Research Information.....

[acwbullets]

Have any of you ever used State records for your artifact research? I was looking through some boxes at work about disaster reconstruction and noticed an archaeological report for an area in Harper's Ferry that flooded in the 1996 flood. There was nothing great in the report but now I am wondering about the other reports from the same area. Do you guys ever use Department of Transportation Phase One surveys for research?

As many of you know the Harper's Ferry National Park is a great but difficult place to do open research. Just to get in you need to send a research request with specifics. After denial upon denial, I was able to sneak in a few times and was really disgusted with what I found. A few of the items are listed based off of the MM book. When doing my research request I was trying to get specific things to look at but I kept getting denied. I later found out that I was denied because what I wanted to see didn't exist. It's not that it didn't exist, but it was just described incorrectly so therefore it didn't exist to them. I know there are rooms full of government grant records (for construction) that should include archaeological reports from any and all construction of roads and/or buildings. I am beginning to wander how much information is actually lost due to outdated reference material used by the Govt and how much information is lost due to incorrectly archiving information. 
 

[emike123]

The behavior of some of the governmental bodies is disgusting.  I applied to the Chicago Historical Society and the Chicago Library to see the Rosensteel and GAR holdings respectively and was denied despite references and an offer to correct some of their documentation free.  Not that money woes were cited, but I understand if there are budgetary pressures -- let us pay somebody to watch over our shoulders so we behave. 

The people charged with protecting our history are denying it.

Meanwhile, just North of here in Wisconsin, they have a state law that says they have to show you the stuff hidden away if you ask.  I went to the basement of the Milwaukee Museum where they have 10,000 times more cool stuff in storage than they do on display and the curator could not have been nicer hosting the three of us for as long as we wanted.

Here is a 6pdr stand of grape in the Milwaukee Museum basement store rooms.  I've never seen one in a book, and they don't even know what they have but at least we got to see it and tell them.