HERITAGE HIGHLIGHTS American Heritage Center Spring 2010 Newsletter AHCAl Completes Wyoming Culturalll Trust Fund d Grant Th e American Heritage Center received a grant in 2008 from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund to pre- serve and digitize a portion of the Ludwig-Svenson Studio Collection. Th e Cultural Trust’s mission is to sup- port Wyoming’s culture and heritage through grant funding of innovative projects for the enjoyment, appre- ciation, promotion, preservation and protection of the state’s arts, cultural and historic resources; and to support and invest in Wyoming institutions that help further this mission, such as the AHC. Th e Henning Svenson collection originated in the early 1900s through the work of professional photogra- pher Henning Svenson. Born in Swe- den in 1879, Svenson immigrated to the United States in 1903 and arrived in Laramie two years later and set up a photography studio. At the time he estimated Laramie had about fi ve hun- dred residents and Svenson began a concerted eff ort to take photographs of as many of them as he could as well as documenting the town and many of the community’s signifi cant events. Employees of Laramie’s Piggly Wiggly store on 2nd Street, take time to pose for Henning For many years he continued to pho- Svenson in 1929. Ludwig-Svenson Studio Collection, American Heritage Center. tograph Laramie, the University of Wyoming, and the surrounding area, including the Snowy Range, Fox Park, and Happy Jack. After Svenson’s death in 1932, his daughter Lottie and her husband, Dr. W.B. Ludwig, purchased the stu- dio from Svenson’s wife. Th e business was called Svenson-Ludwig for a time, but then became Ludwig Photo Enterprises. William E. Loyer purchased the fi rm from the Ludwigs and his wife, Carol Ludwig Loyer, served as vice president. Ludwig Photo is the oldest photographic retailer and oldest fi lm processor in Wyoming. Anne Loyer Brande and her husband Evan donated the collection to the AHC in 2007. Th e collection contains more than one hundred thousand negatives (8 x 10, 5 x 7, and panoramas), many of which are portraits. Th e non-portrait images portray the changing customs and habits surrounding life in a small Wyoming town and at the University of Wyoming. Subjects include Laramie businesses, rodeos, theater productions, parties and celebrations, railroads, ranches, social events, and winter sports. Th e Cultural Trust Fund grant in the amount of twenty thousand dollars allowed the AHC to digitize 3,916 of the most notable images in the collection and preserve 2,500 of the negatives by duplicating them continued on page 6 2 Heritage Highlights, Spring 2010 From the Director My last column in the newsletter was faculty outreach. One could argue that this additional fo- rather gloomy, I realize, though an accurate cus is gilding the lily, in that the Center already works with refl ection of our reality. Th is column, how- more students from more departments than the vast major- ever, will be upbeat. Not because our budget ity of college and university research repositories. But given situation has improved substantially, because the centrality of undergraduate instruction to the AHC’s it hasn’t, but rather because our fi scal status mission, and the enormous success we have demonstrated has not become worse. Th ere is much to be with those courses that do employ our holdings, it seemed said, during these still rocky economic times, only natural to expand that eff ort even further. for mere stability. In fact, there is a better We have, in fact, recently seen the fruits of this labor. than even chance that the AHC will receive For the fi rst time in memory we attracted a faculty member Mark Greene jjust enough one-time fi nancial assistance from the political science department to integrate AHC re- from a small reallocation of funds within the search into one of her courses. Political scientists have been university that we are currently not expecting reluctant to do archival research for so many decades that the necessity of further reducing our staff during the 2010- within the fi eld a small but growing number of academi- 11 accounting period. Th is is some cause for me to take a cians are publishing articles urging their colleagues to re- diff erent tone in this column compared to last, but there is turn to archival research—see, for example, Douglas Harris, much more. “Recovering History and Discovering Data in the Archives: Most importantly, despite signifi cant budget and staff An Alternative Mode of Research for Congress Scholars,” reductions this fi scal year, the Center has protected and in Paul, etal, eds, An American Political Archives Reader even strengthened its core programs and services. Let me (Scarecrow Press, 2009), 424-440. Our groundbreaking give