The city of Sacramento, CA kicked off Archives Month on October 1st with an Archives Crawl through four city and state archival collections. This was a chance for the community to learn more about archives in the Sacramento area and see parts of their collection. The theme for the event was “Acquired Tastes: Food and Agriculture in Regional Collections,” so events at the California State Archive, the California State Library, the Sacramento Public Library, and the Center for Sacramento History featured food-related items from the collection.
At The California State Library, several local archives, including Historical Societies from Rocklin and Roseville, and UC Davis’s Bulosan Center, had information booths. The library featured a display of cookbooks connected to the agricultural industry, as well as the origin stories of several California signature cocktails, and a display about beekeeping.
The California State Archives included state park archives and historical instruction from Gold Fields State Park, and featured historical photos from the food industry, such as the first orange tree planted in California which spawned a billion dollar industry, a bumper crop of avocados from the 1930’s, and canning factory workers.
The Center for Sacramento History focused on local restaurants and menus, and featured a behind the scenes tour of the archival collections. During the tour, guides gave simple best practices for preserving paper, photos, and clothing in personal and family archives, such as protecting materials from light and wrapping textiles in a clean, white sheet. They also explained some of the more advanced features of the city archive, such as mechanical stacks with automated lighting and cold storage that was added to preserve local news reels.
The Sacramento city archive includes 7 million photos from the Sacramento Bee, the city newspaper, stored in rows of file cabinets, mortgage documents in large cloth bound books, metal and neon signs from around the city, furniture from significant historical events like presidential visits, and early technology, like a fax machine that was phased out during World War II.
The archive tour gave an interesting look at the range of items an archive may preserve, the storage solutions for large items, delicate items, and numerous items, and the ways the archive is actively used, such as by documentary filmmakers. Each location was well attended, and seeing the community interest in the archives left an impression that these collections are active and relevant at the community, city, and state levels.
Thank you for reading our latest Blog and be sure to check out our 2nd Annual SAASC Scavenger Hunt kickoff meeting today, October 10th, at 6:30pm and our Ask an Archivist event on October 12th from 6pm to 7pm!
*Images taken by our guest author, and SAASC Vice Chair, Katrina Williams