By Samuel Coletta-Bates, Film HTC ’25, Fall 2023 Manuscript Archives Assistant

As an Archives Assistant for the Mahn Center, it’s been my duty to “process” the Columbus & Hocking Coal & Iron Company (or CHCIco, for short) collection. Over this past semester I have made my way through the collection, box by box, reorganized the materials into new folders, and placed them into new boxes. The collection has been through a lot, and many of the materials have unfortunately suffered heavily from water and mold damage, so I’ve been given a variety of tools to help keep the dirty particles minimized, and clean the materials to the best of my ability. I always wear disposable Nitrile gloves when handling materials, and have been given a pack of N95 masks and an air purifier/vacuum to maintain safe breathability and dispose of dirty particles. Some of the materials have unfortunately been damaged beyond immediate salvageability, and will need to be reevaluated once the rest of the collection has been rehoused, but I hope that those “unsalvageable” materials end up being a very small portion of this fascinating collection.

One of the things I especially enjoy about processing this collection is seeing the ways in which people interacted with these materials in their time. To see handwriting over a hundred years old, check books used down to their last slip, annotations and scribbled out mistakes. Looking through the CHCIco collection often feels like I am traveling back in time. Take this notebook for example, used (I believe) to record the inventory of housing materials for employees housed by the company. The list includes a “new double bed with springs, slats, mattress…”, “1 wash stand” for $6, “2 blinds” for $.70, and other furnishings found in the “North West Room” of a Boarding House. The front of this book states that the inventory was done on April 29th, 1909. I’m drawn to the red ink at the top right of the page, was it and the cover written by someone else? Or was it an annotation by the same writer to remember something initially forgotten. These tiny details humanize this collection, this era, and these people so much.

Every so often while processing the Columbus & Hocking Coal & Iron Co. records, I come across an item within a folder that feels like it does not match the rest of the folder’s contents. These materials are very unique, interesting, and often mystifying (at least for myself). Take these items in particular, a wad of folded red cloth, and an ad? A postcard? A slip featuring an image of the U.S.S. Olympia and an official looking man simply labeled “Dewey”. The cloth may have been a book cover at one point, perhaps it fell off of one of the bound volumes I haven’t had the chance to process yet? Perhaps it was wrapped around a tool, or some kind of fragile object? I’m not quite sure. The U.S.S Olympia image is one of my favorite items I’ve come across, due to its beautiful artwork of the ship and the man accompanying it (Dewey, apparently), as well as the tonally fascinating text that lines the bottom right of the slip: “Compliments of THE A. S. CAMERON STEAM PUMP WORKS… NEW YORK.”

Rehousing the Columbus & Hocking Coal & Iron Company collection is part of an Ohio Historical Records Advisory Board (OHRAB) grant awarded to Ohio University this past summer. Our goal is to have the whole collection in new boxes and a new finding aid available by the end of 2023. In the spring of 2023, Gail Booth, a student intern surveyed the collection and wrote a blog post about some of the advertisements found within.