This is my final blog post as a CCEPS Fellow. This semester I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of archiving the Ethel M. Reed Papers, a process that is almost finished. I’m going to finish entering everything into Archivists’ Toolkit (finally!) and then I’ll be done!
It’s been a great semester and I have learned quite a lot. I knew pretty much absolutely nothing when I started back in January, and now I’m a budding archivist. I learned not only about the physical preservation necessary for keeping the collection in good condition (all that Mylar sleeve-ing) but also the intellectual organization of the collection, to make it useful for a future researcher (all that reordering of my folders of Ethel and Nancy’s documents). And now, I’m putting it all into AT so that it can be posted online and used by researchers in the future.
Also, I realized that I was going to post sometime about Nancy’s work as a chemist, and I completely forgot. Nancy graduate from Pomona College in 1944 with a degree in chemistry. She worked for the War Department during WW II with another scientist who was working to better preserve food for soldiers. Check out the photo below–there’s some serious science happening.
There are problems and issues of all kinds related to equality of women in STEM fields in our own day and age. I can only imagine what it would have been like in the 1940s and 50s. Also, Ethel never married and adopted and raised Nancy by herself. I feel honored to have been able to process the documents of these women.
This Fellowship has been a fantastic hands-on learning experience. My eternal gratitude goes to Lisa, for helping me throughout this semester and always answering my questions. I’ll be starting a job full-time in the fall, but this Fellowship has made me consider going back to school for archival studies or a related field.Â
 Farewell!
Tamara Savage, CCEPS Fellow Spring 2015