope they float” approach for training new processors (Jenny Mandel, Reagan Presidential Library), or his passion for reading (Bill Landis, Yale University Library Manuscripts & Archives). But while many aspiring archivists think our greatest contribution to the field will be the repositories we transform, the patrons we assist, and the theories we develop, Tom is an excellent example that perhaps the greatest legacy we can leave to the profession—and even society at large—is the number of people whose careers and lives are better for having met us. In this sense, Tom Powers will certainly leave a legacy that merits admiration, emulation, and congratulations from us all.

Drake and Edmonds would like to acknowledge Diane L. Hatfield, Francis X. Blouin, and Alexis Antracoli for their help with this story.

A shortened version of this story appeared in the November/December issue of Archival Outlook (page 24).