you a brief (and not nearly comprehensive) overview “Innovative Teaching and Research Grants,” which provide of some of our most important activities since my last col- funds to UW faculty in support of developing new courses umn. We can start with our reference and education ef- based on AHC collections, this year brought our fi rst ever forts. Our reading room continues to be nearly or com- application from a faculty member in Engineering. And I pletely full much of the time, as is our Alfred Jacob Miller have had promising discussions just last month with the Classroom (a gift of Robert Graff ), which we use to intro- new dean of UW’s college of law, about his interest in de- duce classes—whether from UW, community colleges, or veloping a course using archival collections as the basis for public schools—to the new (to them) world of conducting creating mock trials. research in primary sources. Th is past year our reference Th ere is yet more evidence of our success in supporting department was reorganized, welcoming a new manager, UW faculty as well as our other researchers. Professor Aly- Ginny Kilander (a veteran of AHC reference and teaching son Hagy, of UW’s English department, mined the Center’s duties), and two new reference archivists. Th e reconfi gured holdings for ideas she used to write her new book, Ghosts department has “clicked” wonderfully, resulting not only in of Wyoming: Stories. In fact, Prof. Hagy frequently had her improvement to our already outstanding reference service, creative writing students devise fi ctional stories based sub- but successful completion of several long-delayed internal stantially on historical incidents or fi gures they discover at projects with direct implications for our reference work. the AHC (one of those stories earned its author the Cen- We recently presented an award for fall semester’s best ter’s undergraduate research award the previous semester). paper by a UW undergraduate based on research in our In sending a copy of her book to the AHC she wrote, “I collections: the winner was Emmet Daunt, in the depart- did a great deal of research for the stories in the book in ment of History, for a paper titled, “Waves and Warriors,” the AHC, and they would not exist as they do without the about the impact of World War II on Hawaii and the Phil- AHC and the great people who work there.” Just as indica- ippines, done for a Comparative U.S. Colonialism course tive of the Center’s excellence is a note we received from a (the AHC has many fi ne collections relating to Americans’ fi rst-year faculty member in the history department: “Th e travel to and impact on Asia and the Pacifi c). Th is award, vast collections of the AHC were one of the enticements for funded entirely by voluntary donations from AHC em- me to join the faculty at UW….I look forward to continu- ployees (a remarkable testament to the commitment of our ing my collaboration with the staff at this fi ne institution.” faculty and staff in our mission to support undergraduate But our reference archivists assist scholars from across education), relies on teaching faculty from across campus the nation and around the world as well. For example, a to nominate and submit the best papers from their courses. scholar from Los Angeles wrote to “acknowledge the ex- In an eff ort to further expand the number of courses traordinary treatment that was accorded to me on my and the breadth of academic departments that regularly use research trip to the American Heritage Center,” particu- the AHC’s collections, we have established a task force on larly thanking reference archivists Ginny Kilander, John Heritage Highlights, Spring 2010 3 Waggener, and Leslie Waggener, “who went out of their Another notable supporter is James Ehernberger, a not- way to help.” And what of amateur researchers? We see ed railroad historian, who also has donated his collection many in our reading room. One wrote, “Ginny was a to the AHC (and is a frequent researcher in our reading wealth of knowledge to us on both days we were there….I room); Mr. Ehernberger, too, has recently made provision valued greatly her ability to be professional yet warm and for his estate to provide the Center with and endowment to comfortable….” For me, this description aptly sums up the support his collection, railroad history, and the history of type of service provided by all our reference archivists to all transportation more generally. Last but not least, last year our patrons. former U.S. ambassador to Guatemala Th omas Stroock Space does not permit me to go much further for now, passed away. An important political and business fi gure but in my next column I plan to continue reviewing our in Wyoming for more than half a century, Ambassador initiatives and accomplishments in core program areas.