posted 06-05-2007 09:28 AM            

I made a quick trip yesterday to the Boston Public Library's Fine Arts Dept. to check Renee Garrelick's 1998 book on Read & Barton, Sterling Seasons to check her sources in photo captions, etc., and read as much of her text as possible to verify sources for R&B archival material.

I did this because over the weekend I stumbled over something that contradicts what R&B told me: Baker Online Catalog (Click through under Reed & Barton) (Harvard).

Evidently R&B gave the Harvard Business School Library their records in 1940-43, likely under the aegis of Sinclair Weeks, then forgot about it. The contents include "Daybooks, journals, ledgers, cashbooks, accounts, trial balances, notes and bills receivable, inventories, time books, payrolls, 12 boxes of unbound papers, including a brief typewritten history of the company, and inventories of the New York, San Francisco and Chicago offices, 1902-1918. In addition there are some 200 illustrated catalogs and 17 scrapbooks."

Since it appears that neither R&B nor Garrelick know about this collection, which however was the basis of the 1943 book The Whitesmiths of Taunton, I hope the readers here can forgive my enthusiasm over this find. I feel rather like I've just unearthed a Comstock Lode of information.

posted 06-08-2007 09:43 AM            

You may email me at info@SMPub.com Please make sure the subject line of your email starts with Baker Research Project or your message may be lost to SPAM bucket. Also please include your SSF handle (user name). Thanks.

I want to explore whether we have members in close proximity of Soldiers Field, Boston, MA who may have the time to research these archives and to scholarly prepare the material to share with us all.

If there are those of you with the time/experience to commit to such a project then I will see what might be secured for a grant/sponsorship to underwrite the library fees.

posted 06-10-2007 04:38 PM            

I contacted R&B on this and heard back from Joyce Wolowski. She believed, though, that the late Renee Garrelick did not consult either of these archival sources for Sterling Seasons. Both Garrelick and the Gibb volume of 1943 concentrate on the firm's history as a whole, in fact Gibb has a Library of Congress classification under "HD" meaning history, though Garrelick is classed under fine arts. It would seem neither cover R&B from a design point of view, leaving open a thorough examination of the Baker Library papers.

posted 07-09-2007 09:47 AM            

And after a promising start with an interested sponsor and some preliminary dialog with the Baker Library at Harvard Business School, things have come to an unexplained halt.

To get things started, the Baker Library at Harvard Business School requested some additional info. Both 21kimbal & the SSF provided the info. After a few weeks of not hearing anything, we tried again. It has been another couple of weeks and still no reply. We don't know why they aren't replying?

Do we have any members who are Harvard Business School grads that might assist us in getting a reply?

posted 07-18-2007 01:41 PM            

Please help if you can.